Community & The self

The purpose of this unit is two-fold. The primary rationale behind is to help students gain an understanding of the nuance behind the term "community." This unit would come early in the year, ideally as the first or second unit. One of the challenges for any teacher at the beginning of the year with new students is to get them to conceptualize your class together as it's own community. This unit allows students to explore the theme of community through choice texts as well as creates a doorway in for you all to begin to define your own classroom community . . . its norms, rules, identity . . . together.

The secondary purpose of this unit is to get students comfortable with making individual choices about texts based on their needs and wants. The book has to in some way address the theme of community, but it should also be a text that interests them. In the process, they'll become more familiar with the classroom & school libraries, and hopefully become more familiar with who they are as readers. In addition, because students will be reading a variety of texts, they become experts in those texts within the classroom, creating space for students to teach each other. Allowing students to choose the book they'll read in relation to a theme, and asking them to provide a rationale for their choice, will also hopefully help them understand your rationales for whole class texts in the future.