In this minilesson, students explore the use of dialogue tags such as "he said" or "she answered" in picture books and novels, discussing their purpose, form, and style.

Students select what they believe to be the most important word in a text that they have read and justify their choice using examples from the text.

Students explore how active and passive voices are appropriate to different audiences. They examine online resources, and then draw conclusions about verb use, which they apply to their own writing.

Students make purposeful choices for their reading materials, thinking about their reasons for reading a book and using strategies to match books to their abilities.

In this first unit of second grade, students read multiple versions of a classic fairy tale, Cinderella. Through reading various versions of the same story, students are not only exposed to a wide variety of cultures, but they are also challenged to think about how the culture, or setting, of the story influences the plot. In first grade fiction, students took a trip around the world, exploring a wide variety of themes and stories from all over, in order to build a foundational understanding that our world is made up of many diverse and unique cultures. This unit builds on the exposure to new cultures students received in first grade and provides an opportunity for students to explore the idea that even though cultures may appear to be different, there are many things embedded within the unique characteristics of different cultures that make them similar. Storytelling, and the role of storytelling, is one of those similarities. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with others in the sequence, helps students build empathy and understanding of the world around them.

The different versions of Cinderella help students understand the components of a fairy tale and the lessons associated with traditional fairy tales. Over the course of the unit, students will be challenged to ask and answer questions about the text and illustrations as a way of deepening their understanding of plot, setting, and characters. In the first section of the unit, students will focus deeply on the setting, characters, and plot of the different versions of Cinderella, learning to compare and contrast the nuances across different versions. In the second section of the unit, students will read Cinderella stories that vary from the traditional plot structure but still include the underlying theme that a person’s actions (good or bad) influence his/her life outcomes. In this section students will dive deeply into three texts to analyze different characters’ traits and how the author uses those traits to help reveal the lesson of the story.

Students become online authors in this lesson in which they write and post a short story using wiki technology.

Students and the teacher produce a class book through a group-writing activity, focusing on a basic before-during-after sequence of events.

Students hone their teamwork skills and play off each other's writing strengths as they participate in prewriting activities for a story to be written collaboratively by the whole class.

Using a collaborative story written by students, the teacher leads a shared-revising activity to help students consider content when revising, with students participating in the marking of text revisions.

Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing as they compose free-form poems using imagery to describe a color.

Pat Mora's poem "Echoes" demonstrates that our senses are powerful tools for literary analysis and comprehension as students use their senses to discover new ways to read and write.

Students learn that what you read in books can really add up when they analyze literary texts for economic concepts.

Multidimensional, challenging, and popular with students, comics provide an excellent way to introduce the concept of genres.

This lesson uses comic strip frames to define plot and reinforce the structure that underlies a narrative. Students finish by writing their own original narratives.

The goal of the Listening and Learning Strand is for students to acquire language competence through listening, specifically building a rich vocabulary, and broad knowledge in history and science by being exposed to carefully selected, sequenced, and coherent read-alouds. The 9 units (or domains) provide lessons (including images and texts), as well as instructional objectives, core vocabulary, and assessment materials. The domain topics include: Different Lands, Similar Stories; Fables and Stories; The Human Body; Early World Civilizations; Early American Civilizations; Astronomy; Animals & Habitats; Fairy Tales; and History of the Earth.

The Listening and Learning Strand consists of a series of read_alouds organized by topics (called domains), many of which are informational in nature. The goal of the Listening and Learning Strand is for students to acquire language competence through listening, specifically building a rich vocabulary, and broad knowledge in history and science by being exposed to carefully selected, sequenced, and coherent read_alouds. The 9 units (or domains) provide lessons (including images and texts), as well as instructional objectives, core vocabulary, and assessment materials. The domain topics include: Fighting for a Cause; Fairy Tales and Tall Tales; Cycles in Nature; Insects; Ancient Greek Civilizations; Greek Myths; Charlotte's Web; and Immigration.

The Skills Strand teaches the mechanics of reading_Ŕstudents are taught systematic and explicit phonics instruction as their primary tool for decoding written English. By the end of grade 2, students have learned all of the sound_spelling correspondences in the English language and are able to decode written material they encounter. In addition to phonics, students also are taught spelling, grammar, and writing during the Skills Strand. A downloadable story "Jump!" with illustrations is provided for instruction.

This module uses literature and informational text such as "My Librarian Is a Camel" to introduce students to the power of literacy and how people around the world access books. This module is intentionally designed to encourage students to embrace a love of literacy and reading. There are 3 units in this module. Unit 1 explores the question ĺづWhy do people seek the power of reading?ĺăĺ In unit 2 students explore their own ĺづpowers of readingĺăĺ that help them access text. And unit 3 explores how geography impacts readersĺăĚă access to books.

This module ensures that students read, write, listen and speak to learn the history and contributions of Native Americans in New York State, particularly the Iroquois Confederacy. It focuses on reading and listening to primary and secondary sources to gather specific details and determine central ideas, and to reinforce reading fluency and paragraph writing. Students will read literature to develop an understanding of setting, characterization and theme, and informational writing.

The goal of the Listening and Learning Strand is for students to acquire language competence through listening, specifically building a rich vocabulary, and broad knowledge in history and science by being exposed to carefully selected, sequenced, and coherent read_alouds. The 9 units (or domains) provide lessons (including images and texts), as well as instructional objectives, core vocabulary, and assessment materials. The domain topics include: Nursery Rhymes and Fables; Five Senses; Stories; Plants; Farms; Kings and Queens; Seasons and Weather; Colonial Towns; and Taking Care of the Earth.