Unit 1 - Launch!
Our first unit focuses on students becoming a community of readers and writers. We
spend time building reading and writing stamina as well as reviewing literary elements.
Students explore a variety of literary genres! Our core text is My Teacher Is An Alien, by Bruce Coville.
Standards - R.5.1, R.5.4, R.5.10, W.5.9, W.5.10
Unit 2 - Ecosystems
Students immerse themselves in Informational texts! Each student selects an ecosystem
they would like to research and become an expert on. Our Ecosystems library provides a
wide variety of texts and at varying reading levels for students to use to conduct their
research. The culmination of their work is an informational text of their own over their
ecosystem.
Standards - R.5.2, R.5.5, R.5.7, W.5.2
Unit 3 - Adventure & Survival
Unit 3 takes us back to fictional text, more precisely, the Adventure genre. Our core text is
Storm Runners by Roland Smith. Students also read from our Adventure library,
where they find themselves reading about exciting, suspenseful, often dangerous journeys
taken by characters who navigate adversity with skill and bravery. The focus of this unit is
on the literary elements and how they work together to communicate the authors'
message or theme. Students complete this unit by writing their own short Adventure story.
Standards - R.5.2, R.5.3, R.5.5, W.5.3
Unit 4 - Civil War Era
Our final unit allows students to investigate the time of conflict in American history from
1820-1877. Some of the topics students will read about, discuss, and write about
include battles of the Civil War, African-American enslavement, the women's suffrage
movement, and Reconstruction. Students will focus on argument and debate as the
learn historical content and learn to make and evaluate proficient arguments.
Standards - R.5.6, R.5.8, W.5.1