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Section 1: Overview

Legendary Stories

We will consider questions and texts related to the cultural traditions of storytelling and the lives of storytellers, including author Leslie Marmon Silko. We will learn concepts related to legends, folk tales, story archetypes, and story vignettes and consider the following questions:

  • Why do people tell stories?

  • Where do stories come from?

  • How do stories pass along the experiences of people, families, and cultures?

  • How do people become storytellers?

We will begin to develop close reading and viewing skills, using text-specific questions to guide reading and analysis of key textual details. We will practice and develop our own storytelling skills by writing a short story drawn from our cultures, families, or reading experiences.

  • Lesson 1:

    We will learn about the unit’s topic and Framing Questions. We will also view and discuss a short video about storytelling and will begin to think about what stories we would like to tell in anticipation of the unit’s Culminating Task.

  • Lesson 2:

    We will view and listen to an oral storyteller’s version of a Native American coyote story. Then, we will build our knowledge of symbolic and repeating stories told within Native American cultures by reading and discussing an excerpt from Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller.

  • Lesson 3:

    We will continue to read legendary stories as we develop skills to respond to questions, read closely, attend to details, and analyze relationships. We will learn about the literary concepts of narration, narrative structure, personal narrative, and memoir by reading a personal narrative by Leslie Marmon Silko.

  • Lesson 4:

    We will analyze a short excerpt from “A House of My Own,” an autobiographical introduction to Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, in preparation for reading the entire introduction in Lesson 5. We will study various expressive and grammatical concepts modeled in the passage.

  • Lesson 5:

    We will analyze a short excerpt from “A House of My Own,” an autobiographical introduction to Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, in preparation for reading the entire introduction in Lesson 5. We will study various expressive and grammatical concepts modeled in the passage.

  • Lesson 6:

    We will extend our understanding of cultural storytelling by comparing two storytellers, Leslie Marmon Silko and Sandra Cisneros. We will learn about the concept of a story vignette, read short vignettes from Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, and determine how they are connected to the personal narrative Cisneros has presented in her introductory memoir.

  • Lesson 7:

    We will develop an original narrative for the Section Diagnostic, a retelling of a legendary story based on a myth, folk tale, fairy tale, cultural story, or parable that we find interesting and meaningful.

  • Lesson 8:

    We will finalize our original narratives and will present a dramatized version of the story to our peers.

  • Lesson 9:

    In this vocabulary lesson, we will review key concepts, challenging vocabulary, and important ideas that we have encountered in texts from this section of the unit. We will engage in activities determined by our teacher to deepen our understanding of words and ideas that are important to the topic of storytelling.

  • Lesson 10:

    We will review feedback on the Section Diagnostic. We will use the feedback to make revisions to our work.

  • Lesson 11:

    We will commence an Independent Reading Program in which we choose texts to read independently as we progress through the unit. We will learn how to choose texts, what activities we may complete, about the final task, and about any materials we will use as we read our independent reading texts. We will begin by reading our texts, using tools to help us take notes and analyze important textual elements.