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Section 1: Overview

Understanding Change Agents

As part of our exploration of learning who changes the world, we will define what a change agent is and determine the qualities that change agents embody through the examination of video and written text, both historical and modern, in order to create a strong basis for deeper study.

  • Lesson 1:

    We will discuss the Central Question of the unit: Who changes the world? We will determine what we need to focus on to succeed on the Culminating Task. We will begin our exploration of change agents by analyzing a quote.

  • Lesson 2:

    We will explore a TED Talk by Clint Smith, published author, poet, teacher, and doctoral candidate at Harvard University, on the dangers of not speaking up when witnessing or experiencing different types of injustice. “Silence is the residue of fear” is the mantra of this brief talk, which offers a glimpse into the difficult role of a change agent.

  • Lesson 3:

    Through close-reading strategies, small-group discussions, a whole-class discussion, and writing, we will examine the connection between the characteristics of change agents and the characteristics that Malcolm Gladwell discusses in the introduction to his book The Tipping Point, and that Derek Siver outlines in the TED Talk, “How to Start a Movement.”

  • Lesson 4:

    We will learn about text-dependent questions: how to use them to guide reading and how to respond to them in ways that are thoughtful and complete.

  • Lesson 5:

    We will begin crafting our definition of a change agent based on text evidence, and we will learn about and apply rhetorical constructs to a historical speech in order to continue building our foundational knowledge on how change happens and what characteristics change agents possess.

  • Lesson 6:

    We will explore and analyze John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address to solidify our understanding of the text, as well as analyze the speaker’s choices regarding syntax, meaning, and tone.

  • Lesson 7:

    We will analyze John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address for the speaker’s message on change, and we will apply our knowledge of change agent characteristics to Kennedy’s speech.

  • Lesson 8:

    We will analyze an excerpt from Machiavelli’s The Prince in order to continue building our foundational knowledge on how change happens and the challenges facing change agents.

  • Lesson 9:

    We will work with mentor sentences to deepen our understanding of the excerpt from Machiavelli’s The Prince and introduce more varied sentence structures in our writing.

  • Lesson 10:

    We will write a multiparagraph response that demonstrates our understanding of change agents.

  • Lesson 11:

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

  • Lesson 12:

    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.