Curriculum Connection
K-5 ELA- January 2022
Kindergarten ELA
Reading Unit 3: Reading For Information
As kindergartners begin the informational unit, they will learn to study what topics their books are teaching them about, how to raise questions and wonderings about the information, and how to study pictures and photographs to get more information about the topic of the book.
Students will learn to not only use the word-solving skills that they have been learning across the year, but to pay particular attention to times when they are reading and parts or words seem confusing. Lessons will focus on how to learn and think about new words and important words about the topic.
Writing Unit 4: How To Books
In this unit, the genre of how-to writing weaves together drawing (with labels of course) and writing, and it has a hands-on, action-oriented feel.
Writing Unit 4: How To Books- Learning from a Mentor
1st Grade ELA
Reading Unit 4: Readers Get To Know Characters in Books
In Topic 2, Students will learn the difference between reading and close reading. They will learn to reread in order to learn more about the story and characters. Also, children will learn how to determine lessons that characters learn. Children might compare and contrast lessons a character learns in one book with lessons characters learn in other books.
Unit 4: Nonfiction Chapter Books
This unit takes children on a writing journey that builds in sophistication. It begins with instruction in how to make a basic type of information book- a picture book- and ends with children creating multiple information chapter books, filled with elaboration, interesting text elements, and pictures that supplement the teaching of the words.
Topic 1 will spotlight using a teaching voice and writing a lot, so that each page teaches new and interesting information. Writers will also learn how to answer readers’ questions and to use those questions to add and subtract information. Children will also self-assess against the Informational Writing Checklist.
Writing Unit 4: Nonfiction Chapter Books
In Topic 2 students will progress toward writing chapter books, which gives them opportunities to work on structuring their texts. Children’s writing will slow down during this bend because the books they will be producing will become longer and more ambitious. Students will also work on adding common elements found in information books: how-to pages, stories, introductions, and conclusions.
2nd Grade ELA
Reading Unit 4: Gem Unit-Recommitting to Reading
Reading Unit 5: Getting to Know Characters in Series Reading Clubs
Series books are designed to hook kids into characters and familiar adventures. Children inevitably fall in love with the recurring characters, who somehow always find themselves in challenging predicaments and situations, yet exhibit reassuringly predictable behaviors and beliefs. Once hooked, children will read and read, finding it easier to push their thinking past where they’ve been now that they are in familiar terrain. Kids will eagerly apply newly learned skills to the series they are in; thus their understanding of prediction, character development, and patterns will grow.
The club work in this unit is an ideal match for series book reading; not only will children relish the chance to talk to club mates about the adventures of a beloved cast of characters, they will also inevitably stretch one another’s thinking, landing on bigger ideas as a group than they would were they to read these books on their own.
Writing Unit 4: Recommitting to Writing and Cursive Handwriting
Students will also learn basic cursive letter formation.
3rd Grade ELA
NEW! Reading Unit 5: Learning Through Reading: Countries Around the World (January-February)
In this unit, students see that they can read to learn and undertake inquiry through reading. This unit helps students read with purposeful intention, deciding what information is most important to hold onto, comparing and contrasting information from different texts and finally, how to organize and synthesize their learning to teach others.
In Topic 1 (Bend I), students will embark on purposeful inquiry; reading to learn about life in another country. As they are reading, students will be seeking to answer questions such as: What shapes the way people live in this country? What makes this place stand-out from the United States? In what ways is life in this country similar to my own? For scaffolding purposes, everyone in the class will be conducting their research on the same country. You may wish to create small research teams for this work.
NEW! Writing Unit 3: Changing the World
Third graders are full of opinions and are eager to persuade others. This unit channels those opinions into writing that can make a difference. In this unit, students learn to introduce topics, support these by listing reasons, using transition words to connect the various parts of their pieces and to conclude. This unit moves writers from writing opinion speeches to forming cause groups to support various causes. Across the unit, there is a focus on considering audience and considering word choice in light of audience.
This unit has two major goals. The first is to help writers live more wide-awake lives, taking in all that is happening around them--injustices, small kindnesses, and so on--and writing about these in ways that move others to action and new thinking. The second major goal is to help writers become increasingly more adept at opinion writing in ways that provide the beginning steps for more formal essay writing.
4th Grade ELA
Unit 3 Reading: Reading the Weather, Reading the World (December-January) Continued
In Topic 3 (Bend III)
Research teams will swap topics and begin studying a different extreme weather or natural disaster event. Students will apply their newly learned research skills, and layer in the new skill of comparing and contrasting. This work will prepare students to find patterns and relationships across texts. At this point students should be reading across several texts and considering the author’s agenda and credibility. Students will learn that to analyze author’s purpose they will look closely at author’s craft and their writing choices. Finally, students will use their newfound knowledge to be persuasive writers. They will generate a pamphlet, video, poster or speech advocating for the change they want to see in the world.
Engaging Scenario
At the end of the unit have students collect the notes and the information they have gathered during the unit. Ask students to develop an infographic, top 10 list, public service announcement or persuasive letter to show their learning
Writing Unit 3: Boxes and Bullets (December-January) Continued
In this bend, “Personal to Persuasive,” is about transference and raising the quality of work. Students will develop persuasive opinions that are more generalized and develop a plan for a persuasive essay. They will then be charged with taking themselves through the process of developing and drafting this essay with greater independence, transferring and applying all they have learned and all the resources, tools, charts, and so on at hand. They will learn to include a greater variety of evidence, such as outside evidence, and revise not only this current piece but all of their essays by elaborating on how that evidence connects to their reason and opinion. They will again self-assess, reflecting on their growth across the unit and setting future goals. Students will edit using all they have learned about conventions and, in particular, ensure that all grade-appropriate words are spelled correctly. They will publish their pieces in a final celebration.
5th Grade ELA
Gem Units for Reading and Writing: (3 weeks in January)
A Gem Unit is an opportunity for teachers to pull small groups based on the needs of the students in different areas of reading and writing. It is also a time for students to complete writing of their choice from genres they are have learned about and gives them time to read from genres of their choosing as well.
NEW! Writing Unit 5: The Research-Based Argument Essay (Mid January- Mid February)
Topic 1 (Bend 1): Establishing and Supporting Positions
In this bend students will be exploring the issue of whether chocolate milk should be served in schools or not. To develop a solid argument, you will teach students how to research both sides of the issue rather than making a snap judgment based primarily on opinion. Students will study both print and digital texts to understand differing perspectives on this issue. They will then draft letters to the principal, based on evidence and data from sources that is both paraphrased and quoted.
New! Reading Unit 5: Argument and Advocacy: Research and Debatable Issues (mid January-March)
Overview of Unit: In this unit students continue to take the path of ambitious reading work in which it is necessary for them to engage in order to meet the expectations of global standards, as well as to live as active, critical citizens. The standards call for students to read across multiple points of view on topics or issues, comparing ideas, information and perspectives. This is also work that is at the heart of being an informed citizen- understanding different positions on issues and the reasons behind these position, analyzing the strengths and merits of each of these positions and ultimately, forming one’s own thoughtful viewpoint on an issue.
Topic 1: Launching into Investigating Issues
In Topic I of this unit you will rally students into work that is foundational to the unit-the work of analyzing arguments-with a one day argument intensive in which students read and analyze a variety of arguments. With this experience in mind, students will then work in research clubs, each club studying a debatable, current issue. (Should we ban or support zoos? Are extreme sports worth the risks?) To study the issue, students will read text sets included in the units which are designed to offer different perspectives on each issue. A resources to use with multiple articles is Calkins high interest nonfiction text sets. Students will read a variety of informational and argumentative texts, and then debate the issue, work which will push their cross-texts synthesis skills to new heights, as well as support their abilities to make their own arguments. Across the bend, they will continue to engage in debates, while you ramp up the level of their research, teaching them research is a cycle of reading and thinking in response to that thinking and showing them how to summarize arguments and think about how to respond with their own meaningful argument and claims.
Jennifer Wiley: K-2 Curriculum Specialist
Email: wileyj@parkhill.k12.mo.us
Website: www.parkhill.k12.mo.us
Location: 7703 Northwest Barry Road, Kansas City, MO, USA
Phone: 816-359-6253
Twitter: @icjenwiley
Kim Fette: 3-5 Curriculum Specialist
Email: fettek@parkhill.k12.mo.us
Website: parkhill.k12.mo.us
Location: 7703 Northwest Barry Road, Kansas City, MO, USA
Phone: 816-359-5750
Twitter: @kimElemCoach