We are currently thinking about CHARACTERS!

The focus of this unit is on supporting students as they think deeply about story, and empathize and learn from the characters within the books that they are reading. Throughout the unit, third graders will “wear the shoes” of the characters in the books they are reading, thereby developing skills in predicting, envisioning, and reading with fluency. Children will notice characters’ habits and behaviors, and use this information to make inferences and develop theories about characters’ traits, motivations, and actions. Through this work, children will also learn to talk and write well about reading. Students will also explore the roles that illustrations, secondary characters, author’s craft play within the story. The last portion of the unit focuses on lessons that readers learn about characters, and how they can apply those lessons to their own lives.