Learning to Write Narratives:
For the next two weeks, we are going to write a narrative fiction piece using some or all of the characters in Pinduli, but your story will need to be different from Janell Cannon’s story. You will need to decide how you will make it different. You will use the story of Pinduli as a guide, but you will need to change the story in some way to make your story different from the author’s. Will you solve the problem in a different way? Create a different problem with a different solution? Add a new character? You may be creative and decide how to change the story to make it your own.
Ways to Establish the Situation in a Narrative:
Direct statement
Dialogue
Question
Informative/Explanatory of snapshot in time
Lesson Plan Includes:
Narrative Checklist Sample
Instead of SAID (and other Word Replacements given)

Learning to Write Opinions
Students will write about "injustice."
Make a graphic organizer model
Opinion Checklist Sample
Students will work on creating their opinion graphic organizer. They will work with or near peers who share their opinion so that they have peers to share ideas with.
Writing reasons that show strong support for opinion.
Plan the conclusion and begin drafting
Ways to end an opinion piece: reinforcement, lasting thought, quotation, question, humor.
Transition Words for Opinion Texts
Students will work on revising, editing, peer revising and editing, and finishing up their final copy
Sharing

WEEK 2, DAY 1
Initial Assessment of Students’ Independent Writing
WEEK 2, DAY 2
Introduction to Opinion Writing
WEEK 2, DAY 3
Learning to Evaluate Opinions
WEEK 2, DAY 4
Learning to Write Opinions
WEEK 2, DAY 5
Learning to Write Opinions

Learning to Write an Opinion (5 days)
Day 1. For this end of year project, you are going to do one last book review, but this time it is going to be in the form of an advertisement. You will share your ads with the 2nd graders as a preview for what they will be reading next year and your goal is to get them excited about 3rd grade reading.
Students will choose their favorite book from the year and begin planning the draft of their advertisement with the checklist as their guide. Offer support to students and coach them about the features of an advertisement.
Book Review Opinion Checklist Sample
Day 2. Yesterday you started the draft of your advertisement and planned out the elements from the beginning of the checklist. Today you will finish your draft using the elements of the checklist as a guide. We will look back at the book review checklist.
Day 3. Today you will need to revise and edit your advertisement and then have a partner revise and edit. Then you will create your final ad with any artwork you want to include. Be sure to think about making a lasting memory for your reader:
-Revise and edit advertisement
-Peer revise and edit
-Create final draft with added artwork
Day 4. Today you will practice presenting your advertisements to a partner.
Review the presentation skills for the presenter and the listener.
Day 5. You will share your advertisements with a lot of 2nd graders today.
Students will present advertisements (and listen and offer feedback or ask questions if their partner is also sharing a review or ad).

Based on this model oral history experience, the toolkit includes instructional concepts, ideas, and strategies for use by educators to design a curriculum that reflects their instructional goals and the needs of their students while appreciating Vietnam veterans in their community.

In this lesson, students explore the module anchor text, My Librarian Is a Camel. They discuss what makes it different from the literary texts read in Unit 1 and read and find the gist of an excerpt of this text. This text will be used throughout the unit as students build their understanding of how people around the world access books (RI.3.4, L.3.4).
Boyds Mills Press, publisher of My Librarian Is a Camel, has granted permission to make facsimiles of pages or use brief quotes, in context, for classroom use. No adaptation or changes in the text or illustration may be made without approval of Boyds Mills Press. The following credit must be used: From My Librarian Is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs. Copyright (c) 1994 by Nancy Springer. Published by Boyds Mills Press. Reprinted by permission.
In Opening B, students return to the module guiding questions to help focus their work and build a bridge between Units 1 and 2 (SL.3.1b).
Throughout this unit, students learn about countries around the world and how some people in these countries access books. Consider researching students' countries of origin and help all students make connections between their country of origin and how books are accessed, if they are. Example: Consider asking students and their families to give a brief presentation on their country of origin or to bring in mementos to share.
Students practice their fluency in this lesson by following along and reading silently as the teacher reads excerpts from My Librarian Is a Camel in Opening A and Work Times A and B.
The research reading that students complete for homework will help build both their vocabulary and knowledge pertaining to overcoming challenges in access to education, books, and reading near and far. By participating in this volume of reading over a span of time, students will develop a wide base of knowledge about the world and the words that help describe and make sense of it.

ELA G3:M1:U1
READING LITERARY TEXTS: OVERCOMING LEARNING CHALLENGES—SCHOOL AND EDUCATION
ELA G3:M1
ELA G3:M1:U1:L1
In this Unit
Guiding Questions and Big Ideas
The Four Ts
Assessment
Content Connections
Habits of Character
Unit-at-a-Glance
Accountable Independent Reading
Supporting English Language Learners
Texts and Resources to Buy
Preparation and Materials
Technology and Media
Additional Language and Literacy Block
Lessons
Optional Activities
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ELA Grade 3
ELA G3:M1
ELA G3:M1:U1
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In Unit 1, students read literary texts about children who face challenges with access to education. Throughout the course of the unit, students read three literary texts: Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown, Rain School by James Rumford, and Nasreen's Secret School by Jeanette Winter. They read each text for gist, recount the text, determine its central message or lesson, and then closely read and answer text-dependent questions designed to help them explain how that central message or lesson is conveyed through details in the text. Students also identify the challenges faced by the characters and how they are able to overcome them.

Throughout the unit, students are introduced to routines and anchor charts that will be used throughout the rest of the module, as well as the rest of the year. In the first half of the unit, students learn about independent reading and discussion norms and receive their independent reading journals and vocabulary logs. For the mid-unit assessment, students discuss what they like about their independent reading books and the things that they have found challenging. In the second half of the unit, after learning how to write short constructed responses, students read a new literary text, answer selected response questions, and write short constructed responses about questions having to do with the text.

Culminating Activity: Reading and Writing Identity (5 days)
Day 1. Memoirs: Some of you may be thinking that this is the same as a personal narrative, but memoirs are more about looking back and reflecting as we did at the beginning of class. Narratives tell a story, but memoirs show how the event impacted the author’s life.
Characteristics of memoirs:
-Use 1st person point of view
-Use true accounts of actual events
-Describe any conflicts faced by the author
-Include the author’s feelings about the situation or event
Students will work on planning their memoir.
Day 2. Students will work on their memoirs, then share with partners.
Day 3. Finish draft
-Revise and edit your paper
-Peer revise and edit (if finished early)
-Revise some sentences to make them showing sentences
Narrative Checklist Sample
Third Grade Editing Checklist
Day 4. If you have access to technology, students could create a digital book, PowerPoint, or a different digital display.
Students will peer edit and then work on their memoir project.
Day 5. Students will move freely around the room to read each other’s memoirs. If your class needs more structure, set a time to indicate a rotating schedule.