Language Arts










Grades 3-5
Dreamweavers​
In this unit, students explore perspective through the lens of the camera, from the frame of authors and narrators, and by the students’ own pen as they write
their stories and dreams.
Blueprints for the Future​
This conceptual unit aims to guide students in making connections between the importance of vision and the future. Students examine the ways in which a society is shaped by visionaries, innovators, and inventors.
Students examine ghost stories from across North Carolina.
Students delve deeper into the connections among literary terms across fairytales. These connections enable students to identify and predict the story structure across texts.
Students develop an understanding of informative writing and improve their writing through in depth examination of the key parts of informative writing.
This unit uses fairy tales to teach culture and geography skills.
​
This unit seeks to answer the question: How does cause and effect enable predictions?
This unit explores important content for experiencing life as a journalist. Students learn that journalism
provides voice, causes change in a community, and is
shaped by a writer’s voice.
​
The unit explores story design elements and characterization through the examination of graphic novels.
​
The unit includes JK Rowling's magical creatures to examine how "Imagination stimulates Creativity".
​
Students analyze texts and convey personal perspective through writing.
​​
This unit uses Harry Potter as content to understand modern life's inequities.
​
Inspired by the popularity of the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, this unit, explores the concepts of character and destiny through the topic of Greek mythology and author’s craft.
​
Exploring Identity Through Graphic Novels
In this unit, students examine how identity shapes one's perspective.
​
​










Grades 6-8
Video Game Ventures​
This unit takes the literary elements of writing a narrative to a level of interest to incite students to research, write, and create using technology.
Digital Storytelling​
This unit uses the concept of Courage to explore how humans build empathy and understanding for others, including those who belong to different cultures.
Who is Durham?​
This unit not only provides exploration into an individual student’s self actualization and awareness, it pushes students to understand how their identity influences the people and the communities they have relationships with, and how those communities influence their own identity.
Middle School Survival​
This unit allows students to explore the social-emotional side to the challenges of middle school through a language arts text.
Close Encounters​
In this unit, students learn that websites (and other media) need to be evaluated for credibility.
"In"Dangered Animals
Students examine how to be a change agent in their community and learn the power of their voice.
Express Yourself!
Students investigate artists’ depictions of identity
through the analysis of various art forms and use iMovie to create a representation of their own identity.
A Twist of Fate: Romeo and Juliet
This unit examines the concept of fate and how fate does (or does not) affect our lives.
​
Hip Hop Activism
Students examine voice through the genre of Hip Hop and are tasked with discovering the relationships and implications between their own voice and their access to power.
​
SLAM! The Art and Action of the Spoken Word
This unit provides the structure and resources for students to enjoy both expanded content (via contemporary spoken-word poetry) and
relevant practice in both writing, speaking and performance of their original work.
​
Science Fiction and the Future
Using popular themes and tropes of science fiction including alien invasion and advanced technology,
students examine how our present shapes and creates the future in which humanity expects to arrive.
​
Light My Fire!
Students explore personal passions to determine a cause for which to advocate.
​
Sapience: What's That?
Students explore folktales to answer the question, "How does wisdom influence behaviors?"
​
The Greek Inquirer: Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Students investigate truth in news sources to determine the facts.
​
Doctor Who's Who in Time Travellin' Communities
Students examine how communities generate culture through the study of the fan-base for the BBC series Dr. Who.
​
Getting to Know Poe, Shirley and Prospero
Students will delve deeply into the writing of three literary artists.
​
Making the World Superior
Students analyze interactions among superheroes, examining their contributions and the relationship between "power and justice".
​
Looking into Myth to See Culture
Students become critical consumers of myths and their relationship to box office hits.
​
Unexplained Phenomena
This unit challenges students to consider the
unusual, the mysteries, and the secrets of our world – both real and imagined.
​
Explorer's Club: The Virtual Reality of Our World and Beyond
For those adolescent learners who love history, reading, travel, exploration, and curiosity of world destinations, this unit immerses them in another realm of reality.
​
Get L.I.T.! The Remix
This unit blends literature and writing as students examine the ways perspective affects interpretation.
​
​
​
​