1. Unit Title: Accepting Responsibility Big Idea: Determining Strengths and Weaknesses
6th-7thth Grade ELA Classes
C. Nicholson, ELA/SS IC
Week of January 17-20, 2017

2. NCSCoS
7.RI.1 Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
7.RI.2 Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
7.RI.3 Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events).
7.L.4 Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word's position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
7.W.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.)
7.RL.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

3. Learning Targets
I can cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
I can determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
I can analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events).
I can use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word's position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
I can produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.)
I can determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

4. Essential Questions How would you define responsibility?
Why is it important to know our strengths and weaknesses as people and learners?
Is it easier to make excuses a responsible statement? Why or why not?

5. http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina#section_3 My Notes
My Partner’s Notes
Summary:

6. Theme-related Informational Text
HURRICANE KATRINA: BEFORE THE STORM The tropical depression that became Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and meteorologists were soon able to warn people in the Gulf Coast states that a major storm was on its way. By August 28, evacuations were underway across the region. That day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” Did You Know? During the past century, hurricanes have flooded New Orleans six times: in 1915, 1940, 1947, 1965, 1969 and New Orleans was at particular risk. Though about half the city actually lies above sea level, its average elevation is about six feet below sea level–and it is completely surrounded by water. Over the course of the 20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers had built a system of levees and seawalls to keep the city from flooding. The levees along the Mississippi River were strong and sturdy, but the ones built to hold back Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne and the waterlogged swamps and marshes to the city’s east and west were much less reliable. Even before the storm, officials worried that those levees, jerry-built atop sandy, porous, erodible soil, might not withstand a massive storm surge. Neighborhoods that sat below sea level, many of which housed the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people, were at great risk of flooding. The day before Katrina hit, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued the city’s first-ever mandatory evacuation order. He also declared that the Superdome, a stadium located on relatively high ground near downtown, would serve as a “shelter of last resort” for people who could not leave the city. (For example, some 112,000 of New Orleans’ nearly 500,000 people did not have access to a car.) By nightfall, almost 80 percent of the city’s population had evacuated. Some 10,000 had sought shelter in the Superdome, while tens of thousands of others chose to wait out the storm at home. HURRICANE KATRINA: STORM AND FLOODING By the time Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans early in the morning on Monday, August 29, it had already been raining heavily for hours. When the storm surge (as high as 9 meters in some places) arrived, it overwhelmed many of the city’s unstable levees and drainage canals. Water seeped through the soil underneath some levees and swept others away altogether. By 9 a.m., low-lying places like St. Bernard Parish and the Ninth Ward were under so much water that people had to scramble to attics and rooftops for safety. Eventually, nearly 80 percent of the city was under some quantity of water. HURRICANE KATRINA: THE AFTERMATH Many people acted heroically in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Coast Guard, for instance, rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how bad things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely desperate.” (For one thing, many had nowhere to go. At the Superdome in New Orleans, where supplies had been limited to begin with, officials accepted 15,000 more refugees from the storm on Monday before locking the doors. City leaders had no real plan for anyone else. Tens of thousands of people desperate for food, water and shelter broke into the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center complex, but they found nothing there but chaos. Meanwhile, it was nearly impossible to leave New Orleans: Poor people especially, without cars or anyplace else to go, were stuck. For instance, some people tried to walk over the Crescent City Connector bridge to the nearby suburb of Gretna, but police officers with shotguns forced them to turn back.) Katrina pummeled huge parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but the desperation was most concentrated in New Orleans. Before the storm, the city’s population was mostly black (about 67 percent); moreover, nearly 30 percent of its people lived in poverty. Katrina exacerbated these conditions, and left many of New Orleans’s poorest citizens even more vulnerable than they had been before the storm. In all, Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2,000 people and affected some 90,000 square miles of the United States. Hundreds of thousands of evacuees scattered far and wide. Today, after years of recovery and rebuilding efforts, people along the Gulf Coast have made great strides in returning to life as usual even as they continue to rebuild.

7. Reading Strategy (RAP)
R-READ LOUDLY, CLEARLY, SLOWLY A-ASK YOURSELVES QUESTIONS P-PUT THE INFORMATION IN YOUR OWN WORDS

8. How I Survived Hurricane Katrina Play
iles/resources/katrina%20play.pdf

9. Create Comprehension Questions Depth of Knowledge
pdf

10. Vocabulary Word Prediction Actual Meaning (Context Clues) depression
uninhabitable
seawalls
waterlogged
leeves
porous
evacuation
desperate
exacerbated

11. ELA Connection
Ask students to work in small groups to create their own alphabetical list of names they'd attach to hurricanes -- if they were responsible for naming them! - See more at: son/lesson076.shtml#sthash.2cZS6LtC.dpuf

12. Mathematics Connection
What is the wind speed and effect of a hurricane in Category 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5?
Compare Katrina's size, power, and damage to that of another hurricane.
How much land was affected by Katrina? Roughly how many homes were damaged or destroyed? What is the estimated cost of property damage from Katrina? How many homes lost power in the storm?
Roughly how many people were displaced by Katrina in the affected states? What was the death toll?
What are estimates of the number of pets or other animals separated from their owners or killed by the hurricane? Roughly how many trees were brought down by the storm? How many acres of wetlands or barrier islands were lost to the storm?
Why was a mandatory evacuation ordered? How is the height and effect of a storm surge predicted? What is an estimate of how many people evacuated and how many stayed behind?
How much flooding was there (in terms of estimated land under water, depth of water, number of affected homes)? How long did it take to dry out the city, and why?
How many people were evacuated to temporary shelters? Where? How long are they likely to be displaced? How many military personnel joined the relief effort? How many volunteers? How much money was pledged to the relief effort by the government? by individuals? by other countries?
How were gas prices affected? Why? Do you think the hurricane will have a lasting effect on the population or the economy in the affected areas? Why or why not?

13. Social Studies Connection
content/uploads/2012/04/Hurricane_Katrina_full_case_study_we b.pdf
Read and annotate the article.
Decide the roles and responsibilities of those in charge of helping victims after Hurricane Katrina.
Write a persuasive essay to the President of the US demanding changes in the way policies are created and enforced.
Geography -- track a hurricane. Provide students with a Tracking Map and invite them to track the path of a current storm or a storm from a previous year. - See more at: sthash.2cZS6LtC.dpuf

14. Science Connection
Science -- make a weather station. Encourage younger students to visit Making a Weather Station and help them follow the directions to create a classroom weather station. - See more at: ml#sthash.2cZS6LtC.dpuf
Hands-on science -- demonstrate the water cycle. Use this experiment to demonstrate the water cycle. (The sun changes water to water vapor, which rises, cools, and condenses to form clouds. Then cool air meets the clouds, creating rain, sleet, or snow.) Have students fill jars half-full of water. Cover the jar openings with plastic wrap and use rubber bands to seal. Place the jars on a sunny windowsill. Ask: What happened? Why? What signs did you see of condensation? evaporation? How does this experiment demonstrate the water cycle? - See more at: ml#sthash.2cZS6LtC.dpuf

15. Technology Connection
Create a powerpoint outlining what you have learned or new information from any one of the four content articles.
(reading, math, science, social studies)

16. The Arts Connection
Use the You Ought to be in Pictures strategy to illustrate any type of natural disaster. Hurricanes Tsunamis Earthquakes Floods Tornadoes Avalanches Droughts

17. Assessment
10 question quick assessment including priority standards from each content area using Schoolnet.