Rules to Live By

We've officially made it to our final humanities unit for the 2015-16 school year!

What are "rules to live by"? How do people formulate and use "rules" to improve their lives? How do people communicate these "rules" to others?

In this unit, students consider these questions as they read the novel Bud, Not Buddy, Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, President Barack Obama's Back-to-School speech, If by Rudyard Kipling, and informational research texts. Students started the week by reading Bud, Not Buddy. They are thinking, writing, and talking about Bud's rules to live by, and they are reading the novel closely for its use of figurative language and word choice.

On Monday, May 9th, students will take their first summative reading assessment.  They will read a passage of the novel that the class has previously discussed. They will complete constructed-response questions that assess their ability to analyze the text, focusing specifically on interpreting figurative language and explaining how word choice affects both tone and meaning.