In this unit students continue the exploration of factors that influence change by examining the events that led up to the American Revolution. Over the course of the unit, students will build a deeper understanding of the significant ideas and values at the heart of the American Revolution, what drove the colonists to seek independence, and how conflict between England and the colonists ultimately influenced change in our country. Students will see the American Revolution from multiple perspectives, starting with analyzing the difference in perspectives between the British and the colonists and how each side’s actions often instigated each other. Students will also explore how class structure influenced colonists perspectives. Later in the unit, students will think about the perspectives of black people, women and Native Americans who were forced to choose a side and why they may have had a different point of view of the events of the revolution.

An important part of this unit is pushing students to focus on seeing history from multiple different perspectives. The core text Liberty! How the Revolutionary War Began offers one perspective on events, however, the prespective is limited to that held by white elite colonists. Therefore, students also read excerpts from A Young People's History of the United States in order to build a deeper understanding of all sides of the Revolution.

In this unit students explore the rise and fall of the ancient Roman Empire. Over the course of the unit, students learn about different characteristics of the Roman Empire, what lead to the Empire’s growth and success, and what eventually lead to the Empire’s demise. Through learning about the daily routines, structures, and rituals of the Roman Empire, students will be challenged to draw conclusions about what the civilization valued and how those values compare to societal values today. This unit builds onto the 2nd grade nonfiction unit on ancient Greece, in which students began to think about how the daily routines, structures, and rituals of a civilization show what they value. This unit, in conjunction with the second grade unit on ancient Greece, will help students understand early influences in the world and the first republics.

The mentor texts for this unit, Ancient Rome and Pompeii: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House and Eye Wonder: Ancient Rome, allow students to practice multiple informational reading strategies in two very different text structures. In both texts, but predominately in Eye Wonder, students will practice using a multitude of text features and illustrations as a way of learning new information about a topic. Over the course of this unit, students will constantly be thinking about how the information from one text builds on and connects to the information in the other text. Then at the end of the unit, students will be asked to critically analyze the similarities and differences between the two texts.

This unit explores the various ways information and ideas about climate change are presented through a variety of media. This includes the evaluation of social media posts, research into climate change issues, and an exploration of contemporary art and artists. This was designed and taught in an honors 9th grade English Language Arts Classroom by Dr. Tavia Quaid in response to student interest in climate change and to reinforce key information literacy skills.

Students will practice looking at a topic from multiple points of view, and will discuss whose voices are amplified and whose voices are silenced. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website called "Who Am I Online?".

Reading is revamped in this lesson in which students use a multimedia approach to study the books by Seymour Simon.

To prepare for literature circles featuring historical novels, students research the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s and share their information using Prezi, a web application for creating multimedia presentations.

After reading several examples of how a published author incorporates facts in fiction writing, students research a topic of their choice and write fictional diary entries that incorporate factual information.

BrainVentures are engaging & interactive, digital, enrichment activities meant to supplement your standard aligned curriculum. They can be used as indepent or collaborative practice as well as remotely or on campus.

In this BrainVenture student take a look at the manatee and its environment in the Everglades of Florida. Students read and watch videos about the manatee then do a comparison of the sea cow and the cow. Students are also prompted to help save the manatees by writing a letter.

Take a virtual trip through the park for your personality after taking the personality quiz. Then read about the parks in a collection in Get Epic. Next we will all go to Yellowstone and visit the themes of the park. Make sure to take pictures of the park attractions you have visited and put them in the Photo Album.

Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.

In Unit 2, students will build their ability to read and understand informational text and begin to build their knowledge of frogs through closely reading excerpts of the informational text Everything You Need to Know about Frogs and Other Slippery Creatures. Students will use the information gained in reading these excerpts to help them write answers to the questions generated in Unit 1 after reading poems and narratives about frogs. For a mid-unit assessment, students will demonstrate their reading skills through reading a new text about reptiles and amphibians, and they will gather information to answer a research question.
In the second half of the unit, students will continue with the same central text and build their knowledge by studying three "freaky frogs" that have specific adaptations according to where they live: the glass frog, the Amazon horned frog, and the water-holding frog. They will read about these frogs to answer this question in an informative paragraph: How does where a frog lives affect how it looks and/or acts? In the End of Unit 2 Assessment, students read another excerpt of text about the poison dart frog, gather information to answer a research question, and write an on-demand informative paragraph to answer the question.
RI.3.1, RI.3.3, RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.7, RI.3.8, W.3.2, W.3.7, W.3.8, L.3.1d,e, L.3.4

This resource is published by Civix.Ctrl-F is a unit created by Civix, a Canadian organization developed to support civics and media literacy education. This unit teaches students how to verify facts and information when reading informational text online.

As students will have previous exposure to the historical themes and factual information about the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the United States involvement in WWII, and the internment of Japanese in camps throughout the western United States, this lesson exemplar will allow students to participate in critical discussion of two stories that illuminate important, yet divergent, experiences of war and conflict. This lesson exemplar will push students to think critically about the experience of wartime as felt by both soldiers and civilians as they navigated specific trials that were a part of their direct or peripheral involvement in WWII. This close reading exemplar is intended to model how teachers can support their students as they undergo the kind of careful reading the Common Core State Standards require. Teachers are encouraged to take these exemplars and modify them to suit the needs of their students.

The Listening and Learning Strand consists of a series of read_alouds organized by topics (called domains), many of which are informational in nature. The goal of the Listening and Learning Strand is for students to acquire language competence through listening, specifically building a rich vocabulary, and broad knowledge in history and science by being exposed to carefully selected, sequenced, and coherent read_alouds. The 9 units (or domains) provide lessons (including images and texts), as well as instructional objectives, core vocabulary, and assessment materials. The domain topics include: Fighting for a Cause; Fairy Tales and Tall Tales; Cycles in Nature; Insects; Ancient Greek Civilizations; Greek Myths; Charlotte's Web; and Immigration.

This module uses literature and informational text such as "My Librarian Is a Camel" to introduce students to the power of literacy and how people around the world access books. This module is intentionally designed to encourage students to embrace a love of literacy and reading. There are 3 units in this module. Unit 1 explores the question ĺづWhy do people seek the power of reading?ĺăĺ In unit 2 students explore their own ĺづpowers of readingĺăĺ that help them access text. And unit 3 explores how geography impacts readersĺăĚă access to books.

Hyperdoc playlist of activities for digital literacy lesson. Teacher will need to populate the "Guided Practice" section with updated links to current events. Check out The Sift from the News Literacy Project to get ides.

Students will learn the potential costs and benefits of social media, digital consumption, and our relationship with technology as a society in the three-week lesson. This inquiry based unit of study will answer the following questions:

Essential Question: How can we use science fiction’s ability to predict the future to help humanity?

Supportive Questions 1: What predictions of future development has science fiction accurately made in the past? This can include technology, privacy, medicine, social justice, political, environmental, education, and economic.

Supportive Question 2: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are positive for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to make these predictions reality?

Supportive Question 3: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are negative for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to stop these negative outcomes?

In this science-based unit, students explore the world of energy. In the first half of the unit students learn what energy is, the different ways that energy is transferred from place to place, and the ways energy can be converted from one type to another. In the second half of the unit students explore the pros and cons of different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy. After learning about the different types of energy, students will grapple with what the world’s energy future will look like if more renewable solutions aren’t found, particularly in their communities. Through a combination of reading and research, it is our hope that students begin to build a deeper understanding of energy and its influence on our lives.

This unit builds on to the informational reading skills and strategies developed in previous units. At this point in the year we assume that students are able to actively read and annotate informational texts in order to build understanding of a topic. Therefore, the focus of this unit is on refining students’ ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will continue working on determining the main idea, summarizing key details, explaining cause and effect, using text features to improve understanding, and explaining how an author uses text features to elaborate on key concepts and ideas.

With so many people getting their news from their social media newsfeed, how can they evaluate what is good and what might be fake? With the help of a Youtube video on the subject, student do some evaluating. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website, "Who Am I Online?"