Bullying and self-confidence are themes that link the vivid Sharon Flake novel, The Skin I’m In, with short fiction and the highly engaging nonfiction book, Middle School Confidential: Be Confident in Who You Are. Students learn the partner fluency routines that will carry them through all four units and begin to practice strategies for recognizing base words. Reciprocal Teaching strategies, specifically clarifying and summarizing, are introduced as a framework for comprehension. Literary analysis tools introduced in the unit include the narrative arc and characterization. Students learn to use persuasive phrases for participating in the unit debate.

LITERATURE

The Skin I’m In (Flake) – Gripping first person novel about a dark-skinned African American girl who over time stands up to a “frenemy”

Middle School Confidential: Be Confident in Who You Are (Fox) – Nonfiction book with graphic novel text features on standing up to bullies and developing personal confidence

Local News (Soto) – Collection of humorous short stories set in the Latino community of Fresno, California

FLUENCY TOPICS

identity, self-esteem, bullying, peer pressure, stereotypes, skin color, “drama,” social dynamics, role models, Together for Latinas, poverty and other stressors, “snitching,” the “It Gets Better” project

FOCUS

Literary analysis

• Narrative arc in fiction
• Characterization
• Using and citing evidence from a text

Reading comprehension

• Summarizing and clarifying as components of Reciprocal Teaching
• Using 5Ws (who, did what, when, etc.) as a scaffold for summarizing
• Previewing nonfiction using table of contents, index, and illustrations

Decoding

• Identifying base words and chunking compound words
• Pronouncing consonant blends

Debate

• In The Skin I’m In, who has the power—Maleeka or Charlese?