Language Arts DEEP groups

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." -Albert Einstein

Wonder of the Week

Each class begins with a Wonder. This activity is designed to help students engage in problem solving as soon as they enter DEEP. This term the wonders included:

Words within words: How many can you find in three minutes

Antonym paths: Students begin with a word, find its antonym and then repeat the process as many times as possible without ever repeating words. This activity reinforces vocabulary and critical thinking while also enhancing language skills.

Third Grade

This term, students explored the intersection of fables and animal adaptations by creating their own imaginative Pourquoi tales. They began by reading a variety of fables, using the Details and Pattern icons to identify key characteristics and establish "Rules" that define a fable. Next, they delved into Pourquoi tales, discovering how these stories explain why something is the way it is.

The following week, students received short texts about unique animals from around the world, analyzed their adaptations, and chose their favorite. Drawing on their creativity, students wrote original Pourquoi tales explaining how their chosen animal acquired its distinctive trait. The resulting stories were clever, imaginative, and inventive, showcasing the students' humor and creativity.

Third Grade First Term

This term began with an exploration of systems. How many systems could the students name? What made a system? Then, students explored the idea that paragraphs are systems of sentences. Each sentence in a paragraph should have a purpose and help move the idea forward.

Students studied how transition words can be used inside a paragraph. They used mixed up paragraphs to practice identifying transition words. This exercise works by taking a paragraph and showing each sentence separately in a random order. The students have to put the sentences in the correct order.

The next challenge involved the random emoji generator. Students were shown an emoji and asked to write a sentence based upon that emoji. That sentence would become the topic sentence of their paragraph. Then they were shown four additional emojis, one at a time. The students were not allowed to see the next emoji until they had written their sentence. Each sentence needed to provide evidence supporting the topic sentences.

Finally, students wrote Halloween paragraphs. They were given a random who, what, and where and were required to write a paragraph that made sense. For this activity students were given the additional challenge of making their sentences more interesting. We learned how changing the first word of a sentence can make the sentence more exciting. Students had to start one sentence with a noun, one with an article, one with an adverb, and two with different kinds of adjectives.

Fourth Grade

In this engaging ELA writing unit, fourth graders took on the exciting challenge of designing their own roller coasters and exploring them through three distinct writing styles. Last term, they began by crafting a descriptive paragraph, focusing on vivid imagery and sensory details to bring their roller coaster to life. This term, they shifted to opinion writing, creating a testimonial from the perspective of a satisfied customer raving about the experience. Finally, students tackled informative writing, developing a paragraph that explained the mechanics, features, and unique elements of their roller coaster. This approach not only strengthened their writing skills but also encouraged them to think critically about how purpose and audience influence tone, structure, and content.

To culminate their work, students used Canva to design professional-looking brochures showcasing their roller coaster and highlighting each paragraph. This project integrated several icons of depth and complexity, such as "Multiple Perspectives," as students considered different viewpoints (creator, customer, and educator) and "Rules," as they compared and contrasted the defining characteristics of each writing style. Through this process, students developed a deeper understanding of how writing styles serve different purposes and learned to adapt their tone and language accordingly. Additionally, the unit emphasized creativity, organization, and digital design skills, leaving students with both polished products and a greater appreciation for the versatility of writing.

Fourth Grade First Term

At the end of term we began our roller coaster unit. This unit focuses on descriptive, persuasive and informative language. This unit also includes a little fun with science and engineering. Students first worked to design their roller coaster. They identified the theme, target demographic, features and other important details about their roller coaster design. Then, they are tasked with marketing their design. This will require them to write about their paragraph using three different writing styles to compare and contrast the uses and benefits of each style. The first writing style focused on is descriptive writing. Students were tasked with describing their roller coaster using their senses and creating figurative language based off of these descriptions.

Fifth Grade

Fifth graders recently embarked on a creative research project, blending critical thinking with technology by presenting their findings in a Choose Your Own Adventure story format. Students began by selecting a topic from four options: a historical figure, a place, an animal, or an event from history. They conducted thorough research, gathering reliable information, organizing it into categories, and using the depth and complexity icon of "Details" to emphasize important facts. Once their research was complete, students transformed their knowledge into an interactive story, allowing readers to make choices that determined the narrative path. This project taught students about the unique structure of Choose Your Own Adventure stories, including creating branching storylines and engaging readers through multiple outcomes.

In addition to improving their research and storytelling skills, students gained valuable technological expertise by learning how to create hyperlinks and action boxes in PowerPoint, a skill applicable to future academic and professional projects. The activity also incorporated the depth and complexity icons of "Multiple Perspectives" and "Big Ideas." Students had to present their topic from different angles while ensuring the overall narrative remained cohesive. This format encouraged creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking as students balanced factual accuracy with interactive storytelling. By combining research with an innovative presentation method, this project empowered students to take ownership of their learning and deliver it in an engaging, modern format.

Fifth Grade

Students began the term by learning about resiliency and productive struggle. Students created and voted on a Tournament of Resiliency where they had to determine various people from history or characters from story that they felt displayed the characteristics we were learning about. Then, students created and defined a judging criteria and proceeded to narrow down the finalists until we reached a Champion of Resiliency.

Next, students began reading various short stories and looking for details about each one. Students then analyzed those details looking for patterns that they could turn into a rule that all of these stories followed. Students were able to identify story structure using this method.

Next, students were given examples of choose your own adventure stories and compared how these stories were similar and how they were different from the other stories. They again identified rules that choose your own adventure stories followed.

Up next: a research project that will be presented in a Choose Your Own Adventure Story format.

Sixth Grade

In a dynamic persuasive writing unit, sixth graders explored the power of language by studying advertisement techniques and the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos. Students began by analyzing real-world advertisements to identify how these techniques are used to influence an audience. They practiced crafting emotional slogans to evoke pathos, as well as writing strong ethos statements to establish credibility. The culmination of the unit was creating a commercial for a product of their choice, where they carefully considered their audience and applied all three persuasive techniques. This hands-on experience allowed students to see how effective communication can shape opinions and behaviors, both in advertising and beyond.

This unit incorporated several icons of depth and complexity, such as "Multiple Perspectives," as students considered the viewpoints of different audiences, and "Rules," by identifying the essential components that define persuasive writing. The icon of "Change Over Time" was also introduced as students examined how advertising strategies have evolved with technology and cultural shifts. In terms of Bloom's Taxonomy, this unit engaged students at multiple levels, from understanding and applying rhetorical techniques to creating their own persuasive content. Additionally, students enhanced critical thinking, creativity, and audience awareness, developing skills they can apply in future writing, presentations, and everyday decision-making. This unit not only sharpened their persuasive abilities but also encouraged them to think critically about the media they consume.

Sixth Grade First Term

This term students were challenged to answer the mystery of who started the lunch room fight. In this scenario a fight breaks out in the lunchroom and the principal is tasked with figuring out who started it. However the witnesses gave conflicting accounts. Why might these accounts differ? During this unit students honed the ability to reconcile conflicting claims, consider multiple perspectives and evaluate the reliability of sources. Students also learned to correctly identify primary versus secondary sources. Finally, students practiced sourcing, close reading, corroborating, and providing context to a document or witness statements.

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