Unit 1: Voice, Self, & Agency — Warbreaker

• Analyze how Sanderson uses parallel structure — following both Vivenna and Siri — to contrast two approaches to identity and agency, with the Returned as foils for each sister.

• Write about a personal moment of acting without a script, using the precision and interiority Sanderson brings to Siri's chapters in the Court of Gods.

• Understand how Sanderson uses point of view, parallel narrative structure, and BioChromatic Breath to explore themes of voice and agency.

• Identify the craft choices — chapter structure, free indirect discourse, Awakening commands as dialogue — that make Vivenna's and Siri's transformations feel earned rather than arbitrary.

• What does Vivenna's journey from rigid Idrian princess to adaptable survivor reveal about how identity forms under pressure?

• How does Siri find agency in Hallandren's Court of Gods despite having no power of her own, and what does that reveal about the nature of voice?

This unit explores how individuals develop a sense of self and learn to claim agency in circumstances not of their choosing. Warbreaker follows two Idrian princesses — Vivenna, who spent her life preparing to be sent to Hallandren, and Siri, who is sent instead — as they navigate a foreign culture, a political marriage, and a world where BioChromatic Breath functions as currency, power, and metaphor for the voice within us. Students examine how Sanderson uses these parallel journeys to ask what it means to find yourself when everything you assumed about yourself turns out to be wrong.