Unit Guide

Our Histories: A Scaffolded Approach in Teaching Creative Nonfiction to English Learners

Kariann Flynn

In this four week, 90 minute block-scheduled curriculum unit, high school English learners, or ELLs, will put their personal histories at the center of the teaching and learning cycle as they build skills essential to producing academic writing in the creative nonfiction genre. The unit aims to strengthen students’ self-concept as authors, enhance students’ academic writing skills, and provide an outlet for creative, personal expression. Students will explore, notice, and vigorously practice producing a variety of nonfiction texts that range from the traditional “how-to” document to obituaries to the personal essay. Students will develop conceptual understandings of the writing process as they organize, sequence, and narrate nonfiction events in a tone and style that is unique to their own authorial voice. The unit will scaffold tasks that requires increasingly more complex writing as students develop the vocabulary, grammar, and rhetorical knowledge to express their ideas clearly and confidently in English. Upon the conclusion of this unit, students will be able to effectively respond to writing prompts in their content area classes and approach writing tasks through the lens of a skilled author.