Students will use Google Slides to publish a writing piece by typing their story, adding images to their slides, and creating links for readers to navigate their published book. This activity may take more than one class period.

This unit introduces students to the concept of civil rights litigation. It asks students to consider how the litigation process reflects the fundamental values and principles of American constitutional government. By the end of this unit, students should be prepared to talk about how the civil litigation process reflects these values and principles and to describe civil rights litigation and its current scope.
Lesson 1: What is Litigation?
Lesson 2: What are the Steps of Litigation?
Lesson 3: What is Civil Rights Litigation?

** This resource is published by The Right Question Institute.The Question Formulation Technique builds students’ ability to ask and learn from their own questions — an essential life skill. The ability to ask questions allows young people to assess with a critical eye what they see in the news, online, and on social media. It helps them become more confident and ready to participate in civic life.

This course explores the ways in which various American artists view race and class as performed or performable identities. Discussions will focus on some of the following questions: What does it mean to act black, white, privileged, or underprivileged? What do these artists suggest are the implications of performing (indeed playing at or with) racial identity, ethnicity, gender, and class status? How and why are race and class status often conflated in these performances?

A framework for a new and stronger national government had been crafted at the Philadelphia Convention by a handful of leaders. But how could their proposed system be made into law?

Week 3, Day 1---Day 2
Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses

Week 30, Day 1---Day 2
Cinderella
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
Marcia Brown’s Cinderella most resembles the Disney version of Cinderella that many students know.
This is a translation from the French version by Charles Perrault and some of the words don’t translate perfectly so quick scaffolds may be necessary. You want to have a map available to point out where France is located.
This book won the 1962 Caldecott Medal.

Week 17, Day 3
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs---fiction---Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
The fact that a movie was made of this book presents opportunities for examining YouTube clips after the book has been read aloud. The children can compare their own mental images of characters and actions with the way the director imagined them.

Week 22, Day 3---Day 4
This book is called Dad, Jackie, and Me. The author is Myron Uhlberg and the illustrator is Colin Bootman. It is about the first black man to play baseball in the major leagues. His name was Jackie Robinson.
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
The author’s note at the end of the book is important. He describes the connection between Jackie Robinson and Uhlberg’s deaf father. Read it for background yourself, and consider reading portions aloud.

Week 29, Day 1---Day 5
D is for Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet
"This book is called D is for Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet. It was written by Carol Crane and illustrated by Zong-Zhou Wang.
You might think that an alphabet book is for kindergartners, but this is no ordinary alphabet book. That’s because it also teaches us about China. On the first page, you can see a map of China, which is a country on the other side of the world."
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
visual: comparison chart
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
This is an unconventional alphabet book because of the extensive background information about the word that is given for each letter. We have chosen to use the first 5 days for instruction. If you have extra time, you could read additional segments.

Poppy (Fiction book)
"Today we will start a chapter book called Poppy. It is written by a man named Avi. ...this author only uses one name. Avi’s twin sister gave him that name when he was just a year old, and he has used it ever since. The illustrations are by Brian Floca."

Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
Planning Notes

The chapters are nearly equal in length and about right for one per day. Note that an additional chapter, called Poppy and Ereth, appears at the end of the book. This is really a teaser for the sequel and it is not part of this set of plans.

Avi talks about the Poppy books in a YouTube video (3:07): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fufgUdq2xR0

The video provides excellent background for teachers, but it refers to some of the later books in the series and some parts may be over the heads of second graders.
However, if you plan on making other books in the series available to your proficient students to read on their own, you might want to play it. Hearing Avi’s voice and seeing that he’s a real person could be of interest to your students.

Week 23, Day 1---Day 2
The Story of Ruby Bridges--fiction--Robert Coles, illustrated by George Ford
"Ruby Bridges was an African American child who went to elementary school in the 1950s. One day she had to start going to a different school, a school for white children, where almost no one liked her."
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
It is a good idea to have a U.S. map on display for quick reference to some of the places mentioned.

Week 33, Day 4---Day 5
The Wall
This book is called The Wall, and it was written by Eve Bunting. It was illustrated by Ronald Himler. The wall is in Washington, DC, and it has the names of all the people killed during the Viet Nam War. There are 58,000 names on the wall. That war ended long ago but people still think about those they knew who died.
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
The text in this book is not very challenging but it is useful in evoking some higher-order thinking. Locating in advance a few photos through a google image search would complement the watercolors in the book.
You may wish to quickly indicate Vietnam on a wall map, but it is probably not in the spirit of the book to turn this read-aloud into a geography lesson. Bunting does not even mention which war it is, except in the endnote.

Week 16, Day 1
Tornado--fiction-- by Betsy Byars, illustrated by Doron Ben-Ami
In this book, the word tornado has two meanings. It is a powerful storm, of course, but it is also the name of a special dog.
Develop or Activate Background Knowledge:
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Meaning Vocabulary
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
There are many opportunities in this book to make science tie-ins with weather and storms. Many activities are possible for your science time, such as making a tornado in a bottle.
Video clips of tornados are also helpful, through YouTube or educational sites, like www.noaa.gov.

The Story Map interactive is designed to assist students in prewriting and postreading activities by focusing on the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution.

In this lesson, students consider the unit research question and develop specific categories for research. Then, in small groups, students read texts about how kids have made a difference and take notes using those categories (RI.4.1, W.4.7, W.4.8).
W.4.8 requires students to gather information from print and digital sources. As such, this lesson is designed for students to use internet sources as texts. If the technology necessary for students to complete the reading is unavailable, give them printed copies of possible texts from which to choose. Note that "Protecting Our Planet" is not a website and is provided (see supporting materials).
Students who finish quickly or require an extension can use a search engine to find their own sources.
In this lesson, students focus on working to become effective learners by focusing on a characteristic of their choice as they work in expert groups to begin their research.

In this lesson, students reread "Rainforests and Why They Are Important" to determine the main idea and describe the structure. Working in pairs, students use a graphic organizer to record their thinking about the structure of the text and plan a summary of it. Students then work as a class to write a shared summary of the text (RI.5.1, RI.5.2, RI.5.4, RI.5.5, W.5.8).
In Work Time B, students participate in a modified Rank-Talk-Write protocol to determine the main idea of "Rainforests and Why They Are Important" (RI.5.2, SL.5.1b).
This lesson is designed for students to use an internet source as a text. If the technology necessary for students to complete the reading is unavailable, give students a printed copy of the text.
Students practice their fluency in this lesson by following along and reading silently as the teacher reads "Rainforests and Why They Are Important" in Work Time A.
The research reading students complete for homework helps to build both their vocabulary and knowledge pertaining to the rainforest. By participating in this volume of reading over a span of time, students will develop a wide base of knowledge about the world and the words that help describe and make sense of it.
In this lesson, the habit of character focus is working to become an effective learner. The characteristic students are reminded of specifically is collaboration, as they work in pairs.
Continue to use Goals 1 and 2 Conversation Cues to promote productive and equitable conversation.

Use Epic to guide students to learn what a biography is, and have them find information about a specific person.

How do you read a poem? Intuition is not the only answer. In this class, we will investigate some of the formal tools poets use—meter, sound, syntax, word-choice, and other properties of language—as well as exploring a range of approaches to reading poetry, from the old (memorization and reading out loud) to the new (digitally enabled visualization and annotation). We will use readings available online via the generosity of the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets. We will also think collectively about how to approach difficult poems.