Brittany Zezima Dilworth

This unit was written as part of the Delaware Teacher Institute, a subgroup of an organization created by Yale University. Written during the 2020-2021 school year, its purpose is to address and explore the concept of trauma and how it affects the socioemotional well being of newcomer English Learners in grades 6-8. It will intertwine English Language Arts standards with Socio-emotional Learning (SEL) to simultaneously meet the language, content, and mental health needs of my students. The unit will focus on excerpts conveying the theme of trauma in the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. Students will begin the unit with an introduction to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and their prevalence among the general population, before examining ACEs in the context of Harry’s character and how traumatic experiences influenced both the character’s well-being and the novel’s plot. They will apply their knowledge of real-life mental health and trauma resources to complete a culminating project in which they create a Cognitive Behavior Intervention that supports the needs of different characters based on their traumatic experiences.