4 Grade ELA-Writing Curriculum

BOARD APPROVED, AUGUST 2015

4th Grade ELA-Writing Curriculum

Course Description: The fourth-grade curriculum familiarizes students with the genres they will regularly encounter throughout school--essays and research reports. Students learn that the lenses they bring to reading fiction can also be brought to writing fiction, as they develop believable characters with struggles and motivations and rich stories to tell. Students learn the value of organization and form as they gather evidence to support and express an opinion on topics they know well. They tackle historical research in which they collect evidence and use details to vividly describe people and events long ago and far away. Students build on their learning of essay writing and apply it with increasing sophistication to a unit on literary essays--that is, writing about fiction. Scope and Sequence:

4th Grade Writing Units

Quarter Unit Title

1

1 Getting to Know Yourself as a Writer

2 The Arc of a Story

2

3 Boxes and Bullets

4 Bringing History to Life 3

5 Poetry Anthologies: Writing, Thinking and Seeing More

6 Literary Essay 4

7 If - Then Revision Unit

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BOARD APPROVED, AUGUST 2015

Unit 1: Getting to Know Ourselves as Writers

Subject: Writer's Workshop Grade: 4 Name of Unit: Getting to Know Ourselves as Writers Length of Unit: two weeks, middle to end of August Overview of Unit: In this unit, students will learn how to author their writing lives by becoming a classroom community of writers. Students will generate many seed ideas and draft a short, narrative piece to start the year and build stamina around writing. Additionally grammar, language and conventions standards will be taught to set up this expectation in all writing across the year.

Getting Ready for the Unit: Questions for the teacher to consider for routines and procedures: What will the system be for homework? What will your system be for reading and collecting student work? Will you collect the work from one table one day, and another table the next day? Or will you devote one evening a week to reading all student work? Will partners sit beside each other in the meeting and work area? Will you ask partners to find their own meeting space? Where will paper and tools be kept? What system will be in place to ensure students have access to the supplies they need without coming to you?

Read Lucy Calkins' If...Then...Raising the Level of Personal Narrative Writing

Pre-Assessment (given prior to starting the unit): Administer Narrative On-Demand in one 45-minute session (page 182 of Writing Pathways K-5)

Priority Standards for unit: W.4.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. W.4.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. L.4.1: Demonstrate command of conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. L.4.2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

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BOARD APPROVED, AUGUST 2015

SL.4.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Supporting Standards for unit: W.4.3.a: Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally. W.4.3.b: Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations. W.4.3.c: Use a variety of transitional words and phrases to manage the sequence of events. W.4.3.d: Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely. W.4.3.e: Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.

W.4.5: With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 4 here.)

L.4.1.a: Use relative pronouns (who, whose, whom, which, that) and relative adverbs (where, when, why).

L.4.1.b: Form and use the progressive (e.g., I was walking; I am walking; I will be walking) verb tenses.

L.4.1.c: Use modal auxiliaries (i.e. helping verbs) (e.g., can, may, must) to convey various conditions.

L.4.1.d: Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional patterns (e.g., a small red bag rather than a red small bag).

L.4.1.e: Form and use prepositional phrases. L.4.1.f: Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting inappropriate fragments

and run-ons.* L.4.1.g: Correctly use frequently confused words (e.g., to, too, two; there, their).*

L.4.2.a: Use correct capitalization. L.4.2.b: Use commas and quotation marks to mark direct speech and quotations from a

text. L.4.2.c: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence. L.4.2.d: Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.

L.4.6: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domainspecific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that are basic to a particular topic (e.g. Wildlife, conservation, and endangered when discussing animal preservation).

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BOARD APPROVED, AUGUST 2015

SL.4.1.a: Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.

SL.4.1.b: Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles. SL.4.1.c: Pose and respond to specific questions to clarify or follow up on information,

and make comments that contribute to the discussion and link to the remarks of others. SL.4.1.d: Review the key ideas expressed and explain their own ideas and understanding

in light of the discussion.

Standard W.4.3 W.4.4 L.4.1 L.4.2

SL.4.1

Unwrapped Skills

Unwrapped Concepts (Students need to be able

(Students need to know)

to do)

narratives

write

real or imagined experiences or events

develop

effective technique,

descriptive details, and clear

use

event sequences

clear and coherent writing in

which the development and

organization are appropriate

produce

to task, purpose, and

audience.

command of conventions of

standard English grammar and usage when writing or

demonstrate

speaking

command of the

conventions of standard English capitalization,

demonstrate

punctuation, and spelling

effectively in a range of

collaborative discussions

(one-on-one, in groups, teacher-led) with diverse

engage

partners on grade 4 topics

and texts.

on each other's ideas

build

own ideas clearly

express

Bloom's Taxonomy

Levels apply create apply

create

apply

apply

apply

create apply

Webb's DOK

3 2 3

2

1

1

3

2 3

4

BOARD APPROVED, AUGUST 2015

Essential Questions: 1. How can I identify who I am as a writer and work to write faster, longer, stronger in a variety of situations? 2. How can I plan and develop writing pieces that hold meaning to myself and the reader? 3. How can I think about and use language in an authentic way when writing?

Enduring Understanding/Big Ideas: 1. When students identify who they are as a writers, they set attainable goals for themselves, specific to their individual needs and can be applied to any writing situation they are asked to perform in. 2. Knowing and understanding the phases of the writing process and applying those when necessary will allow students to develop meaningful pieces of writing. 3. Understanding the complexity of language and its uses will allow students to analyze how to apply it authentically to their writing.

Unit Vocabulary:

Academic Cross-Curricular Words

write demonstrate write read speak listen engage

Content/Domain Specific

narratives technique details event sequences standard English grammar

capitalization punctuation spelling language

Topic 1: Establishing a Writing Community

Engaging Experience 1 Teaching Point: "Today, I want to teach you that writers have to work really hard when developing a piece of text. In order to do this well, we need to make sure we have built a community of writers in our classroom. It's important for us to know and value who we each are as a writer. For us to do this we are going to develop some agreements today on ways we can make our classroom the best writing environment it can be." Suggested Length of Time: 1 mini-lesson Standards Addressed

Priority: N/A Supporting: N/A

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