Units

Mentor Text: The Day War Came by Nicola Davies

• Text

• Audiobook

Unit Reading, Short Stories:

• “Little Things Are Big” by Jesús Colón (lexile: 720)

• “Unusual Normality” by Ishmael Beah (lexile: 830)

• “The Friend Who Changed My Life” by Pam Muñoz Ryan (lexile: ~850)

Unit Reading, Novels:

• We Beat the Street by Drs. Davis, Jenkins, and Hunt (lexile: 780)

• Life in Motion by Misty Copeland (lexile: 860)

• How They Croaked by Georgia Bragg (lexile: 890)

• The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore (lexile: 910)

• Bomb by Steve Sheinkin (lexile: 930)

• Lincoln’s Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin (lexile: 930)

• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (lexile: 950)

• The Boys Who Challenged Hitler by Phillip Hoose (lexile: 960)

• Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip Hoose (lexile: 970)

• The Borden Murders by Sarah Miller (lexile: 990)

• Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah (lexile: 1000)

• Lost in Outer Space by Tod Olson (lexile: 1030)

• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by W. Kamkwamba and B. Mealer (lexile: 1100)

• I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (lexile: 1125)

• Getting Away With Murder by Chris Crowe (lexile: 1210)

Notebook compositions

Reading comprehension packet

Story Analysis + visual aid on character, conflict, and theme 

Dialogue punctuation and formatting

Compound sentences with FANBOYS

Complex sentences with subordinating clauses 

Commas in lists

Strong action verbs for vivid writing

Verb consistency

& more...

Greek roots

Begin Poet's Dictionary project

Read aloud/mentor text: TBD (Hero’s Journey)

Independent reading articles:

• “Will Computers Edge People Out of Entire Careers?” (lexile: 990)

• “Capitalism” (lexile: 1000)

• “Let’s Not Use Mars as a Backup Planet” (lexile: ~1010)

• “The Limits of Empathy” (lexile: 1060)

• “The Pros and Cons of Youth Sports Aren’t Only Physical” (lexile: 1140)

• “Should Schools Punish Off-Campus Cyberbullying” (lexile: 1140)

• “Elon Musk's Neuralink Plans to Hook Human Brains Directly to Computers” (lexile: 1360)

• “Is College Worth It? Is It Even the Right Question?” (lexile: 1400) 

Notebook reflections

Argumentative essay

TBD

Continue Poet's Dictionary

Hero’s journey terminology

Independent reading passages:

• Literary text: “100 Days and 99 Nights”

• Informational text: 

• Short Story:

  • 100 Days and 99 Nights by Alan Madison (lexile: 970)

• Poems:

  • Rain Check

  • The Dentist and the Crocodile

  • We Real Cool

  • Identity

  • The Walrus and the Carpenter (YT)

  • Human Beauty

STAAR prep short essay #1: literary

STAAR prep short essay #2: informational

STAAR prep correspondence: persuasive letter

TBD

Continue Poet's Dictionary

Commonly seen STAAR words