Identity Unit English Language Arts Middle and High School Identity Activities

This editable, no prep identity unit is a perfect all about me back to school English activity for introducing your high school or middle school students to important ELA skills, like close reading strategies, annotating the text, and writing techniques. This engaging identity unit features pre-reading and vocabulary activities, step-by-step annotation, guided analysis, and scaffolded writing tasks your students will love to help you start the year strong!

Students study identity as a concept before completing all about me one pagers, exploring memoir, diction, & syntax with Six Word Memoirs, elements of poetry with Lyon's poem, "Where I'm From," and figurative language with "My Name," an excerpt from Sandra Cisneros' novel, The House on Mango Street.

This differentiated unit includes everything you need for success, including detailed lesson plans, clear student directions, graphic organizers, teaching slides for every activity, thoughtful analysis questions, scaffolded writing tasks, & engaging discussion prompts - with multiple versions to support EVERY learner!

Perfect for:

• Back-to-School Season (break the ice and build community)
• Social-Emotional Learning
• Social justice & celebrating diversity
• Introducing memoir & personal narrative writing
• Teaching character development & character analysis
• …and more!

**This identity unit is fully editable in Google Slides, so you can edit the resources to meet the unique needs of your students!

***The activity is formatted to be printable as well as digital.

What is included in this resource?

• A detailed lesson plan with step-by step directions
• A hyperlinked pacing guide (see preview) to help you save time & stay organized
• Teaching slides to make introducing identity and guiding students through the lesson simple & easy
• Low-stakes discussion prompts and quick writes to help students connect with the topic and assigned readings.
• Pre-reading & vocabulary activities to support reading comprehension
• Step-by-step annotation guide to help students make connections as they read
• Analysis activities to help students dig deeper
• Graphic organizers with multiple versions for easy differentiation
• Scaffolded writing tasks
• Reflection prompts to help you wrap up each activity in a meaningful way
• Thoughtful answer keys for easy prep and no stress

Suggested Pacing:

Week 1:

• Intro to identity
• About Me one pagers
• Six Word Memoir

Week 2:

• Read & annotate: "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon
• Read & annotate: "My Name" by Sandra Cisneros

Week 3:

• Writing Task: Narrative or Analytical
• Draft, Revise, Edit, & Share!
• Unit reflection & wrap up

Final Notes and Details:

Please note, this activity is created in GOOGLE SLIDES and is EDITABLE so you can meet the unique needs of your students.

**This resource is a PDF with links to Google Slides documents. However, the documents can also be downloaded from Google Slides as POWERPOINT files or PDF files if you prefer (file, download as, choose your format)

Other Products You May be Interested In:

• Back to School Activity Bundle
• End of the Year MEGA Bundle
• Introduction to Shakespeare and Shakespeare's Language Bundle
• Amanda Gorman: The Hill we Climb (and other poems) Poetry Unit

Terms of Use:

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Cover Credit: Thank you to Aneta Design and The Magic Nova for clip art in the cover images!