Units of Study

What do we do when life gets hard? How do we respond in a difficult situation? What do we do when our limits are tested? How do we face a challenge? What actions can we take to solve a problem? How can we overcome feelings of sadness, stress, or fear?

These are the questions your students will explore in this Grade 6 unit, which focuses on the genre of fiction.

Life is full of challenges, and some are harder than others. What we choose to do or say in the face of these challenges often varies based on the challenge itself. Sometimes we choose to respond to challenges by attempting something that we have never done before, something that might even scare us a little. Climbing a mountain or running a marathon are challenges that people can choose to face. Often, however, life presents us with difficulties when people least expect it, such as an emergency or a crisis.

Texts within the unit’s genre and across other genres present different perspectives on responding to life’s unexpected difficulties. Deza Malone in Christopher Paul Curtis’s The Mighty Miss Malone must deal with the events of the Great Depression when it tears her family apart. In Avi’s short story “Scout’s Honor” three Boy Scouts from Brooklyn learn a humbling lesson when their limits are tested on a camping trip. After reading about how these and other characters respond when their lives are upended, your students will try their own hands at writing a short story, applying what they have learned about dealing with life’s challenges to their own narrative writing projects. Throughout this unit, students will explore the different reasons and ways in which people make decisions and take action when life turns out to be tougher than expected.