Unit 3: The Pursuit of Citizenship in a Changing Democracy

Unit Overview: Each unit overview provides a description of the content knowledge students will gain through learning and applying literacy skills while engaging with texts. Additional information in the Resources section. 

                Unit 3 in Grade 3 focuses on having students understand that we are all an important part of one country, and the United States of America was built upon the contributions of people from all over the world. In Grade 2, students were asked to recount stories to determine the central message and describe how characters respond to major events in the story in order to support their comprehension work. In Grade 3, students will be building upon this work by describing characters and how they contribute to the sequence of the story, as well as the major lessons being learned. Students can develop their understanding of character development by looking at the character's traits, motivations, and feelings, and then express this understanding through writing. Beginning in Module 1, students will build their knowledge around immigration and use that knowledge throughout the rest of the unit as they experience the immigration of a young girl called Esperanza in the book Esperanza Rising. In planning, teachers should select the most high leverage words for their students. All Foundational standards and skills are prioritized as students are participating in activities to support their phonics development and stamina, such as using affixes and word origins to determine the meaning of new words. Students will decode and read multisyllabic words in order to build their stamina to read longer passages and longer periods of time. Students will engage in explicit phonics lessons and word activities to ensure they are building a strong academic vocabulary to support their comprehension.

In order to promote learning for all students, high leverage strategies have been incorporated into the day-to-day lesson design. For El’s, strategies such as the use of graphic organizers, illustrations, audio recordings, and sentence frames will support students in their ability to demonstrate their understanding of the standards and the text. For students with IEPs, the use of sentence starters and oral dictation will provide scaffolds to support students to work on grade level. As part of the district's initiative to promote equity, we will cultivate students who think critically as we discuss topics around immigration. Students will be exposed to multiple asset perspectives and various people of different cultures and backgrounds, creating room for dialogue that pushes for equity and the fight against the oppression of those who are different. Within the unit, students will become researchers and report by sharing an immigration journey that they have researched. They will then either write a newspaper article or create a recorded interview to inform classmates of this person’s story. By the end of the unit, students will be able to write a three to five-paragraph summary to compare and contrast the treatment of the Mexican immigrant farmworkers against the white migrant farmworkers from Oklahoma. 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: 

• A democracy is a government run by officials elected by the people. 

• Telling stories is an innately human experience that connects us with others and creates a sense of belonging. 

• Sharing perspectives helps students read, reflect upon, and empathize with the common threads and variations of American narratives. 

• Our country was built upon the contributions of people from all over the world.

Essential Questions: 

• Why is it important that in a democracy, the people elect the government officials? 

• How can people’s stories of the human experience connect and bring a sense of belonging amongst people? 

• Why is sharing different perspectives important for developing empathy across groups of people? 

• How did people’s contributions from all over the world build our country?