Unit 1 Resources Fiction And Nonfiction Answer Key
Zacharie Brodhacker
This reading unit includes a PowerPoint, two interactive notebook activities, centers and three passages that can be used in reading groups or as assessments. The resources will help students to practice basic comprehension skills and respond to text dependent questions using evidence from the text.
The unit was created to be used towards the beginning of the third grade school year. The questions do not require inference and answers can be found in the text. Students are really working on writing answers in a complete sentence by restating part of the question, answering all parts and using text evidence. The less complex questions make the answering strategy easier to focus on. Questions will get more challenging as the units progress.
The PowerPoint slide show is designed to be used as an introduction to the skill. It is short enough to be used as a mini lesson prior to your reading groups. The slides get students to participate and discuss the skill.
The first activity is designed to be a reference and review from the PowerPoint mini lesson. The second activity is more challenging and asks students to use the skills they have learned to demonstrate understanding.
The final center is a reading response activity. Students will need access to some fiction picture books. The center will require that they read two different books and respond to a question relating to the unit skill. You can allow them to use read alouds, choose books from your classroom library or choose from a basket of books that you have preselected. You could even have them use a story from your basal.
I made the centers with the plan that students would complete them in two weeks. This will somewhat depend on how much center time you have scheduled. If students finish early, I would recommend having them choose a book and read to themselves.
The passages can be used in a variety of ways. You can use them as a pre-test, post-test and a re-test. You could use 1-2 of them in your reading groups and then use the last one as an assessment at the end of the two-week unit. They can be done as a whole group lesson.
I think one of the most frequently asked questions I get is about my middle school ELA class period schedule. The questions range from my daily, weekly, monthly, and year-long schedules, so I thought I would answer some of those questions here.
This is what my middle school ELA class period schedule looks like depending on whether we are doing a reading or writing unit. I alternate them pretty consistently. A reading unit can take anywhere from 3-6 weeks, depending on the book, while my writing units take 2-3 weeks. My hourly schedule will look different depending on whether we are doing a reading or writing unit. And again, next year will look a little different each hour.
When we are doing a reading unit, we are usually reading one of our required curriculum novels. I read the novels out loud for about 15 minutes after we do our bell ringers. Then we do a lesson or activity, and then we read our independent reading books.
Here is my middle school ELA class period schedule during a writing unit. For writing, I try to do a mini-lesson on what they will do, so they have close to 30 minutes to write or type. I also really try to still give them the last ten minutes to read, but most get in a groove and want to keep writing.
Like reading, I also use a workshop-style class period that allows students time to write after I have taught them a specific writing skill or lesson so they can apply it right away. Again, it also allows me to do individual writing conferences every day. Because I work so hard to give them a good chunk of time to work on their writing, I am able to conference with each student 2-3 times during each of our writing units.
I am always getting asked about my schedules and then how I would structure my class periods if I had longer or shorter class periods or if I had different block schedules. Ask and you shall receive! There are six different schedules in this file.
I made to make as many versions as humanly possible. There are filled-in versions that you can use or type over or there are blank, editable ones for you to fill in while looking at mine as a guide. This editable pacing guide also has editable weekly pacing to help you get more detailed (pictured below).
I often get asked about how I make these, and honestly, I just kind of get everything I need and make them. I get my standards and the curriculum book I am required to use (I work at a Core Knowledge school so we have required literature and non-fiction terms, vocabulary, spelling, phrases, texts, speeches, writing pieces, grammar terms, etc.).
I try to align things that fit naturally and our school also works hard to align our ELA learning with what is happening in Social Studies. I make sure that everything is taught at some point while still making it a cohesive fit into our units. I then map out what resources I have and start looking for where I need to supplement.
As you can see above in the year-long pacing guides, I teach grammar all year long whenever I can squeeze it in. I recently had been hearing and reading a lot about mentor sentences. I loved the idea of kids using their favorite books to learn grammar.
At the about half way point in the school year, we have done a ton of literature and literary analysis, so I start to hid nonfiction texts hard and we go into our nonfiction units. For nonfiction, we use my Nonfiction Interactive Notebook and Reading Response Unit alongside our nonfiction novels that we use as mentor texts while we learn all our nonfiction reading concepts.
Next up comes my actual favorite unit to teach: Rhetoric and rhetorical analysis essays. Again, I have speeches that I am required to teach (they align beautifully with social studies). The kids have a lot of background information from their social studies teacher, so I get to spend time analyzing the rhetoric.
For poetry and verse, we use my Poetry and Verse Interactive Notebook and Reading Response Unit alongside our verse novels that we use as mentor texts while we learn all our poetry concepts. We also spend a good chunk of time reading our required poems, annotating them, and writing our own. We also learn specific types of poems and practice writing those. At the end of the unit, we create poetry anthologies based on what we learned.
Are your students struggling to write well-organized paragraphs? Paragraph of the Week, a weekly paragraph writing practice system, will provide your students with LOTS of practice opportunities in writing well-organized paragraphs in a fun and enjoyable way.
Stop spending time searching for the perfect informational texts to teach Text Structures! This Nonfiction Text Structure Resource Bundle is a complete pack of HIGH-INTEREST resources to help you fully teach, practice, and assess the five main text structures; Cause and Effect, Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, Chronological/Sequence, AND Description.
Are you looking for ready-to-go reading response activities that will help your students improve their comprehension? Make your reading centers and guided reading lessons effective and stress-free with these reading activities. They are so much more than just graphic organizers. Simply pair any of these sheets with a Nonfiction OR Fiction text, and you have an instant activity for your students! It's that simple!
This Figurative Language Unit is the perfect way to teach all 8 Types of Figurative Language in a fun and engaging way! Your students will learn about Metaphors, Similes, Idioms, Hyperboles, Imagery, Personification, Onomatopoeias, and Alliteration.
This analogy, or way of explaining paragraph structure, makes this concept easier for students to understand as it makes an abstract concept more concrete. I have had great success with this in my classroom. The burger analogy gives me something to reference all year during writing. When I say, "Where's your bun?" or "Don't forget your toppings!", my students know exactly what to do!
This Point of View and Perspective Resource has everything you need to teach, practice and assess Point of View and Perspective in Reading. This resource was created to align with the Common Core Language Arts Standards for 4th and 5th grade. It teaches the first-person point of view, as well as the third-person point of view. It also teaches about perspective and how the perspective being used in a story can change the way a story is told.
This Inferencing Activity bundle is a complete pack of resources to help you teach your students how to make and defend inferences. This resource was created to align with the Common Core Standards for 4th and 5th grade Language Arts. They teach students what an inference is, and how to use their background knowledge and text clues to make an inference.
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