• Determine the central message/theme of a literary text and explain how it is conveyed through key details.

• Describe characters in a story (traits, motivations, feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

• Use text-based evidence to support answers (both explicitly stated and inferred information).

• Use strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words and phrases, especially those that are domain-specific or linked to character traits and emotions.

• Write short constructed responses that are clear, organized, and supported with evidence.

• Engage in collaborative discussions, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

  
  

In Unit 1, the end of unit assessment requires students to be able to use context clues or other skills to be able to determine the meaning of words in a story that may be new to them. Students are also asked to find the lesson/message/moral of the story. We also discussed how they needed to use text-based evidence and write constructed responses.

Overcoming Learning Challenges--Performance Task: Creating a visually appealing bookmark that includes 2 reading challenges and two strategies to overcome them.

Key Skills: Identifying gist, making inferences, central idea and referring explicitly to the text for answers.

Synopsis: All skills begin as simply identifying, then students will be expected to discuss their thoughts & ideas with these skills, then will have to explicitly describe how they are conveyed throughout using details from the text. You see a very clear progression of these skills, and by the time Unit 3 rolls around, students should be able to synthesize information they've gathered while using these skills to apply to their performance task. The writing skills progress from identifying characteristics of an informational paragraph, to drafting and editing a paragraph ensuring to include all parts correctly.

Success on the Assessment Looks Like:

Students being able to take an informational paragraph they've written and slim it down to 2-3 bullet points on how to overcome reading challenges.

Several key concepts throughout this unit include:

-Understanding the structure and elements of poetry

-Interpreting figurative language and poetic devices

-Analyzing how Jack’s understanding of poetry evolves throughout the book

-Using evidence from Love That Dog to support inferences about Jack’s thoughts and feelings

-Identifying how specific poems influence Jack’s thinking and writing

We took a look at the performance task.

Students will be writing a poem.

Students will e writing a multi paragraph presentation to go along with their poems.

Students will need to be able to use examples pomes and the novel to pull text evidence from.