Unit 1: Creating a Cohesive Classroom Community

Unit 1 in grade 2 focuses on having students understand that rules - whether written or personal, fair or unfair - guide our day-to-day living.  Students focus on describing how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. In first grade, students were asked to describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. In grade 2, students will be able to build on this work by focusing specifically on how characters respond to events and challenges in the story. Students will also develop their abilities to write narratives. All Foundational standards skills are prioritized as students are participating in activities to support grade level phonics and fluency work. In planning, teachers should select the most high leverage words for their students.  They will engage in activities such as distinguishing long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words and knowing spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams.  Students will engage in phonics and fluency activities to decode words and read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

                   In order to promote learning for all students, practices have been incorporated into the day to day lesson design. For ELs, strategies such as using linguistic frames for speaking, writing and interacting, and using graphic organizers for processing information gained through reading and listening will promote language acquisition by creating meaningful opportunities to use the language of the content areas. For students with IEPs, positive and constructive feedback, guided notes,  reinforcing decoding strategies, an explicit instruction routine for pre-teaching critical vocabulary, and listening to text (e.g. text to speech/interactive read aloud) can be used to provide access to the grade level text. The use of outlines and graphic organizers can be used to assist students with organizing their thoughts for writing in response to text and providing sentence starters/frames may be needed to assist with beginning the writing process.  As part of the district’s initiative to promote equity, we will cultivate students who understand that rules and laws can be used to exclude members of certain communities and who can use their voices to advocate for fairness and justice. The unit concludes with students drafting a letter to their school principal that explains why a specific school rule should be changed. Their letter will include specific evidence from the sources that were studied throughout the unit. This unit may include texts from Wit and Wisdom and/or ReadyGen that are aligned with the content and priority standards. 

As designed the unit is paced for 40-45 days. Teachers will use additional time in the quarter for reteaching, reviewing or enrichment activities aligned to the unit’s goals. Additional times may be used to develop the performance tasks and allow for district based assessments.

Big Ideas:

• Rules - whether written or personal, fair or unfair - guide our day-to-day living.

• We can create fair rules by taking a stand.

• We can all learn from the choices we make.

• We are all capable of effecting change.