Unit Overview: Read more about the unit and find all unit materials here on the Fishtank website

In this biography-based unit, students read and learn about a diverse assortment of artists and musicians. By reading a wide variety of biographies, students will be challenged to think about where people get their inspiration, and how a person’s decisions and actions can change his or her life, especially when facing instances of prejudice and discrimination. Students will also be challenged to think about how a person can be influential and how reading about other people’s lives can help them in their own lives. It is our hope that this unit will open students’ eyes to different life paths and passions, particularly those in the arts.

It is assumed that, by the time students engage with this unit, they are inquisitive consumers of an informational text, asking and answering questions about key details. In this unit, students focus on understanding connections between individuals, events, ideas, and information in a text to better understand a person’s life. While the standards do not name a particular way in which details may be connected, students are learning about cause and effect, chronology, and sequence when thinking about how different events in a person’s life are connected. Students also begin to think about reasons an author gives to support a particular point in a text, noticing details in both the text and the illustrations that support a particular point about the artist or their life. 

When discussing the text, students transition from focusing on clarifying and sharing their thoughts during a discussion to engaging with the thinking of others. Students learn how to build on others’ talk in conversations by responding to the comments of others. Students also learn how to ask questions to clear up confusion about the topics or texts under discussion. Both focuses allow students to get a deeper understanding of the content and their classmates’ ideas.

Students continue to build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task question using a variety of simple and complex sentences to show a nuanced understanding of the content. Students also have chances to practice their narrative, informational, and opinion writing and are given the opportunity to craft their own unique poems, inspired by the artwork from the unit. The unit concludes with students participating in a shared research project on Misty Copeland, building on the research and informational writing skills learned in previous units.

Unit Calendar:

Unit 5 is 43 instructional days. It is recommended to run from April 13th - June 18th.

**please note that some lessons in this unit were intentionally deprioritized within the scope for timing purposes. If you choose to use deprioritized lessons, please utilize your flex days for that purpose.