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

In this unit, students explore and experience the works of four award-winning authors and illustrators; Grace Lin, Yuyi Morales, Monica Brown, and Jerry Pinkney. Students will think critically and make connections between the author or illustrator’s life and the stories he or she writes or illustrates, and how each author’s unique personality is reflected in the words or pictures. By studying a wide variety of authors and illustrators, we hope that the foundations will be set for a lifelong interest in reading and books. In future units and grades, students will read additional award-winning stories written or illustrated by the different authors and illustrators from the unit.

This unit builds on Welcome to School, Noticing Patterns in Stories, and Celebrating Fall and assumes that students are inquisitive consumers of text, asking and answering questions while listening to and enjoying a story. Students will continue to work on retelling a story, including key details about the setting, characters, and major events. Students will also continue to be challenged to "read" the illustrations and think about how the illustrations help a reader better understand what is happening in the story. At the end of this unit, students should also be able to clearly articulate and define the role of the author and illustrator and why they are both important. 

To build speaking and listening skills, students continue to work on clarifying and sharing their thoughts while engaging with the thinking of others. Students practice continuing the conversation through multiple exchanges, asking and answering questions and requesting clarification if something is not understood.

Students continue to work on building writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task question. Students learn strategies for crafting statements and questions orally and in writing, and practice using end punctuation when writing statements or questions. In this unit students return to opinion writing, continuing to work on crafting opinions. After learning about each author or illustrator, students will write a letter to the author/illustrator explaining which book was their favorite. Additionally, students will begin to explore narrative writing, narrating a single event, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Unit Calendar:

Unit 4 is 33 instructional days. It is recommended to run from November 10th - January 16th.