This unit helps to build a community of readers and writers, establish routines, and build foundational skills.

Students will understand: 

• Knowledge of the natural world is based on observation and inquiry.
• Plants and animals, including humans, interact with and depend upon each other and their environment.
• Interactions with the natural world bring up strong feelings and emotions in people.
• Nature’s beauty and encounters with nature are recurring themes in literature. Characters reveal themselves through their responses to nature.

Students will be able to: 

• Ask questions and create mental images. Reread to clarify or confirm understanding, and read on to clarify understanding.
• Identify key details and determine the main idea. Compare and contrast narrative points of view. Summarize the text. Analyze first-person point of view. Integrate information from multiple texts to demonstrate knowledge. Compare and contrast the treatment of themes in literature. Explain the differences between poetry and prose.
• Recognize and explain the meaning of idioms. Explain the meaning of similes and metaphors. Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases.
• Write informative/explanatory essays based on text-based prompts.
• Use prepositional phrases. Recognize and correct inappropriate fragments. Order adjectives within sentences.
• Practice reading with characterization and feeling. Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding. Review word patterns, including long and short "a," "e," and "o" sounds.
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, and support ideas in a constructive conversation.

Students will understand: 

• Writers can tell the same story in more than one genre, such as a drama and a novel or short story.
• Characters’ actions and reactions influence a story’s plot, as well as other characters.
• Real-life actions and reactions have effects on real events and people.
• Writers intentionally choose characters’ words and actions to reveal the characters to the reader. 

Students will be able to: 

•  Draw inferences and make connections. Stop and think about the author’s purpose. Read out loud to support comprehension.
• Summarize the text. Describe a character in depth. Make connections between a story and an oral presentation of the text. Analyze the author’s use of descriptive language in a poem. Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes in stories.
• Understand and use words that signal actions, emotions, and states of being. Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases.
• Write opinion essays based on text-based prompts.
• Use words and phrases for effect. Correct comma usage. Use modal auxiliaries. Ensure subject/verb agreement and pronoun/antecedent agreement.
• Practice reading with speed/pacing (fast) and pausing (short pauses). Study word patterns, including long and short "i" and "u" sounds and closed syllable patterns.
• Engage effectively in whole-group and peer discussions. State, clarify, and support ideas in a constructive conversation.

Students will understand: 

•  Local, state, and federal governments have and share different powers and responsibilities.
• All levels of government provide services that promote the wellbeing of society, such as education, transportation, and the protection of people’s health and safety.
• Elected representatives, government officials, and volunteers work together at all levels of government to solve problems in times of crisis.
• We can learn about power and the role of government not just through nonfiction but also through fiction and fictional scenarios. 

Students will be able to: 

• Distinguish between important and unimportant information. Summarize and synthesize information. Read more slowly and think about the words. Reread to confirm or clarify understanding.
• Describe the structure of a text, focusing on the problem/solution. Explain events or ideas in a text, specifically problems and solutions. Interpret information presented visually, such as sidebars, charts, and photos. Draw inferences. Integrate information from two texts. Identify key details and determine the main idea. Identify a poem’s rhyme scheme.
• Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases.
• Write informative/explanatory essays based on text-based prompts.
• Use modal auxiliaries to express possibilities. Form and use the present progressive tense. Use commas and quotation marks to mark direct speech and quotations from a text.
• Practice inflection/intonation (pitch) and understanding units of meaning in complex sentences while reading. Review word patterns, including open syllables, vowel teams, and vowel-r syllable patterns.
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, and support ideas in a constructive conversation. 

Students will understand: 

• Realistic fiction stories contain characters that could exist in the real world and events that could really happen.
• Every story is narrated from a distinctive literary point of view and offers a unique perspective on events.
• Authors intentionally use point of view and perspective to influence what a reader knows and feels about both the characters and the events in a story.
• People’s unique perspectives influence the way they understand both other people and events in the world around them. 

Students will be able to: 

•  Ask questions about characters and events. Create mental images of characters and events. Read on to clarify or confirm understanding, and stop to think about the author’s purpose.
• Draw inferences with a focus on characters. Analyze third-person and first-person points of view. Analyze a free verse poem. Compare and contrast points of view. Summarize the text. Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes in stories.
• Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, focusing on similes.
• Write narrative texts based on text-based prompts.
• Form and use the past and present progressive tenses. Correctly use frequently confused words. Form and use prepositional phrases.
• Practice expression through anticipation/mood and speed/pacing (slow) while reading. Study word patterns, including compound words, vowel-consonant-e syllable patterns, and consonant -le syllable patterns.
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, and support ideas in a constructive conversation.

Students will understand: 

• Technology can be controversial and have both positive and negative impacts on society.
• We design and develop robots to do many jobs efficiently.
• Automation continues to change how we live and work.
• Society’s needs, as well as other motivations, drive the development of new technologies.

Students will be able to: 

• Draw inferences and distinguish between important and unimportant information. Read out loud to support comprehension, and read more slowly while thinking about the words.
• Describe the structure of a text, focusing on problem/solution and cause/effect. Explain events or ideas in a text, specifically cause/effect. Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text. Summarize the text. Integrate information from two texts on the same topic.
• Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases.
• Write opinion essays based on text-based prompts.
• Form and use the progressive verb tenses. Use relative adverbs and relative pronouns.
• Practice pausing at full stops and expression through anticipation/mood while reading. Study word patterns, including hard and soft "c" and "g" sounds and r-controlled vowels (ar, or, oar, ore, er, ir, ur).
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, support, and suggest ideas in a constructive conversation. 

Students will understand: 

• A quest is a story in which the main character goes on a difficult journey to accomplish a mission or goal. Many traditional tales are quest tales.
• Every character responds to challenges in different ways, and these actions often reveal a character’s traits.
• Different cultures present and explore universal themes and human experiences in their own unique ways.

Students will be able to: 

•  Make connections and summarize and synthesize information. Reread to clarify or confirm understanding, and read on to clarify or confirm understanding.
• Describe the characters in a story. Infer and determine the theme of a story. Describe characters, settings, and events. Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes. Analyze rhyme, meter, and theme in a poem. Compare and contrast patterns of events. Summarize the text.
• Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases. Identify words with mythological allusions.
• Write narrative, informative/explanatory, and opinion texts based on text-based prompts.
• Use modal auxiliaries to convey various conditions. Choose punctuation for effect. Use relative adverbs (where, when, why). Use suffixes.
• Practice inflection/intonation (pitch) and dramatic expression while reading. Study word patterns, including adverb suffixes (-ly, -ily, -ways, -wise), vowel sounds (/oo/, /oo/ with oo, ew, ould, ull), and adjective suffixes (-ful, -ous, -ible, -able, -some).
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, and support ideas in a constructive conversation.

Students will understand: 

• A community can be a location or a group that shares common characteristics.
• Many factors shape the United States; Immigrant communities play a central role in this process.
• In the 1860s, railroads connected communities across North America, allowing for the settlement and expansion of what is today the United States.
• Innovations in transportation and communication technology reshape and impact communities.
• The expansion of the United States had catastrophic effects on Native American peoples and communities.

Students will be able to: 

• Apply metacognitive strategies. Stop and think about the author’s purpose. Read out loud to support comprehension.
• Describe the overall structure of a text, focusing on chronological order and compare/contrast. Explain events or ideas in a text. Interpret information presented visually. Draw inferences. Explain how the author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text. Integrate information from two texts to speak knowledgeably on a topic.
• Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases.
• Write narratives based on text-based prompts.
• Use correct capitalization and punctuation. Use commas before coordinating conjunctions in compound sentences. Use prepositional phrases. Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely.
• Practice confirming or correcting word recognition and understanding, as well as varied speed/pacing while reading. Study word patterns, including /ou/ and /oi/ sounds, prefixes (trans-, pro-, sub-, super-, inter-), and homophones.
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, support, evaluate, and compare ideas in a constructive conversation.

Students will understand: 

• Earthquakes are caused by shifts in Earth’s tectonic plates. The sudden release of energy moves in waves through Earth’s crust, shaking Earth’s surface.
• Volcanoes form when magma from within Earth’s upper mantle works its way through Earth’s crust. Eruptions of hot lava, gas, and ash are caused by pressure beneath Earth’s surface.
• Natural disasters are sudden and violent events that can threaten people’s lives and change Earth’s surface.
• People can study the forces that cause natural disasters to better understand them and respond to them.
• Natural disasters are emotional experiences for those who live through them and are often the subject of firsthand accounts.

Students will be able to: 

• Apply metacognitive strategies. Read more slowly and think about the words. Confirm or correct word recognition. Reread to clarify or confirm understanding.
• Describe the overall structure of events in a text, focusing on cause/effect. Summarize the text. Interpret information presented visually. Integrate information from two texts to speak knowledgeably on a topic. Refer to details and examples in texts to draw inferences. Identify genre features of firsthand accounts. Analyze personification, repetition, and theme in a poem. Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand account of the same topic.
• Use context clues to determine the meanings of words and phrases, including those with multiple meanings.
• Conduct process writing for a research project.
• Form and use prepositional phrases. Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting inappropriate fragments and run-ons. Use a comma with a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.
• Practice inflection/intonation (volume) and confirm or correct word recognition and understanding while reading. Study word patterns, including negative prefixes (de-, un-, in-, im-, dis-), Greek and Latin roots (geo-, archae-, rupt), and variant vowel /ô/ (au, al, aw).
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, support, evaluate, and compare ideas in a constructive conversation. 

Students will understand: 

• Economies depend on the resources available for use and how those resources are used.
• Communities are often shaped largely by the resources available to them.
• Protecting resources is important in sustaining long-term availability and use.
• Economic hardship and the struggle to improve workers’ lives are common topics in literature.
• Some narrative poetry reimagines important historical events through the use of vivid imagery and figurative language. 

Students will be able to: 

• Apply metacognitive strategies. Read on to clarify or confirm understanding. Stop and think about the author’s purpose.
• Describe the overall structure of events in a text, focusing on cause/effect. Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes in two poems. Identify key details and determine the main idea. Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text. Explain events or concepts in a social studies text. Determine the theme of a poem and refer to the structural elements of poems. Integrate information from two texts to speak knowledgeably on a topic.
• Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases, including domain-specific vocabulary. Understand figurative language in a poem.
• Create a multimedia presentation.
• Use correct capitalization. Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely. Ensure subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.
• Practice inflection/intonation (stress) and phrasing (units of meaning in complex sentences) while reading. Study word patterns, including noun suffixes (-dom, -ity, -tion, -ment, -ness), Latin roots (miss, agri, duc/duct, man), and variant vowel /âr/ (air, are, ear).
• Engage effectively in whole-class and peer discussions. State, clarify, support, evaluate, and compare ideas in a constructive conversation.