Unit Two Curriculum Map

I can no longer post to google docs. The gadget is broken. So I will be posting my curriculum maps for each unit as an entry to the blog. This unit actually began last Monday.


This Year’s Theme: Writing is a Journey
Unit Two: First Outing-To the land of short stories
Mid-September to Mid-October

Writer’s Workshop and Listening, Speaking and Viewing
Students will compose the first draft of their short stories. They will be using the short story rubric to help them refine their writing. Students will be participating in a number of different writing activities that will help them work, both in groups and independently, on the different writing strategies we’ll be covering in class. Some of the writing strategies we’ll be studying are: dialogue, flashback, suspense, description. Certain activities-such as the dialogue activity-will have students presenting their writing to the class.

Vocabulary
The roots that we will be covering are: Cour/Cur and De. Students will complete vocabulary activities/tools on the weeks we study vocabulary to use as study tools.

Grammar/Conventions
We’ll be covering: Sentence Diagramming with adverbs, prepositions, prepositional phrases, infinitives and infinitive phrases and punctuating dialogue.

Reader’s Workshop
We will be studying three reading strategies (Questioning, Predicting and Visualizing) and applying these strategies by annotating three different short stories. We will also be reading a series of short stories that demonstrate the writing strategies we’re covering this unit: dialogue, flashback, suspense and description.

Independent Reading
Students will read daily in their independent books and outside of school to meet their grade level’s reading page requirement. Each Thursday, students will submit their reading folders a) indicating the number of pages they’ve read that week and b) with a written response to one of the Weekly Reading Questions.