Unit 4: Perseverance
Suggested Student Objectives
- Define perseverance
- Read and discuss fictional and informational texts featuring real people or characters that demonstrate perseverance.
- Analyze how the setting (historical context) of a story or biography affects character development.
- Explain authors' use of literary techniques such as diction and imagery
- Compare and contrast the play The Miracle Worker to film and other print versions.
- Conduct research on a person of interest who demonstrated perseverance, such as Martin Luther King Jr., or Geronimo.
- Create a persuasive multimedia presentation.
- Write a bio-poem and memorize and/or recite it for the class.
Suggested Works
LITERARY TEXTS
Stories
Poetry
Drama
Audiobooks
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Biographies
Photobiographies
Graphical Autobiography
ART /MUSIC/ MEDIA
Art
Stories
- The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (Rodman Philbrick)
- The Voyage of Patience Godspeed (Heather Vogel Frederick)
- Jesse (Gary Soto)
- I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade (Diane Lee Wilson)
- Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
- Ties That Bind, Ties That Break (Lensey Namioka)
- The Miracle Worker (and Related Readings) (William Gibson)
Poetry
Drama
- The Miracle Worker: A Play (William Gibson)
Audiobooks
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Biographies
- Dare to Dream! 25 Extraordinary Lives (Sandra McLeod Humphrey)
- African American Firsts: Famous Little Known and Unsung Triumphs of Blacks in America (Joan Potter)
- The World at Her Fingertips: The Story of Helen Keller (Joan Dash)
- Geronimo (Joseph Bruchac)
- The Civil Rights Movement in America (Cornerstone of Freedom Series, Second Series) (Elaine Landau
- Dare to Dream: Coretta Scott King and the Civil Rights Movement (Angela Shelf Medearis)
Photobiographies
- Inventing the Future: A Photobiography of Thomas Alva Edison (Marfe Ferguson Delano)
- Helen Keller: A Photobiographic Story of a Life (Leslie Garrett)
- Helen's Eyes: A Photobiography of Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's Teacher (Marfe Ferguson Delan0)
Graphical Autobiography
- Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Marjane Satrapi)
ART /MUSIC/ MEDIA
Art
- N.C. Wyeth, All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs, with a brass telescope (1911)
- N.C. Wyeth, For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear (1911)
- N.C. Wyeth, Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colors (1911)
- N.C. Wyeth, Treasure Island, title page illustration (1911)
- Arthur Penn, dir., The Miracle Worker (1962)