Once students have learned how to conduct close-reading of a visual text, they reflect on how they might transfer this skill to the written word.

Once students have learned how to conduct close-reading of a visual text, they reflect on how they might transfer this skill to the written word.

In this unit students dive into the world of Greek mythology. Over the course of the unit students will read the classic myths of Pandora, Arachne, and Echo and Narcissus. In reading the myths, students will gain a deeper understanding of the gods and mortals in ancient Greece and how the ancient Greeks used mythology as a way to make sense of and interpret the world around them. Students will also continue the thematic exploration from previous units about how a person's beliefs, ethics, or values influence that person's behavior.

Over the course of the unit, students will read multiple versions of the classic myths. The primary focus of this unit is on close reading and analyzing the differences among the versions and critically analyzing an author's choice of genre. In doing so, students will be challenged to think about how the structural elements of different genres, particularly prose, drama, and verse, allow a reader to better understand a story or text. Students will also explore how the point of view in which a story is written, either third-person point of view or first-person point of view, changes the way a story is told and the depth of information that a reader knows. Another focus of this unit is determining the central theme of the myths. Because the stories in this unit are shorter than the novels students have read so far, this unit offers students practice in finding the theme of a shorter text and explaining how the author uses evidence to develop the theme.

This lesson will teach students key vocabulary needed to understand computing systems. The lesson starts by showing a BrainPOP video to introduce key vocabulary. Then, the teacher and students will have a class discussion to review the components of a computer. After reviewing, the teacher and students will work together to label the parts of a computer and discuss each component as it is labeled. To wrap up the lesson, the teacher and students will continue to review the computer components by completing the computing systems matching game.

Links and attachments to 2020 Cups and Conversations recordings, powerpoints and referenced materials.The “Cups and Conversations” series is a time for colleagues from across the Commonwealth to informally talk about how they are supporting families and young children through the COVID-19 crisis. These meetings occur on the first Wednesday of the month at 3:30 p.m. Register for the Cups and Conversation Recurring Series 

This section includes recorded and archived webinars on the topics of digital citizenship, internet safety, parenting around technology and other related topics. For new free webinars and additional recordings see Digital Respons-Ability's website.

Learn about inspirations for a story and how that story can inspire a new song.  Mary and Mike travel to the Music Resource Center in Charlottesville to meet up with the author, Marc Boston, and the musician, Tevin White. Marc shares his beautiful children’s book, inspired by his own daughter. And Tevin shares a special song that he wrote, inspired by Marc’s book. Together, we learn how to stop carrying so much stuff!

In this science-based unit, students explore the world of energy. In the first half of the unit students learn what energy is, the different ways that energy is transferred from place to place, and the ways energy can be converted from one type to another. In the second half of the unit students explore the pros and cons of different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy. After learning about the different types of energy, students will grapple with what the world's energy future will look like if more renewable solutions aren't found, particularly in their communities. Through a combination of reading and research, it is our hope that students begin to build a deeper understanding of energy and its influence on our lives.

This unit builds on to the informational reading skills and strategies developed in previous units. At this point in the year we assume that students are able to actively read and annotate informational texts in order to build understanding of a topic. Therefore, the focus of this unit is on refining students' ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will continue working on determining the main idea, summarizing key details, explaining cause and effect, using text features to improve understanding, and explaining how an author uses text features to elaborate on key concepts and ideas.

In this unit students explore immigration by reading a series of narrative nonfiction and fiction texts that highlight the experiences of early and recent immigrants. In the first part of the unit students are pushed to notice and think about the different reasons people choose to leave their homes and settle in a new community or country. Students will then be pushed to think about the different memories, cultural traits, goods, ideas, languages, and skills that individuals and families bring with them when they move to a new place and how these characteristics enrich the community. While students are exposed to a wide variety of immigrant experiences over the course of the unit, not every experience or feeling about immigration is captured in this unit. Because many of our students are first- or second-generation immigrants, it is crucial to be sensitive to and respect the varying experiences and feelings of our students and families. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with others, will help students build sensitivity and empathy for varying cultures and experiences within the United States.

In this unit, students study the rovers Spirit and Opportunity and their remarkable missions to Mars. Through a combination of reading, analyzing images and photographs, and participating in engineering and design labs, students will begin to understand the complexity, preparation, and diligence involved in space missions. Students will grapple with why the engineering and design process, particularly continually planning, trying, and evaluating, is a crucial part of a successful mission. This unit also allows students to make connections between content learned in math and content learned in previous science units, solidifying the importance and value of STEM. It is our hope that this unit inspires students to explore engineering and STEM not only in space but in the world around them.

In this unit, students build their skills in consuming scientific and technical texts. Students will practice explaining the connection between two or more scientific ideas or concepts in a text. Additionally, students will be challenged to draw on and integrate information from two or more texts in order to describe a scientific idea, concept, or process in depth. This unit also continues the study of point of view and analyzing how the point of view influences what and how information is presented to a reader. The Mighty Mars Rover is written to captivate and engage a reader, while the NASA press releases are written to inform the public of the progress and findings of the Mars rover missions. Students will be challenged to compare and contrast the point of view of each text and the strategies each author uses based on the point of view and desired audience. Since this is the culminating unit of the course, all other informational standards will be spiraled throughout the unit.

Lessons designed by experts to help students develop skills needed to navigate the digital world, critically consume information and responsibly produce and share content. The source touts that they are designed to be interactive and engaging, these lessons involve group discussion, activities, quizzes, and games that have been built in consultation with teens. They can be used either collectively or individually in the classroom.

This lesson remixes a lesson entitled Teach Design: Portkey (developed by Austin Meyer) by employing it as an anticipatory activity for an instructional unit on Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." Students follow the steps outlined in the original lesson and then return back to this activity frequently during their reading of the unit text in order to deepen their understanding of the unit text and to reinforce the author's message concerning the power of stories in our lives.

In this unit students explore and experience the works of five award winning authors and illustrators; Grace Lin, Yuyi Morales, John Parra, Monica Brown and Jerry Pinkney. Students learn about each author or illustrator's life and his or her inspiration for becoming an author and/or illustrator. Students will think critically and make connections between the author or illustrator's life and the stories he or she writes or illustrates, and how each author's unique personality is reflected in the words or pictures. By studying a wide variety of authors and illustrators, it is our hope that the foundations will be set for a life-long interest in reading and books. Author studies help students develop a deeper attachment to books while also noticing and identifying the many different ways in which authors write. It is also our hope that students will use the authors in this unit as writing mentors, mimicking the author's style while also building confidence in their own writing and unique ideas. Another underlying focus of this unit is on helping students identify and explain why certain books win awards, and the types of awards that are given. In future units and grades students will read additional award winning stories written or illustrated by the different authors and illustrators from the unit.

In reading this unit builds on the first three units and assumes that students are inquisitive consumers of text, asking and answering questions while listening to and enjoying a story. Students will continue to work on retelling a story, including key details about setting, characters and major events. Students will also continue to be challenged to'read' the illustrations and think about how the illustrations help a reader better understand what is happening in the story. At the end of this unit, students should also be able to clearly articulate and define the role of the author and illustrator and why they are both important.

In writing students will continue to write daily in response to the text. At this point, students should be able to draw or write an answer that correctly answers the question. In this unit, students will be challenged to details to their writing to show a deeper understanding of the question. Over the course of the unit students will also write opinion pieces about which book by the author or illustrator was their favorite and why.

In this unit, students are exposed to familiar stories with predictable patterns and illustrations. Exposure to predictable texts is incredibly important for beginning readers as they begin to explore the world of reading independently. Predictable texts are incredibly engaging for students, allowing them to anticipate words, phrases, and events on their own and better follow the storyline sequence of a story. The story patterns also allow students to try and read the stories on their own, using the repetitive texts and pictures as a guide for either reading or pretending to read the story. Predictable texts are also incredibly important for exposing students to phonological awareness concepts in context, particularly rhyme, rhythm, and fluency. In order for students to reap these benefits, however, they need to deeply engage with the stories. This means that the stories need to be read, reread, retold, and reread some more so that students are able to build the confidence they need to pretend to read or read the text on their own. Within the context of this unit, students are only exposed to the text once; therefore, it is the responsibility of the teacher to find ways to bring the stories to life in other parts of the day so that students are able to reap the rewards of engaging with predictable texts or, if necessary, to slow down the pacing of the unit in order to include multiple readings of a text.

In reading, students will continue to be challenged to ask and answer questions about the texts they read daily. Students will begin to work on retelling what happens to the characters in the story, using key details from the text and illustrations. Because the stories are repetitive in nature, this unit provides a strong foundation for teaching how to retell a story. Another focus of this unit is on understanding how authors and illustrators use illustrations and repetition to help a reader understand the main events in a story. Students will learn how to closely'read' illustrations for subtle clues about character feeling or foreshadowing clues for what is going to happen next in a story. In order to engage deeply in the content, students will continue to develop active participation and discussion habits, allowing them to learn from and with one another.

In writing, students will continue to write daily in response to the text. In Unit 1, the focus was on establishing the routines and procedures necessary for daily writing about reading. In this unit, students will continue to write daily in response to the text with a focus on using words and pictures to correctly answer the question.

This lesson reimagines an existing instructional resource, "The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck" created by Franky Abbott, Digital Public Library of America.

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In this remix, "The Grapes of Wrath" and the related primary source documents are exchanged for "Farewell to Manzanar" and related primary sources accessed through secondary open-source databases.

Discussion questions ask students to consider the memoir in light of its historical context and students gain experience reading and evaluating visual sources including political cartoons and propaganda posters to understand how elements of rhetorical can shape and/or reflect cultural values.

This fidget book was designed to be used in digital citizenship and internet safety lessons for elementary students. It has lesson supports, coloring pages, self-reflection guides and more. 

In this unit students begin to explore the concepts of fairness and justice. Over the course of the unit students are exposed to numerous ordinary people who worked together to overcome injustice and fight for a better future for others. Students will grapple with what it means if something is fair and just, particularly in regard to race, class, gender, and ability. Then students will be challenged to think about the different ways in which people showed courage, patience, and perseverance in order to challenge things that were fundamentally unfair. Over the course of the unit it is our hope that students are able to acknowledge and realize that things aren't always fair in the world around them, but that doesn't mean that it always has to be that way. It is our hope that students see that identifying the problem is only the first step and that anyone who has the right mindset and beliefs can inspire others to work together to create a more just future for everyone. Essentially, we hope that this unit begins to plant the seed within our students that they can be activists and take charge of their own lives and communities. No one is too young to inspire change. It is important to note that this unit primarily focuses on big-scale changes. Additional projects and lessons should be added to help students understand how what they learned connects to change on a smaller scale.

In reading, students will continue to work on developing their informational reading strategies, particularly when reading a collection of narrative nonfiction texts. The focus of this unit is on reinforcing and practicing targeted informational strategies in the context of a narrative structure. In particular, students will be pushed to describe the connection between individuals, events, and pieces of information. Students will also be challenged to think about the reasons an author gives to support a point and how those reasons look slightly different in a narrative informational text than in a scientific or history-based informational text.

In writing, students will continue to work on writing responses to the text that provide relevant and accurate information along with some evidence of inferential or critical thinking.

In this unit students study the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of the youth and children who experienced the struggles, hardships, victories, defeats, and possibilities firsthand. Students will be challenged to analyze the key characteristics shared by children who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, particularly their courage, commitment, bravery, and unending commitment to fighting for the cause. Over the course of the unit students will realize that through community organizing and a strong desire for justice, regular people, especially youth, were able to come together to use a variety of nonviolent tactics to fight for change, even when faced with resistance, oppression, and violence on a daily basis. The stories and experiences in the unit will highlight that the Civil Rights Movement was driven by the heroism of regular people and that anyone can participate in the fight against injustice. It is our hope that this unit, in conjunction with other units from the sequence, will empower students to notice and challenge the injustices, relying on their knowledge of history and the lessons they've learned from those who have fought before them.

In this unit students refine their skills as critical consumers of texts by analyzing the point of view from which a text is written and noticing how the point of view influences what and how information is presented to a reader. Students will read multiple accounts of the same topic or event and be challenged to notice the similarities and differences in the points of view they represent and how the author uses evidence and reasons to support a particular point of view. Photographs are an important part of the texts in the unit. Students will be pushed to analyze photographs as a source of information to support an author's point. Students will also continue to practice determining one or more main ideas of a text and explaining how they are supported by key details, summarizing a text, and explaining the relationship between one or more events or individuals in a historical text. Over the course of the unit students will also be required to access information from multiple sources in order to integrate information and draw conclusions about an event or topic.