This is a complete, yet unstructured, unit on Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It is zipped, meaning the buyer will use Winzip or another program to unzip the file upon download.

My units are simply uploads of the files I keep for the books I teach. You can expect to find numerous quizzes, essay prompts, in-class activities, and introductory research assignments in my units. Sometimes there are other things as well.

If you are starting a new book and don’t yet have your own quizzes and activities, this will be a great asset to you. Over time you will probably want to add more lessons and quizzes to the unit.

There is no schedule, order or pacing guide for my assignments. Pick and choose from the files in the folder and move at your own pace. All assignments are Word documents. Feel free to edit and revise my lessons to make the unit your own.

Quizzes: I usually start the class with a quiz. I assign about 25 pages a night of reading for homework and I find quizzes make students accountable for the reading. Typically I make each question worth 5 points, so most quizzes are worth 25 points. I ask a TA to grade them.

Essay assignments. Often you will find several essays in a unit. Choose the ones you like or use them as starting points to brainstorm your own prompts.

Group activities are to be done in your own style. I usually put students into groups of 3 and then collect one written assignment for the group, giving all members of the group a shared grade.

Scenes in a play are to be acted by students who want some extra credit points. I offer the roles to students who are willing to do them and then give them 24 hours to prepare. I let students read from the text as they perform their scene and grade them on how well they interpreted the emotion and import of the scene.

Introductory research is usually a 24-hour assignment in which students use the internet or library to find information that will be relevant to the novel or play. This is a way to establish schema, or background knowledge about the unit.

Seminar preparation/questions. When we have a seminar (in which students sit in a circle and discuss the book with very little input from the teacher), I typically pass out questions for students to sketch out their responses. This allows students to come prepared to the seminar, and allows shy students to participate early in the discussion with their prepared response. I grade these by printing out a class roster and then putting a check next to a student’s name each time they contribute thoughtfully.

Challenge Statements: these are statements, sometimes correct, sometimes incorrect, and sometimes ambiguous. Put students into groups and have each group, on a sheet of paper, respond to each of the statements. They are to agree or disagree with each statement and then support their agreement or disagreement with a quote from the text. This requires them to really consider the text, literally and metaphorically.

Journal prompts and quick writes (QW): Just what it sounds like—these are short writing prompts that work nicely before a discussion.

This Unit includes:
5 Quizzes.
1 Introductory research assignment.
3 Essay prompts.
3 class activity assignments (seminar, bio paragraphs, motif discussion).
2 study guides/homework assignments.
2 quickwrite/journal prompts.
4 Challenge statement/class activities.
Materials for use with any text: cooperative essay, archetype worksheet, bio poem guide, close analysis activity, Metacognitive preview, multimedia project, reading quiz make up sheet, SSR journal prompts, Thematic flowchart assignment.