AIG Curriculum

Fourth Grade AIG Curriculum:

Reading

The language arts curriculum includes usage of materials from the College of William & Mary Center for Gifted Education. The specially designed language arts unit is called Patterns of Change. Students will be introduced to important approaches and ideas of literary criticism while exploring cycles in nature, knowledge, history, and human life.

Students will be reading and responding to short stories, poems, plays, and novels. Novel choices may include C. P. Curtis's (1963) The Watsons Go to Birmingham, M. L'Engle's (1962) A Wrinkle in Time, B. Balliett's (2004 ) Chasing Vermeer, and R. Peck's (1998) A Long Way from Chicago.

Students will use journals, literature webs, essays, and visual projects to organize and express their ideas about various literary selections. Works studied in the unit include Conrad's (1991) My Daniel, “The Helpful Badger” by Lawrence Yep, and poetry by Dickinson, Sandburg, Angelou, and Shakespeare.

As an integral component of reading instruction, Shared Inquiry, an active and collaborative search for answers to questions of meaning about text, is utilized to promote deeper thinking through reading, discussion, and writing. Junior Great Books will be utilized during this instruction.

Reading instruction is focused on reading fluently, interpreting, generating, inferring, evaluating, revising, and finding evidence from the text to support ideas.

Vocabulary

The use of Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Town and Grammar Voyage, along with Caesar's English Iand II, support students in refining their skills with regards to grammar, grammar practice, writing (composition), vocabulary, and poetics.

Fifth Grade AIG Curriculum:

We follow UCPS curriculum chosen specifically for AIG students which includes various materials recommended by the College of William & Mary's Center for Gifted Education.

Our main focus is on noticing the importance of change, following the curriculum guide Literary Reflections.

We will examine literature in the forms of novels, short stories, poetry, and nonfiction including informational and biographical accounts using resources such as Junior Great Books and Jacob's Ladder.

Grammar and rich vocabulary help us to become effective communicators, therefore, we will build skills through the use of Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Voyage and Caesar's English.