English Language Arts

Grade 2

Overview

Balanced Literacy is a framework designed to help all students learn to read and write effectively. This balance between reading and writing allows students to receive the teaching needed in order to reach grade level status, while allowing students to work at a level that is not frustrating for them. Second graders take part in whole class mini lessons, small group instruction, partnerships, and individualized conferences.

unit 1

Reading: Launching- Strengthening Reading Powers

Students will understand that strong readers make decisions about reading such as choosing just right books. They will work to build their reading stamina. Readers will learn the importance of being flexible, persistent, independent word solvers. Partners will support each other in making sure their reading makes sense.

Writing: Launching- Lessons from the Masters

Writers learn to generate ideas by taking small moments from their lives and writing them with attention to detail. Writers will examine mentor texts closely and pay careful attention to what makes authors' writing so powerful. Writers will choose craft moves to try in their own writing.

Unit 2

Reading: Nonfiction Reading Clubs

Readers read nonfiction to gain information about the world around them. Readers use text features to help them understand the new information they are learning. They challenge themselves to compare and contrast bits of information or different ideas that they have about a topic with their book clubs.

Writing: Informational Books

Students will write informational books about topics of personal expertise and/or interest. Writers will compose informational books that include multiple chapters filled with elaboration and text features. This unit will have a strong influence on informational reading as well.

unit 3

Reading: Character Study

Readers will get to know characters in their texts. Readers will pay attention to characters' growth, change, and interactions with others. They will work in partnerships and engage in accountable talk in order to grow ideas and develop theories beyond the pages of the text.

Writing: Fiction Writing

Writers will reflect on the sounds and rhythms of stories they've read, while applying their knowledge of strong narrative writing. They will publish writing that includes characters, a setting and various craft moves. This unit prioritizes story structure and spotlights the fact that a good short story contains tension that builds over a scene.

unit 4

Reading: Learn from Biographies

Students read about people in our world from the past and present. They understand the structure of a biography and utilize all they know about reading to understand it. Readers can use nonfiction text features, such as a timeline, to connect the important events in the subject’s life.

Writing: Writing About Reading (Opinion Writing/Reviews)

Writers get ideas for reviews by thinking of their favorite things. They prepare to write reviews through conversations with partners and small groups. Writers keep their audience in mind, clearly state their opinions and support them with precise details.

unit 5

Reading: Series Book Clubs

Readers will explore books in a series. The students will become more adept at foundational skills such as prediction, monitoring for sense, inferring, and understanding story elements. They will take on work such as comparing and contrasting across series.

Writing: Historical Journals- Writing through the Eyes of an Immigrant Child

This is a unit that blends both the content of the Social Studies unit on immigration and the narrative writing skills. Writers will create a journal from the point of view of an immigrant child. The journals will support the think, sketch, write approach that second graders use. This helps writers first picture and empathize with the character that they are imagining and also integrate the information as accurately as possible into the journal.

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