Exploring the TitanicA Unit of Literary Nonfiction

Aboard the ShipYou are going to take on the identity of one person

who was actually aboard the Titanic. You will get a card that tells you all about who you were.

Your task for today--- COPY ALL of the information from the back of your card onto a page in your learning log. You will want this information to refer to later! Then--- make a prediction. Did you live or die in the accident?

At the end of the unit, you will find out if you survived the sinking of the Titanic or not!

DON’T RUIN THE FUN! Don’t “google” yourself. Wait until the end of the unit to find out your fate!

K-W-LWhat I Know What I Want to

KnowWhat I’ve Learned

Primary/Secondary Sources

Remember

this?

Primary/Secondary SourcesA Primary Source is: an original firsthand

account of a time or event composed by someone who experienced it

A Secondary Source is: an account written based on primary sources

Dialectic Response JournalMy Questions/Notes My Partner’s Response

After you read each section, fill in the first column of your dialectic response journal with your responses to the questions on the assignment sheet.

Instead of discussing your responses, you and your partner should trade learning logs after each response and write a response to what the other person said.

You should do this for each item--- there are 40.

When you’ve finished bring your log to the teacher to be checked.

Dialectic Response Journal

• When that disaster happened, people all over the world wanted to know “Who,” “What,” “When,” “Where,” and “Why?”

• "Extra" editions were offered three times a day to keep the public up to date.

Updating the World…YOU are now the editor of a big city

newspaper. You have people desperate for information

lined up outside your offices. But you've heard many different reports. Some say everyone survived and some say few survived. Some wired messages say the ship broke into two and sunk, while others say she's still afloat and being towed to Newfoundland.

Updating the World…As the best editor in the city, you want to be

responsible and you want your news to be accurate. You decide you're going to have to write the story yourself!

Your job is to write an “Extra Edition” that informs the world about what really happened that cold April night.

You must take good notes in your “field journal” throughout the unit so that you are able to compose your report with complete information.