Current Unit

Journeys and Survival

Module Three The People Could Fly

In this eight-week module, students explore the life of Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and noted abolitionist who wrote Narrative of
the Life of Frederick Douglass (Narrative). The module focuses on the questions of what makes stories powerful and on understanding an author’s
purpose. In addition, students analyze how writers use figurative language and word choice to convey meaning. In Unit 1, a recommended
read-aloud of The People Could Fly introduces the topic and the question that connects all three units in the module: What gives stories and poems
their enduring power?
Next, students build the background knowledge that will allow them to more fully understand the context of the Narrative: they learn about
slavery, Douglass’s life, and the debate over slavery in the United States before the Civil War. The Narrative is a compelling, complex, and
somewhat lengthy text; in this module, students read five excerpts from the text. In Unit 1, they read the first two of those excerpts, building their
capacity for making sense of this complex text and learning the routines that will guide their work for the remainder of the module. Then students
study poetry about slavery. They learn how to read and analyze a poem, and are introduced to the tools that poets and other writers use to make
stories powerful: word choice and figurative language.
Unit 2 centers on the analysis of excerpts from the Narrative. Students read three excerpts, analyze how each excerpt served Douglass’s
purpose, and consider how he used language to convey meaning. They have consistent practice with short constructed responses that use
evidence from the text. The End of Unit 2 Assessment is an essay in which students explain how the Narrative conveyed Douglass’s purpose and
distinguished his position from that of others. In addition, students develop a clearer understanding of how sentences are constructed, and they use
this understanding to help them read and write.
In Unit 3, students write their own powerful story, using Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery as a mentor text. They select one event
from the Narrative and rewrite it as a children’s book, making sure that the story they create is powerful, just as the stories they have been reading
are powerful.