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Color coding of Civil War Padlet backgrounds:

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Color coding of Civil War Padlet backgrounds:

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Beige: Assignment requirements
Blue: Annotated bibliographies
Purple: Other resources

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The topic of this 5th grade unit is the Civil War. Goals of the unit include:

Understanding the causes of the war, including differences between the North and the South

President Lincoln's role in the war, including his election and reelection, and assassination

Major events and battles

Life as a soldier

Life on the homefront

Prominent leaders and their roles

Effects of the war including Reconstruction

Resources include:

Fiction and non-fiction novels of varying Lexile levels

Picture books

Math

Online resources (maps, videos, music, photos)

Primary sources

Student resources for support

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Teaching the Civil War is a unit within our new ELA curriculum and will be taught to cover a social studies content requirement as well. Being new to teaching Social Studies content, I decided to revamp the unit and add new, more engaging and interesting materials and resources. I was familiar with some of the sources but added more student support and varying levels of reading material. For example, Civil War Trust (civilwartrust.org) provides videos, battle reenactments, powerpoints, lesson plans and much more to interest the 5th graders. The website epic! (https://www.getepic.com/educator-resources) allows students to listen to books from a Civil War text set to aid students comprehension.

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The text set should include 6-8 texts, including the anchor text.

The text set needs to include both narrative and informational genres.

The text set should include both print and digital texts.

The text set should include texts of varying complexity (Wall, 2014).

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Scholastic Teacher (n.d.) The Underground Railroad: Escape from slavery. Retrieved from:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/slideshows.htm
It is important to present the perspectives of all the various groups involved in the Civil War. One of these important groups is the slave population and how they were impacted by the events of the war. This Scholastic website includes slideshows that depict life as a slave as well as the struggles and successes they encountered escaping through the Underground Railroad. Videos support a variety of learners and engage students. The lessons and videos can be supplemented with the fictional picture books "Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt" and "Under the  Quilt of Night" which are lower Lexile levels to support striving readers.

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Wit & Wisdom Module 3                                      A War Between Us

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Wit & Wisdom Module 3                                      A War Between Us

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Wit & Wisdom (2017). Module 3: A war between us. New York, NY: Great Minds.  This English Language Arts curriculum focuses on the perspectives of groups living during the Civil War: Northerners, Southerners, soldiers, women and girls. Students will answer focus questions based on fiction and non-fiction readings that focus on the positive and negative outcomes of the war. These smaller writing pieces will guide students to answer a final essential question "How did the  Civil War impact people?" Support is provided for all levels of students through differentiated instruction that includes scaffolding lessons, preteaching and prereading of essential learnings, jigsaw activities and many small group activities.

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Library of Congress                                   Primary Sources

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Library of Congress                                   Primary Sources

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https://www.loc.gov/search?new=true&q=Civil+War
"History is best understood by examining the documents and reading the words of those involved in the events one is studying." These words ring true, especially when presenting the impact the Civil War had an various groups of people. It is important for students to see original documents, photos, letters and maps to help understand the people and the time period of the war.

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Abuhasnah, R. (2015, March 25). Teaching through texts to support all readers. Edutopia. Retrieved from: https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/teaching-through-text-sets-support-all-readers
In the Edutopia article, Teaching Through Text Sets to Support all Readers (2015), Abuhasnah discusses how text sets can meet a variety of learners’ needs and increase a teacher’s ability to differentiate lessons. Materials from different genres of media, books and websites can range in difficulty and this helps to meet the different learning styles and needs of diverse readers (Abuhasnah, 2015, p.1). This approach fosters students’ learning by helping them make important connections with the content area subject, and builds necessary vocabulary and background knowledge.

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Civil War Trust (n.d.). Retrieved from: Civilwartrust.org
This website provides teacher resources to engage and teach the Civil War to elementary students. The site includes lessons that range from the timeline of events leading up to the Civil War to a PowerPoint lesson that depicts the life of a soldier. Special attention is given to President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and also included are very detailed animated videos and maps of the Civil War battles. Five minute videos are available on many war subjects, biographies on important war people are also included and special collections provide resources for students to research a special area of interest or to answer any questions.

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https://www.getepic.com/educator-resources
This online resource will provide students with the ability to choose books relating to the Civil War at a variety of levels. In addition, the site provides audio versions of the books and other tools to support readers. Teachers can suggest books for students or make required lists, and develop their own assessments and reading logs to help track students' success.

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Non-fiction     Lexile 1060L
https://fab.lexile.com/book/details/9780395664124/
This novel will provide an anchor text and be read together as a whole group. The first-hand accounts of the young boys (sixteen years old or younger) give details of their experiences in the Civil War through letters and their personal diary entries. Students will benefit from the read aloud format and class wide discussions will frequently take place to support all learners. Students will also be able to access an audio version if necessary and providing important background knowledge will help students understand this upper level text.

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Fiction     Lexile 740L
https://fab.lexile.com/book/details/9780803727359/
This novel will also provide students the Civil War experience while including mystery and adventure. The book has depth that relies on important background knowledge and figurative language that adds complexity. Students will gain the perspective of a group impacted in the war, free people of color, and learn the impact we have on one another This text is of an appropriate fifth grade Lexile and the fictional storyline should be interesting to readers.

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https://www.civilwar.org/learn/collections/civil-war-music
Drum and Fife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8epv1Y25XA
Top Ten American Civil War Songs
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/09/top-ten-american-civil-war-songs-stephen-klugewicz.html

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https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/civil-war-and-american-art

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Fiction Picture Book     Lexile AD680L
This picture book introduces children to the Underground Railroad and the struggles of slaves during the Civil War. The story depicts a young slave who stitches a quilt with a map to help her escape to the North.

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Fiction Picture Book                         Lexile 580L
This picture book is a companion to "Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt" and shares the struggles of traveling the Underground Railroad as a runaway slave. https://books.google.com/books?id=JhHm8Nc3FFUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=under+the+quilt+of+night&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH1IrL_-HWAhXrqlQKHS6ICT4Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=under%20the%20quilt%20of%20night&f=false

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Fiction     Lexile 620L
"Accompanied by period illustrations, photographs, and maps, this exciting historical novel follows thirteen-year-old Tom Carroll as he, after his father is killed during the Civil War, finds work at a bustling ironworks to help support his family, which makes him a target of Confederate spies." https://books.google.com/books/about/Iron_Thunder.html?id=s1M2QwAACAAJ

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Pink and Say                                  

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Pink and Say                                  

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Fiction Picture Book  Lexile 600L
"Passed down from generation to generation, this deeply moving true story tells of two young soldiers-one white and one black-brought together during the American Civil War. Together they struggled to survive, but were ultimately "wrenched apart" at the hands of the Confederacy upon their capture. In the end, only one of them survived to tell the story." https://fab.lexile.com/book/details/9781930332546/

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Fiction     Lexile 1000L
"Gary Paulsen introduces readers to Charley Goddard in his latest novel, Soldier's Heart. Charley goes to war a boy, and returns a changed man, crippled by what he has seen. In this captivating tale Paulsen vividly shows readers the turmoil of war through one boy's eyes and one boy's heart, and gives a voice to all the anonymous young men who fought in the Civil War." (https://fab.lexile.com/book/details/9780385324984/)

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Non-fiction        Lexile 980L
"Based on rare archival material, obscure trial manuscripts, and interviews with relatives of the conspirators and the man hunters, Chasing Lincoln's Killer is a fast-paced thriller about the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth: a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia." https://books.google.com/books?id=4Rw_BwAAQBAJ&dq=google+Books+chasing+lincoln%27s+killer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj5mMODxOHWAhUCz2MKHSs6Ce4Q6AEILDAB

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Abuhasnah, R. (2015, March 25). Teaching through texts to support all readers. Edutopia. Retrieved from: https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/teaching-through-text-sets-support-all-readers

Civil War Trust (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.civilwar.org/

Epic! (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.getepic.com/educator-resources

Google Books (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://books.google.com/
Lexile (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://lexile.com/
Library of Congress (n.d.). Civil War. Retrieved from: https://www.loc.gov/search?new=true&q=Civil+War
Scholastic Teacher (n.d.). The Underground Railroad: Escape from slavery. Retrieved from: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/slideshows.htm
Wall, A. (2014). Creating cross-curricular text sets for the middle grades. Middle Web: All about the Middle Grades. Retrieved from: https://www.middleweb.com/15279/text-sets-middle-grades-2/
Wit & Wisdom (2017). Module 3: A war between us. New York, NY: Great Minds.