In Unit 2, students will build their ability to read and understand informational text and begin to build their knowledge of frogs through closely reading excerpts of the informational text Everything You Need to Know about Frogs and Other Slippery Creatures. Students will use the information gained in reading these excerpts to help them write answers to the questions generated in Unit 1 after reading poems and narratives about frogs. For a mid-unit assessment, students will demonstrate their reading skills through reading a new text about reptiles and amphibians, and they will gather information to answer a research question.
In the second half of the unit, students will continue with the same central text and build their knowledge by studying three "freaky frogs" that have specific adaptations according to where they live: the glass frog, the Amazon horned frog, and the water-holding frog. They will read about these frogs to answer this question in an informative paragraph: How does where a frog lives affect how it looks and/or acts? In the End of Unit 2 Assessment, students read another excerpt of text about the poison dart frog, gather information to answer a research question, and write an on-demand informative paragraph to answer the question.
RI.3.1, RI.3.3, RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.7, RI.3.8, W.3.2, W.3.7, W.3.8, L.3.1d,e, L.3.4

The curriculum map is the single-best source to understand the year’s work in the module lessons for each grade level: a detailed view of the scope and sequence of the modules showing module titles, topics, targets, and standards explicitly taught and formally assessed in each module.

Formulating, organizing, and presenting ideas clearly in writing. Reviews basic principles of rhetoric. Focuses on development of a topic, thesis, choice of appropriate vocabulary, and sentence structure to achieve purpose. Develops idiomatic prose style. Gives attention to grammar and vocabulary usage. Special focus on strengthening skills of bilingual students. Successful completion satisfies Phase I of the Writing Requirement. The purpose of this course is to develop your writing skills so that you can feel confident writing the essays, term papers, reports, and exams you will have to produce during your career here at MIT. We will read and analyze samples of expository writing, do some work on vocabulary development, and concentrate on developing your ability to write clear, accurate, sophisticated prose. We will also deal with the grammar and mechanical problems you may have trouble with.

Students will be involved in a group research of "How to" books and videos.  Then, they will create their own "How to" writing using See Saw as their on-line creation "house".  Students will work in collaborative groups during the entire process and learn how to complete the task as a team.  Students will be given daily feedback from their teacher as well as final peer and teacher feedback.

There are currently three million Indigenous people, from more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations, living in the United States. Since 1492 and the arrival of the first European explorers, Indigenous people's land has been violently seized, leading to a devastating decline in population and the striping away of key aspects of Indigenous culture. It is impossible to synthesize the diverse history and culture of Indigenous people into one unit, but it is important for students to understand that Indigenous people have been, and still are, an important part of our country's history and future. Therefore, this unit has a few focuses. The first focus is on providing students with an overarching understanding of Indigenous people and their history, using the book The People Shall Continue as a guide. After reading the text, students will participate in a guided research project to learn more about an Indigenous nation near where they live. The second part of the unit focuses on different Indigenous people who have worked hard and overcome hardships to create equal opportunities and experiences for Indigenous people today. After reading a few biographies as a class, students will research additional Indigenous heroes to learn more about their achievements, sacrifices, and passions. The goal of the second part of the unit is to shine a light on key Indigenous figures and emphasize the idea that Indigenous people have been and always will be an important part of our country.

Learning to Share Information (5 days)
1.Today we are going to start a research project on Greek gods. We started reading A True Book: Ancient Greece in shared reading today. One of the things that was really important to the ancient Greeks was religion. They believed in many gods and they believed that their gods looked and acted like humans, but had incredible powers and lived forever.
2. Yesterday you chose which god you were going to be an expert on. I have the list up here. Also, you started to research and write notes on your graphic organizer. I showed you how to make sections to take notes in and how to add more to each section as you read through different sources.
3. For the past two days, you have been working hard to gather information about your gods. All of you have several sections filled in. Some of those sections have lots of information and some of those sections only have one or two facts. Today we are going to talk about deciding which information to keep and which information to get rid of.
4. Yesterday you worked on choosing information to share in your infographic. Today you will need to begin planning how you will want your infographic to look.
5. Yesterday you used your graphic organizer to plan your infographic. Today you can start making your infographic.
Sharing

WEEK 9, DAY 1
Learning about Informative Writing
WEEK 9, DAY 2
Learning to Evaluate Informative/ Writing
WEEK 9, DAY 3
Learning to Write Informative Pieces
WEEK 9, DAY 4
Learning to Write Informative Pieces
WEEK 9, DAY 5
Learning to Write Informative Pieces

Students will learn how to use the Internet to find facts about their topic. Students will be searching safe sites that are credible, teaching students that finding accurate information is very important when being an investigator.

Students answer the question, Is it an Alligator or a Crocodile?, after learning to tell the difference through their research.

This project is meant to be a flexible way for students to research Michigan with student choice and voice. Feel free to modify it to suit your students' needs.

Supporting inquiry-based research projects, the Animal Inquiry interactive invites elementary students to explore animal facts and habitats using writing prompts to guide and record their findings.

This unit challenges students to view history with a critical lens, and to notice how there is always more than one side to a story. The unit begins with the Mayflower and helps students develop an understanding of why so many colonists decided to leave England and travel to the New World. Students will explore the hardships faced by the colonists, both on the ship and once they arrive in the New World, and how the colonists persevered and relied on the geography and environment to meet their needs. Students will then learn about the Wampanoag, the people who were on the land before the Pilgrims arrived. They will learn about what the Wampanoag valued, how they viewed the Pilgrims, and how the arrival of explorers and settlers negatively influenced their tribe. Then students will be pushed to analyze what really happened at the first Thanksgiving, and whose story is being told. Students will realize that the traditional story of the first Thanksgiving contains many myths that don't accurately reflect the Wampanoag and what really happened in 1621.

The K-5 Text Analyses includes an analysis of every central text used in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum, focusing on four specific qualitative aspects of complexity: meaning, structure, language features, and knowledge demands. This document includes text analyses for grade 5.

In this unit, students build a deeper understanding, appreciation, and respect for the wide variety of religions found in the world by reading two core texts: What Is Religion? and One World, Many Religions: The Ways We Worship. In today’s society, illiteracy regarding religion is widespread and fuels prejudice and bullying. The negative impacts of religious illiteracy and intolerance can be minimized by teaching religion in a non-devotional, academic perspective. Therefore, this unit challenges students to build a broader awareness and understanding of religion by exposing students to a diversity of religious views and educating students about some of the most common religions. It is important to note that this unit is not intended to promote the acceptance of one particular religion or serve as a place to practice religion. Instead, it is our goal that this unit will help students better understand the differences and similarities among the religions and cultures of their classmates, and begin to appreciate and respect differences in religion.

As readers, this unit challenges students to synthesize information across two texts to build a deeper understanding of a topic. Students will analyze how authors support points, what structures they include to emphasize key ideas, and how different texts provide different perspectives and information about similar topics.

In this unit, students explore the relationship between living things and their environment and how the environment can both positively and negatively impact a species’ ability to survive. Using the Next Generation Science Standards as a guide, students will learn about different species, what they need for survival, their life cycle, and how they have adapted for survival. Then students will be challenged to create arguments that explain why some organisms are able to survive well, some survive less well, and others can’t survive at all in certain habitats. Through this unit, along with others in the sequence, students will use the scientific information they learn to think critically about the world around them.

The Science of Living Things texts were chosen as mentor texts for this unit because the author, Bobbie Kalman, uses text features and clear language to clearly communicate complex concepts about the animal kingdom, life cycles, and animal adaptations. As readers, students will be challenged to constantly ask and answer questions about key details in the text, explicitly referring to the text to support an answer or a question. Over the course of the unit, students will also deepen their understanding of how Bobbie Kalman uses text features to not only organize information, but to help a reader learn new information and facts about a subject. Students will also work on using context clues to figure out the meaning of genre-specific vocabulary, find the main idea of a section, and explain cause and effect in relation to scientific concepts.

In this unit, students apply what they have learned about the research process from Unit 2 to research and write an essay about a freaky frog of their choice as part of their performance task for this module. Students begin this unit by choosing a frog to study and reading informational texts to gather information about their frog and its unique adaptations. Students build on their learning about informational writing from Unit 2 to plan and draft an essay, discussing what makes an essay more complex than a paragraph.
For the mid-unit assessment, students will draft the second proof paragraph to their own essay. Then through mini lessons and peer critique, students will continue to draft, revise, and edit their writing. Finally, in the end of unit assessment, students incorporate teacher and peer feedback to revise their essays on demand. The unit ends with students compiling their writing from across the module to create the final performance task, a book about freaky frogs.
W.3.2, W.3.4, W.3.5, W.3.6, W.3.7, W.3.10, L.3.1d, L.3.1e, L.3.1i, L.3.1j, and L.3.6