Sarah+Cavis

=Writing for Change: Teen Relationships- Peer Relationships, Perspective and Teen Suicide=

Overview:
Teenagers' lives revolve around their relationships with themselves and their peers. These relationships rule their worlds and their interactions with their peers can help and/or hurt them more than any other. As educators it is our job to meet them at this level and help them to understand the diverse perspectives of the world as well as how to find their rightful place in life. We need to help them to embrace their individuality and become socially responsible to their peers. Our students need to be knowledgeable about the issues that they face and the best ways to handle the situations they are put in. My hope is that this unit will allow students to examine their lives and interactions with their peers and to create a nurturing and accepting classroom (and school) community.

This unit is centered around the young adult novel __Thirteen Reasons Why__ by Jay Asher. The book was published in 2007. It is the story of Hannah Baker, a young girl who committed suicide. Instead of writing a suicide note, Hannah recorded her stories on a set of 6 cassette tapes. The tapes detail her interactions with thirteen different people and how their actions lead to her decision to commit suicide. The story follows Clay Jensen on his journey through the tapes and his reaction to learning Hannah's story. Through the use of the book, I hope to help students discover how their interactions with peers can be seen in many different ways. I also hope to shed light on mental health, how to identify issues and how to help peers that may be suffering. It also serves to break the stereotype that those that suffer from bullying and mental heath issues are outcasts of normal culture. Due to the nature of the book, it will be done as in-class reading and not assigned as home work.

Objectives:

 * Students will become aware of differing perspectives
 * Students will be able to create a positive classroom environment through writing and peer interactions
 * Students will analyze plot and characters if __Thirteen Reasons Why__ to create literature to share their knowledge of peer relationships, depression and teen suicide
 * Students will identify what they can do to help a friend they believe is depressed and/or suicidal
 * Students will utilize different technology to complete projects
 * Students will demonstrate knowledge of at least five different writing genres

Written Assignments:
The students will engage in a wide variety of written assignments to accomplish the objectives of this unit. These assignments will be of varied genres and lengths.


 * **Rorschach writing**. See lesson HERE. Rorschach examples HERE


 * Students will create a reading response **journal** that will be completed each day in class. When the day's reading is completed students will be given a prompt to write about or given the opportunity to free-write their own thoughts and feels on the day's reading. Topics are listed on the weekly outline spreadsheet.


 * Students will also engage in some positive, informal writing. Students will create **PLB** (Positive Lunch Bags) that will be displayed in the classroom, one for each student. Each student will then be encouraged to write something positive, anonymously, for a class member and place it in their bag. See the lesson HERE


 * **'If You Really Knew Me'** is a project based off of CHALLENGE DAY presentations and the MTV documentary series from 2010. The Introductory video (Episode 1) from the MTV show is below. See the lesson HERE.


 * Students will create **multigenre projects** to dig deeper into the novel __Thirteen Reasons Why__. Students will be asked to write pieces in different styles about different aspects of the book. All students will be asked to create a section on the warning signs for depression and suicide. See lesson HERE.

If You Really Knew Me Project
Below are videos to introduce the project

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More 'If You Really Knew Me' Videos

Thirteen Reasons Why Multigenre Assignment
Example Multigenre Assignments

National Standards Covered by Unit:
See Document HERE Standards highlighted in Yellow will be used by all students. Standards highlighted in Green may be used by students depending on their writing project.

Weekly Outline:
See document HERE

Discussion Questions

List from Orion Township Public Library
**// The Death of Jayson Porter //** by Jaime Adoff In the Florida projects, sixteen-year-old Jayson struggles with the harsh realities of his life which include an abusive mother, a drug-addicted father, and not fitting in at his predominately white school, and bring him to the brink of suicide.

**// Crash into Me //** by Albert Borris Four suicidal teenagers go on a "celebrity suicide road trip," visiting the graves of famous people who have killed themselves, with the intention of ending their lives in Death Valley, California.

** //Hush// ** by Eishes Chayil After remembering the cause of her best friend Devory's suicide at age nine, Gittel is determined to raise awareness of sexual abuse in her Borough Park, New York, community, despite the rules of Chassidim that require her to be silent.

**// What Happened To Goodbye //**by Sarah Dessen Following her parents' bitter divorce as she and her father move from town to town, seventeen-year-old Mclean reinvents herself at each school she attends until she is no longer sure she knows who she is or where she belongs

**// Suicide Note //** by Michael Thomas Ford Brimming with sarcasm, fifteen-year-old Jeff describes his stay in a psychiatric ward after attempting to commit suicide.

**// Stay with Me //** by Garrett Freymann-Wehr When her sister kills herself, sixteen-year-old Leila goes looking for a reason and, instead, discovers great love, her family's true history, and what her own place in it is.

**// Fat Kid Rules the World //** by K.L. Going Seventeen-year-old Troy, depressed, suicidal, and weighing nearly 300 pounds, gets a new perspective on life when a homeless teenager who is a genius on guitar wants Troy to be the drummer in his rock band.

**// Get Well Soon //** by Julie Halpern When her parents confine her to a mental hospital, an overweight teenage girl, who suffers from panic attacks, describes her experiences in a series of letters to a friend.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Impulse //** by Ellen Hopkins <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> Moonglass by Jessi Kirby <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">At age seven, Anna watched her mother walk into the surf and drown, but nine years later, when she moves with her father to the beach where her parents fell in love, she joins the cross-country team, makes new friends, and faces her guilt

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">** //Hold Still// **by Nina LaCour <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Ingrid didn't leave a note. Three months after her best friend's suicide, Caitlin finds what she left instead: a journal, hidden under Caitlin's bed.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Love, Sara //** by Mary Beth Lundgren <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In a series of emails and journal entries Sara, a high school junior with a history of sexual abuse and foster home care, reveals her feelings about herself and two friends who are headed for destruction.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// 24 Hours //** by Margaret Mahy <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">During his first twenty-four hours after finishing high school, seventeen-year-old Ellis unexpectedly becomes part of an inner-city world far different from his comfortable life, which helps deal with his best friend's recent suicide.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Dooley Takes the Fall //** by Norah McLintock <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">As a troubled teen struggles to free himself from his past and the implications of the present conspiracies that surround him, Dooley tries to prove his innocence in a suicide that looks like murder.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Aimee //** by Mary Beth Miller <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">After she is accused of playing a role in her best friend's death, a young woman battles depression, anger, guilt, loneliness, and the problems of her own family as well as those of the families of her old friends.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">** //By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead// **by Julie Anne Peters <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">High school student Daelyn Rice, who's been bullied throughout her school career and has more than once attempted suicide, again makes plans to kill herself, in spite of the persistent attempts of an unusual boy to draw her out.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Fall for Anything //** by Courtney Summers <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">As she searches for clues that would explain the suicide of her successful photographer father, Eddie Reeves meets the strangely compelling Culler Evans who seems to know a great deal about her father and could hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Trigger //** by Susan Vaught <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Teenager Jersey Hatch must work through his extensive brain damage to figure out why he decided to shoot himself.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// It's Kind of a Funny Story //** by Ned Vizzini <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">A humorous account of a New York City teenager's battle with depression and his time spent in a psychiatric hospital.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**// Glimpse //** by Lynch Williams <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Living with their mother who earns money as a prostitute, two sisters take care of each other and when the older one attempts suicide, the younger one tries to uncover the reason.

Other References:
InkBlotTest.com Thirteen Reasons Why Official Page Columbine Online Teen Mental Health More Than Sad Youth Suicide Prevention Program Teen Suicide