In this unit, students dig deeply into how families shape a person’s identity, values, and beliefs and how relationships with others can change a person’s identity. Students also explore what it means to have good fortune and how a person’s view on fortune varies depending on his/her values and beliefs. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with other units from the entire year-long sequence, will help build a deeper understanding of how we become who we are and the positive and negative factors that influence us along the way. 

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon was chosen as an engaging text to help build excitement at the beginning of the year, while simultaneously allowing for deep discussions about character, setting, vocabulary, and the larger theme of identity. Over the course of the novel, the author, Grace Lin, includes lots of detail and description to reveal information about characters and how they change based on experiences and relationships. Students will be challenged to notice the details that Grace Lin includes and analyze how the details build to support a deeper, more nuanced understanding of characters. Grace Lin also includes lots of powerful vocabulary and figurative language as a way of helping readers visualize exactly what is happening in the story. Students will be challenged to figure out the meaning of unknown words and figurative language and analyze why the author made particular word choices. 

In this unit students will also begin to use summarization as a strategy to track the plot of a longer text. In this unit students continue to work on sharing their ideas through discourse, focusing on how to provide evidence and examples to justify a particular idea or point. Being able to clearly articulate and support their own ideas sets students up for success in later units when they begin to build on to and critique the ideas of their classmates.

Students continue to build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the text, learn to brainstorm, and write literary analysis/opinion paragraphs, focusing on how to write topic sentences that state an opinion and then how to determine evidence and reasons that support the opinion. Work done in this unit serves as the foundation for literary analysis and paragraph writing in later units. The unit culminates by having students write a narrative, using the mentor text and strategies from previous units as a guide. 

Natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires happen all over the world. Understanding how natural disasters happen and why helps children feel less anxious and more prepared. Therefore, this unit focuses on teaching students the science behind each natural disaster while also explaining what to do if they live in an area prone to a particular natural disaster. Over the course of the unit, students hear about many famous natural disasters, but the unit places more of an emphasis on how the disasters happen rather than exploring the devastation or destruction caused by previous natural disasters. The unit provides many opportunities for students to learn more about recent natural disasters, including a culminating research project. 

The texts in this unit were chosen because of their wide variety of text features, content, and accessibility. Over the course of the unit, students will read texts that are very technical and rely heavily on text features, diagrams, and illustrations, as well as texts that are written as informational narratives. Students will be challenged to think about the structures the authors use to help the reader interact with and learn the content, noticing the author's use of cause-and-effect and chronology. Additionally, students will learn the importance of referring to specific details from the text and using those details to explain and teach back the newly learned material. 

Students build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task question. Throughout the unit, students also learn to craft strong informational paragraphs, focusing on introducing a topic, providing details and reasons, and elaborating on details. Students also have an opportunity to write a short narrative, using what they learned about a particular natural disaster and the features of a narrative to retell an experience. The unit culminates with students conducting research and writing a report on a recent natural disaster.

In this unit, students dive into the world of Greek mythology. Over the course of the unit, students will read the classic myths of Pandora, Arachne, and Echo and Narcissus. In reading the myths, students will gain a deeper understanding of the gods and mortals in ancient Greece and how the ancient Greeks used mythology as a way to make sense of and interpret the world around them. Students will also continue the thematic exploration from previous units about how a person’s beliefs, ethics, or values influence that person’s behavior.

Over the course of the unit, students will read multiple versions of the classic myths. The primary focus of this unit is on close reading and analyzing the differences among the versions and critically analyzing an author’s choice of genre. In doing so, students will be challenged to think about how the structural elements of different genres, particularly prose, drama, and verse, allow a reader to better understand a story or text. Students will also explore how the point of view in which a story is written, either third-person point of view or first-person point of view, changes the way a story is told and the depth of information that a reader knows. 

Students will also focus on determining the central theme of the myths. Because the stories in this unit are shorter than the novels students have read so far, this unit offers students practice in finding the theme of a shorter text and explaining how the author uses evidence to develop the theme. When discussing the text, students continue to work on engaging with the thinking of others by building on, and paraphrasing ideas to understand, and questioning and clarifying. At this point in the sequence, students should be able to write fluently in response to the daily Target Tasks in order to show understanding of the text.

In this unit, students return to working on writing strong literary analysis and opinion paragraphs, building on work done in previous units on topic sentences, supporting details, and strategies for elaboration. Across the entire unit, students also use narrative writing as a way to deepen their understanding of the myths and point of view, by rewriting each myth from a different character's point of view. 

In this unit, students explore the difficulties of having a learning disability and how a learning disability influences the way a person feels about themselves by reading the core text, The Wild Book. Throughout the unit, students are challenged to think about multiple thematic topics—believing in ourselves, accepting differences, and persevering through challenges. Exploring these themes allows students to develop a deeper appreciation for people's unique differences and struggles and learn to accept everyone for their strengths. It is our goal that this unit, combined with others in the curriculum, helps students see the world as a diverse place, not just in terms of race but also in terms of abilities, and that, no matter what, everyone has unique strengths and can be successful.

The text, The Wild Book, is chosen not only for its powerful themes but because Margarita Engle, the award-winning Latina author, uses verse to bring to life a difficult historical period in Cuba. The book tells the story of Margarita Engle's grandmother, who grew up in Cuba during a time of lawlessness. Margarita Engle tells her grandmother's story in a way that helps readers build empathy and understanding of the hardships our ancestors may have faced. Simultaneously, students also see the power of poetry and its influence on Cuban culture in the early 20th century. Students see that despite the hardships the country faced, it was also a place of artistic beauty. 

This unit challenges students to deeply analyze how authors develop themes within individual poems and also across a longer work. Students analyze how characters are developed, how word choice and imagery are used to bring power and meaning to different verses, and how the author uses varying experiences to reveal themes. Doing deep text analysis of the poems on an individual level and also on a broader level helps students understand the power of the various themes and how the author develops them. 

Students also explore the setting, noticing how the setting of a story, in this case, Cuba in 1912, influences the way characters behave, foreshadows events, and provides a window into the society where the character lives. In previous units, students focused on sharing and elaborating on their own ideas when discussing the text. In this unit, students begin to build on their classmates' ideas, seeking to genuinely understand what their peers are saying by asking questions, adding on, or engaging in multiple exchanges. 

Students continue to build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task and continue to work on crafting opinion and literary analysis paragraphs, focusing on writing strong topic sentences, picking reasons, and using different strategies to elaborate on those reasons. Students engage with multiple genres of writing by completing an opinion project that uses their new knowledge of dyslexia to defend a position, an informational project that allows them to choose a topic and deepen their understanding of learning disabilities, and a narrative project that challenges them to write a continuation of one of the unit stories. 

In this unit, students learn about United States history by reading the core text, Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African-Americans, and excerpts from Let It Shine: Stories of Black Freedom Fighters and Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America. Throughout the unit, students grapple with the discrimination and broken promises African Americans faced, paired with the endless determination and perseverance that fueled countless triumphs to overcome unfair and unjust treatment. Through a study of slavery up through the civil rights movement, students are challenged to think critically about different events, influential people, and how they have had a lasting impact on the America we know today. This is incredibly important for helping students not only understand America's past but also to understand the realities of Americas present. It is our goal that this unit, combined with others in the curriculum, inspires a passion within students to stand up for what is right and to fight for civil rights in order to attain equality and justice for all human beings, regardless of race. 

The goal of this unit is not depth; rather, the focus is more on exposure and building student understanding of the history behind the civil rights movement while simultaneously building a sense of empowerment and empathy. In 5th Grade ELA, students study the civil rights movement in depth, learning about a wider variety of influential leaders, groups, and events, especially those in which youth advocacy and fight inspired and drove change. It is our hope that the combination of both units will equip students with the tools necessary to begin to challenge injustice in their own lives.

The unit requires students to deeply analyze a text to see how an author develops different ideas and points using vivid evidence in both the text and illustrations. Students analyze the author's word choice, the different details an author includes, and the way in which an author presents information in order to build a deeper understanding of the time period and the text. Students are also challenged to carry information across multiple texts in order to build a deeper understanding of content and themes. Because Heart and Soul includes beautiful illustrations, students also learn to close read illustrations in order to deepen their understanding of key content. 

When discussing the text, students focus on critiquing and analyzing the reasoning of others, using what they learned from previous units on how to clarify and share their own thoughts and how to engage with the thinking of others to push the discussion to a deeper level. Students also have multiple opportunities to write informative paragraphs and essays, using what they learned from previous units about topic sentences, supporting details, and elaboration to write multiple paragraphs and essays in response to a question. The unit culminates with students writing an informational report, researching an African American hero in depth.