The+Curious+Case+of+Benjamin+Button


 * So, "What if you aged backwards?" What then? You've probably already guessed what we're going to be reading in this unit. That's okay. What themes can you think of then?**

**This unit will get you thinking about identity, transformation, family, life, consciousness, and existence in general. All heavy stuff. We're going to look at some real world cases of "reverse aging" and we're going to be reading, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by F. Scott Fitzgerald throughout this unit. Hope you're ready!**



__ **About "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button":** __

Be advised that the story and the movie are not quite the same. Like with most movie/book relationships, there is always something in the book that never makes it into the movie and always something in the movie that was never in the book. That is the case with F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story. The movie version of "Benjamin Button" is so different, you'd be mistaken to use it as a way to do work in this unit. It'd be fun if you tried though.

Benjamin Button does, just like in the movie, begin his life as a 70 year old man. His father, Roger Button, a prominent figure in Baltimore and who owns a hardware company, is not really so happy to find his "baby" is a full grown man. Because of his disappointment, Roger tries to treat Benjamin like a baby but Benjamin has the mind and the body of an older man. As he becomes older, Benjamin is also becoming younger. This causes certain problems to arise in his life, mainly with his relationships between he and his family members, and eventually Benjamin ages back to being an infant and passes away. He encounters many adventures along the way.

__**Unit Focus:**__

__Themes__:

This unit is designed to get you thinking about how people who are different are treated in society. What do people judge other people on? How does our age define who we are? What does age really reflect of a person? What parts of ourselves DON'T change as we get older? And also, how does family play a role in defining someone who is different?

The unit is also designed to think about: How does this relate to me and my life? Of course aging backwards has very little to do with any of our lives, but by focusing on the themes of the story and not only on the story details themselves, we can better connect our lives to those of the characters. Hopefully, maybe even learn a little something about ourselves along the way.

__Skills__:

This unit will focus on the following skills-
 * Background knowledge (activating schema)
 * Making connections (text to self, text to text, text to world)
 * Questioning (fat & skinny questions. What's the difference and how can we use them to go deeper?)
 * Making predictions and inferences (what do I think will happen next? What can I figure out the missing details based on clues given by the author?)
 * Understanding how an author uses story elements and lit. devices to tell a story (how can we identify them and use them ourselves?)
 * Summarizing a text (re-telling just the important details about a text)
 * Vocabulary (what is confusing? How do I find the definition to a word I don't know? How do I remember the definition?)
 * Paragraph and essay construction (how can I use a structure to clearly express my ideas about something?)

Click here for your 1st assignment.