HS ELA Guide

Literary Texts

Informational Texts

●​ “Justice and Fairness” by Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez ●​ “Last of the Scottsboro Boys get justice long delayed: pardons” by Los Angeles Times ●​ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” by the United Nations ●​ “Declaration of the Rights of the Child” by the United Nations

Unit 2 in Mirrors and Windows Level V covers non-fiction texts about the Civil Rights Movement Unit 4 in Mirrors and Windows Level V includes Julius Caesar Poetry ●​ “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes ●​ “The Ides of March” by Constantine Cavafy ( Mirrors and Windows p. 600-601) Plays ●​ Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare ●​ Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose

Paired Text Julius Caesar

●​ “Understanding Shakespeare” (Mirrors and Windows p. 524-529) ●​ “Primary Sources: The Assassination of Julius Caesar” by C. Suetonius Tranquillus (Newsela) ●​ “Comparing governments: democracy vs. authoritarianism” by UShistory.org (Newsela) ●​ “Ides of March Marked Murder of Julius Caesar” by Jennifer Vernon ●​ “The Rise of Caesarism” by Steve Bonta ●​ “Brutus on Broadway: Et tu, Denzel? Washington shakes up Shakespeare” by Allison Samuels ( Mirrors and Windows p. 641-642) Media Texts ●​ Twelve Angry Men (1957) ●​ The great conspiracy against Julius Caesar - Kathryn Tempest (TedEd)

●​ www.youthforhumanrights.org ●​ The Children's March | 1963

Sample Theme

Sample Essential Questions

●​ How does fear drive individual and collective behavior? ●​ What is the relationship between fear and intolerance? ●​ What are we conditioned to fear? ●​ How does fear impede rational thought? ●​ How does fear relate to intolerance?

The Power of Fear

Literary Texts

Informational Texts

●​ “Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family” by Yoshiko Uchida ( Mirrors and Windows , p. 247-254) ●​ Executive Order 9066, Franklin D. Roosevelt, National Archives ●​ Proclamation 4417: Termination of Executive Order 9066, Gerald R. Ford, National Archives ( Mirrors and Windows , p. 255-256) ●​ “Keep Memory Alive” by Elie Wiesel ( Mirrors and Windows , p. 299) ●​ “No News from Auschwitz” by A. M. Rosenthal ( Mirrors and Windows , p. 301-302) ●​ “Six Million Paper Clips” by Leisah Namm ●​ “The real electric "Frankenstein" experiments of the 1800s” by Atlas Obscura (Newsela) ●​ “Dear Science: Why do people like scary movies and haunted houses?” by Rachel Feltman and Sarah Kaplan (Newsela) Media Texts ●​ One Survivor Remembers , Tolerance.org ●​ “The Monsters Are on Maple Street” Twilight Zone ●​ “Japanese American incarceration camps” Ted-Ed ●​ “Why do people fear the wrong things?” by Gerd Gigerenzer, Ted-Ed ●​ “Why is being scared so fun?” by Margee Kerr, Ted-Ed ●​ “What fear can teach us” by Karen Thompson Walker, Ted-Ed

Unit 2 in Mirrors and Windows Level V covers non-fiction texts about the Japanese Internment, Holocaust, and 9/11. Novels ●​ Night by Elie Wiesel ●​ Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ●​ Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson ●​ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ●​ Animal Farm by George Orwell

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Jun 4, 2026

Last Updated

High School ELA, Page 76