Believe It and You Will Achieve It: Last Unit of Study

Since beginning in January, my students have worked through several good books including: Out of the Dust, The Diary of Anne Frank, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, and The Lightning Thief. I am thrilled with the progress that they have made in their reading and writing, and now my goal is to end the year with a bang!

That being said, I have decided to end with a thematic unit entitled:
"Believe it and You will achieve it!"

I want my students to leave the sixth grade knowing that it is ok to fail at times, but to continue to dream big!The goal is for them to understand that great people have failed, but because they dreamed big, they rose up and achieved their dreams.

The core text that we will read for this unit will be
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller. I will also be including all genres to support this piece of non-fiction including poems, newspaper articles, magazine articles, and other autobiographies.

The students will begin the study by creating a "dream board", which I have always wanted to do myself. Honestly, many of my dreams have come true, but it is never too to late to have new ones, so I will create my own dream board with them.

 











 Next, we will study writings by Abraham Lincoln, Langston Hughes, Thomas Edison, as well as look at modern inventors and creators such as Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Bill Gates. The list is endless. There are so many creative people who were told that they could not achieve, but went on to be phenomenal people. My students will read, research, and write about a person of their choice that is inspiring to them.

Furthermore, we will look at films such as October Sky and The Miracle Worker. We will compare and contrast texts, websites, and articles to the films.

 I can't wait to get into this unit!


Famous Failures 
http://youtu.be/zLYECIjmnQs