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- Unit Type
- Core
- Suggested Pacing
- 9 Weeks
- Performance Task
- Narrative Writing
Suggested Pacing
| Unit Arc | Instructional Time | Essential Question | Key Milestones |
|---|---|---|---|
Spark | 3 lessons | How does memory help us know who we are—and what is lost when memory disappears? |
|
Investigation 1 | 19 lessons | How does memory help us understand who we are—and what is lost when memory disappears? |
|
Investigation 2 | 15 lessons | How do stories help communities survive change and imagine a future worth building? |
|
Unit Context
Knowledge Building Topic
Futuristic worlds, human memory, and storytelling: How storytelling helps us understand how memory works, and how stories preserve cultural knowledge and identity across time.
I'm Learning About
how interstellar travel works and how humans adapt to extreme environments.
how memory functions in the brain, and what happens when it is altered or erased.
how stories carry cultural knowledge and identity across generations.
how imagined futures help us explore difficult questions and envision what comes next.
how storytelling helps communities maintain identity and adapt through change.
Knowledge Goals
Explain the neuroscience of memory and the scientific realities of interstellar travel, connecting these concepts to the novel's central themes.
Analyze how the author uses speculative science and storytelling to explore memory, identity, and community across time.
Evaluate how cultural storytelling traditions around the world preserve knowledge and identity across generations.
Synthesize scientific and literary sources to examine how imagined futures help us explore difficult questions about the present.
Knowledge-Building Questions
How does human memory work—and what happens to identity when memories are altered or erased?
What scientific realities must humans confront to survive long-distance space travel?
How do storytelling traditions around the world preserve cultural identity and knowledge across generations?
How does speculative fiction use science and imagination to explore the choices and values of future societies?
Essential Questions
Investigation 1: How does memory help us understand who we are, and what is lost when memory disappears?
Investigation 2: How do stories help communities survive change and imagine a future worth building?
Unit Texts
Novel
The Last Cuentista
Donna Barba Higuera
Short-Form Text
10 Things: Going Interstellar
NASA
Read text
Short-Form Text
Blancaflor
Folktale from the Public Domain
Read text
Short-Form Text
El Conejo en la Luna: The Rabbit in the Moon
Standard News Bureau
Read text
Short-Form Text
How We Have Turned Memories and Stories into Histories
Big History Project, adapted by Newsela staff
Read text
Short-Form Text
How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race
Compiled by W. H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, in the book West African Folk-Tales.
Read text
Short-Form Text
Storytelling helps preserve Navajo culture
Laura Tohe, ASU News
Read text
Short-Form Text
The Comet
W.E.B. Du Bois
Read text
Short-Form Text
The Fox & the Crow
The Æsop for Children
Read text
Short-Form Text
These Sci-Fi Visions for Interstellar Travel Just Might Work
Ramin Skibba and Les Johnson, Wired Magazine
Read text
Short-Form Text
Your Brain Forms Memories Differently Based on How Stories Are Told
Standard News Bureau
Read text
