The Sinister Stories unit is a multi-genre, thematic unit designed to hit various middle school ELA literature, writing, speaking, and listening standards while having students read and write in various genres. The unit focuses on how authors use their craft to create mood and tone. This unit includes eleven low-prep and 100% digital ELA lessons. Everything you need for each lesson is included, and each one is quick and easy to set up.
Break down the mood, tone, author's craft, and poetic structure while reading, annotating, analyzing, and writing different texts and poems. Each piece of literature and poem was picked so students could focus on how each author's writing craft develops the mood and tone in their text.
Here's what's included:
- Eleven mini-lessons
- Examples and answer keys for all lessons
- An Essential Question format to drive all lessons
- Two final cumulative tasks on all concepts taught throughout the unit: A Socratic Seminar and a comparative literary analysis written response
- Digital and PDF teaching slides for each lesson
You and your students will love how each lesson differs from the last and builds in difficulty while still connecting to the unit's essential question. You and your students will love these quick interactive mini-lessons, introducing them to a new ELA concept each day while taking interactive notes with the provided teaching slides.
Your students can immediately apply what they learned with quick practice tasks at the end of the teaching slides. Each lesson builds on the previous one, allowing you to increase the rigor each day while also having varied interactive activities and slides to keep students engaged.
Students will read and write in various genres and with various tasks that require them to focus on the author’s craft and the mood and tone they create. The final two lessons will have them participate in a Socratic Seminar and write a comparative analysis response while answering the essential questions.
The Sinister Stories unit’s essential questions are:
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What author’s craft techniques do authors use to create the mood and tone in their writing?
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How do the authors of the texts we’ve read use similar and/or different craft moves to accomplish moods and tones?
The activities that accompany these lessons are 100% done for you. You will simply need to print what you need or assign copies of the student's notebook in Google Classroom. Some lessons can be printed, prepped, and used year after year.
Prep is quick and easy... Print the student pages, set up your example or slides to be displayed, and teach each scaffolded lesson.
The eleven Sinister Stories lessons are:
- Lesson 1: Introduction to Author's Craft
- Lesson 2: Author’s Craft: Mood and Tone
- Lesson 3: Mood and Tone Analysis: “Yellow Ribbon”
- Lesson 4: Author’s Craft: Sensory Details
- Lesson 5: Annotating a Short Story for Mood and Tone: “The Lottery”
- Lesson 6: Annotating Poems for Mood and Tone: “Song of the Witches” and “Halloween is Coming”
- Lesson 7: Elegy Poems
- Lesson 8: Author Focus: Edgar Allan Poe
- Lesson 9: Annotating a Short Story for Mood and Tone: “The Tell-Tale Heart”
- Lesson 10: Comparative Analysis Socratic Seminar for Unit Essential Question
- Lesson 11: Comparative Analysis Written Response for Unit Essential Question
