Unit Title: Exploring the Titanic

Designed By: Emily Mullis

Grade Level: 7th Grade
Content Area: Reading
Time Frame: 5 Sessions

Unit Summary
This unit is designed to help students realize that nonfiction comes in a variety of forms and can be
enjoyable to read. It provides students with opportunities to research historical information and to gain
an insight into the Titanic disaster. This unit also emphasizes the importance of the sequence of events.
The events that led up to the sinking of the Titanic took place very quickly and the time sequence is
important to the understanding of the disaster.

Materials Needed
Text: The Language of Literature (McDougal Littell Inc.)
Technology: Vocabulary PowerPoint, Background Building PowerPoint, Exploring the Titanic recording,
Titanic DVD, Computers (for various uses)
Other: KWL chart, word wheels, paper fasteners, passenger tickets, index cards, graphic organizers,
rubrics, jeopardy handouts, tests

Learner Analysis: There are twenty students in my class. Sixteen of the students are Caucasian and four
are African American. There are thirteen males and seven females. The students come from low to
middle income families. The behavior f the students is typical middle school student behavior. The
students are talkative and like to wander around the room if not actively engaged. Several of the
students have low motivation and often fall asleep in class. Others are likely to get up out of their desks
at least three times per class period. The group’s overall academic achievement level is average. Most
students have an A or B in the class with only a few failing. Most of the students are visual learners.
Some are auditory learners and others are kinesthetic. Throughout the unit, directions will be written as
well as spoken and there are many hands-on activities to reach all students.

Title of Unit Exploring the Titanic Grade Level 7th

Curriculum Area Reading Time Frame 5 class periods
Stage 1 – Identify Desired Results
Georgia Performance Standards:
ELA7R1 The student demonstrates comprehension and shows evidence of a warranted and responsible
explanation of a variety of literary and informational texts.
ELA7R2 The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and
writing.
ELA7LSV2 The student listens to and views various forms of text and media in order to gather and share
information, persuade others, and express and understand ideas. The student will select and critically
analyze messages using rubrics as assessment tools.
ELA7W1 The student produces writing that establishes an appropriate organizational structure, sets a
context and engages the reader, maintains a coherent focus throughout, and provides a satisfying
theme.
ELA7W2 The student demonstrates competence in a variety of genres.
ELA7W3 The student uses research and technology to support writing.
21st Century Learner Standards:
4.1.1 Read, view, and listen for pleasure and personal growth.
4.1.3 Respond to literature and creative expressions of ideas in various formats and genres.
Understandings
Students will understand that:
 Non-fiction books can be enjoyable to read.
 Events in a text can be sequenced.
 Researching is a way to learn information.
 Technology can help us learn, write, and share information.
 You must give credit if you use information from another source.
 You must cite sources that you use to prevent plagiarism.
Related misconceptions:
 When doing research, it is okay to copy the information from your source.
 When you use information from another source, you do not have to cite that source.
Essential Questions
 Are the lives of some people more valuable because of their wealth or contributions to society?
 How does The Wreck of the Titan foreshadow what happens to the Titanic?
 Why was The Wreck of the Titan an eerie prophecy?
 Was what happened to the New York a bad omen?
 Did the overconfidence in the safety aboard the Titanic play a role in its demise?
 Did the belief that the Titanic was “unsinkable” affect the reaction of the people onboard?
Knowledge and Skills
Students will know: Students will be able to:
 What non-fiction literature is.  Order the sequence of events in a text.
 What an iceberg is.  Cite information from a website.
 What the Titanic was and what happened  Create an online time line.
to it.
 How the Titanic got its name.
 The history of the Titanic.
 What kinds of people were on the Titanic.
Stage 2 – Determine Acceptable Evidence
Performance Tasks:
 Students will create a word wheel to demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words.
 Students will create an online time line to show that they understand how to order the
sequence of events in a text.
 Students will present their passenger information to the class to demonstrate that they have a
better understanding of the people that were onboard the Titanic.
 Students will blog daily as if they were a passenger onboard the Titanic to show that they
understand the people that were onboard the Titanic.
Stage 3 – Plan Learning Experiences
W – Introduce essential questions and performance tasks for the unit.

H – The unit will begin with the teacher asking the class what it would have been like to be a passenger
on the Titanic to get students thinking.

E – Important research guidelines and procedures will be discussed.

Students will receive two vocabulary words per day to add to their word wheels.
Build background knowledge for unit.

R – Daily blog journal on given passenger from day of boarding the ship to the day it sank.

E – Complete a KWL chart to determine what students already know about the Titanic.

T – Students will take notes and research their given passenger and compile what they have learned into
a journal and presentation at the end of the unit.
Students will complete graphic organizers of the kinds of people that were on the ship.

O – Students will create a KWL chart on day one and add to it as the unit progresses.
Students will take on the role of a passenger on the Titanic.
Students will complete a journal from the perspective of their chosen passenger.
Day One  Students will take a pre test.
 Introduce first two vocabulary words and make foldable
 Have students fill out KWL chart in groups
 Watch power point on background information
 Teacher will give booktalk on an excerpt from Exploring the Titanic
 Allow students to choose a passenger from a list and hand out Titanic
tickets
 Read excerpt from Exploring the Titanic and discuss
Day Two  Review previous vocabulary words and add next two to foldable
 Review story from yesterday and have students write whether they think
the belief that the Titanic was “unsinkable” affected the reaction people
on board had after it struck the iceberg and explain their answers
 Show video over Titanic, its passengers, and its discovery and discuss
Day Three  Review previous vocabulary words and add next two to foldable
 Students will work in pairs to create a timeline of events from the story.
They will be given the events and times.
 In their pairs, students will go online and add their timelines to
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/timeline/.
 In computer lab, students will research their passenger from day one.
They will be given a list of things they need to find out about their person.
Day Four  Students will use the information they gathered yesterday to create a
glog about their given passenger.
 One requirement will be to link to a blog that is the passenger’s journal
written by the student from the passenger’s perspective.
Day Five  Students will play a jeopardy game to review the story for the test
 Students will complete the L section of their KWL charts in groups.
Day Six  Students will take a post test.