Available Now! STARI Unit 4.3 Truth, Lies, and Memory
Unit 4.3 is ready to go!
We’re thrilled to announce that STARI Unit 4.3: Truth, Lies, and Memory, is now available!
Unit 4.3 challenges students to examine how truth is shaped and shared, through powerful texts, critical questions, and rich classroom dialogue. Designed specifically for high school students who struggle with reading, this culminating unit brings STARI Series 4 to a compelling close.
Students explore the tragic shootings that took place at Kent State University in 1970, embedded in the context of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement. As they analyze both nonfiction and historical fiction texts, students confront the essential questions: Who decides what's true? Why learn about the past?
Kent State
By Deborah Wiles
(Historical fiction)
This complex historical fiction novel, written in verse, incorporates multiple perspectives on the events that took place at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, when the National Guard shot and killed four college students at an anti-Vietnam War protest.
The United States and Vietnam: A Complicated History
By Kyle Johnson
(Nonfiction)
This nonfiction text builds students' background knowledge about the Vietnam War, and also provides students the opportunity to practice using nonfiction text features.
Skills and Topics
- Literary Analysis: character perspective, text structure, media comparisons
- Reading Comprehension: Reciprocal Teaching, QAR strategies
- Decoding: multisyllabic word strategies (syllable chunking, bases and affixes)
- Debate: Should the U.S. have entered the Vietnam War? Who was responsible for the Kent State shootings?
- Fluency Topics: JFK, LBJ, the National Guard, the Black Panthers, protest movements, 1960s culture, and more
This unit closes Series 4 with real-world relevance and the rigor STARI is known for. With built-in scaffolds and powerful discussion topics, it's designed to meet students where they are and stretch them as thinkers and readers.

- The STARI Team