Following the model of N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktales, an interview with an Elder, and personal connections to theme.

Students reflect on their school year, creating a digital scrapbook consisting of images and text to present to their school community.

Students analyze the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "We Real Cool" and then write about how the character's pool hall days might influence who the character becomes fifty years in the future.

Students work on a guided characterization project, using a graphic map to illustrate the ways a character from a book series grows and evolves over the course of the story.

This lesson provides ideas for celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by encouraging students to explore the connections between Dr. King and themselves through journaling and inquiry-based research.

Tells the story of how the Slinky, the most popular toy in American history, was invented. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Develop a commercial about the Slinky.

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Calista, an early stage reader, on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. Ms. Farrell starts by making sure Calista has a strong foundation in short vowel sounds by teaching her hand motions to remember those sounds more easily. After Calista demonstrates she knows short vowel sounds, Ms. Farrell teaches her to change one sound in a spoken word using manipulatives. Finally, Ms. Farrell helps Calista move from sound-by-sound reading to whole word reading.

Reading expert Linda Farrell helps Michael master the ‘silent e’ pattern to help him become a more accurate and ultimately more fluid reader. She begins with making sure that Michael can distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in spoken words, then teaches him a multi-sensory way to recognize the short vowel and ‘silent e’ long vowel patterns in written words. Ms. Farrell emphasizes the need to practice each skill to the point of mastery.

In this resource offered by CommonLit, Raachel Crowell discusses the disproportionately large number of boys who participate in math competitions and pursue math-related careers. Where are all the girls? That is the question. In this informational text, Crowell discusses researchers' attempt to answer this question. To support student's understanding of the text, teachers can access guiding questions, assessment questions and discussion prompts and pair with other informational texts also offered by CommonLit.

Teachers already know the importance of maximizing every minute of the literacy block. This webinar considers the benefits and costs of whole-group and small-group instruction and explores how data informs whether targeted interventions are needed in a whole-group or small-group setting. The webinar also examines scheduling options for maximizing the benefits of small-group instruction and provides practical comparisons of targeted small-group lessons versus generalized small-group lessons.

The modules in the EL Education Grades 3–8 ELA Curriculum have been designed by teachers and for teachers to meet the needs and demands of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). They exist to address and bring to life the shifts in teaching and learning required by the CCSS. To better prepare students for college and the workplace, where they will be expected to read a high volume of complex informational text and write informational text, the shifts highlight the need for students to begin to learn and practice these skills early on. This curriculum has been designed to make this learning process engaging and enjoyable with compelling texts, tasks, and topics.

Each module includes seven assessments: six unit-level assessments, one in the middle of each unit and one at the end, as well as a final performance task at the end of the module. Each of the unit-level assessments evaluates students' independent work on a reading, writing, speaking, or listening task. The final performance task is a more supported project, often involving research, in which students create an authentic real-world product.

EL Education's Grades 3–8 ELA Curriculum has been designed by teachers for teachers to meet the needs and demands of the Common Core State Standards: to address and bring to life the shifts in teaching and learning required by these higher academic standards. To prepare students for college and the workplace, where they will be expected to read a high volume of complex informational text and write informational text, the shifts highlight the need for students to learn and practice these skills early on. This curriculum has been designed to make this learning process engaging with compelling topics, texts, and tasks.

Each module comprises eight weeks of instruction, broken into three units. Each unit contains two assessments: one in the middle and one at the end of the unit. Unit 3 has an additional assessment, a performance task that is a more supported project, which often involves research.

The lesson is the heart of the module "map." When teachers ask, "How am I going to get from Point A to Point B?" the lesson shows them how to do so concisely, thoughtfully, and successfully on a day-to-day basis.

A year of instruction with EL Education Grades 3–8 ELA Curriculum consists of four modules. Teachers can choose from a total of six modules that are offered for each grade level. Before teaching a module, teachers are encouraged to read the module-level documents carefully to understand the “arc,” or story, of students’ learning. Module-level documents explain the design and flow of the content and assessments as well as how the assessments build toward the final performance task of each module. Specifically, analyzing the Module Overview, Assessment Overview, and Performance Task documents gives teachers the context they need to begin to implement a given module.

The units help the teacher really begin to consider how the implementation of the modules will look and sound in the classroom. In particular, the Unit Overview document helps teachers begin long-term planning and determine how each unit, and lessons within units, emphasize key ideas, build toward assessments, and flow together over the course of several weeks. On this page, we'll look at the Unit Overview closely.

Before you analyze specific modules or lessons at a particular grade level, it's important to become acquainted with the yearlong overview documents. The content of this page begins with the Curriculum Plan for a bird's-eye view of the Grades 3–5 Curriculum or Grades 6–8 Curriculum. This is followed with the individual grade-level Curriculum Maps. These maps can be used to help teachers and teams understand not only how each module builds on the preceding module, but also when and how often each standard is assessed. The maps also provide an opportunity to identify content connections. Lastly, this page focuses on the Foundations of Reading and the Common Core Interventions documents, which complete the picture of reading instruction and the Grades 3–8 Curriculum.

Using The Giver, students discuss the importance recorded history. This provides context for descriptive writing of students own history in a lesson that integrates personal writing, research, and literary response.

In this unit students study the California migrant farm workers’ fight for justice. Lead by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, this time period is often referred to as the start of the Latino civil rights movement. Over the course of the unit students will explore what life was like for migrant farm workers in the 1960s and the barriers that prevented them from obtaining better wages and equitable working conditions. Students will then learn about how the farm workers were able to band together under the leadership of Larry Itliong, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta to launch a multi-year movement focused on using nonviolent tactics as a way of making meaningful, long-lasting change. In particular, students will analyze how different types of nonviolent protests (boycotts, pickets, marches, strikes, and fasting) helped educate the public and influence change. Understanding the history of migrant farm workers and their struggle for justice is important for helping students understand the world around them. It is important to note that this unit is based in history. Many of the ideas and concepts in this unit are connected to current events; however, the focus of the unit is on this period in history.

In reading, this unit helps students continue to build their informational reading skills. Over the course of the unit students will be pushed to think about the connection between two or more historical events and people. Unlike previous units, this unit contains a variety of primary sources and videos that require students to use different reading and speaking and listening strategies in order to synthesize and summarize key ideas.