Glen Ridge Public Schools –Language Arts Literacy Curriculum

Course Title: Language Arts

Subject: Language Arts Literacy

Grade Level: 4

Duration: Full Year

Prerequisite: N/A

Elective or Required:N/A

Language Arts Literacy Mission Statement

The Glen Ridge Language Arts Program establishes a foundation for lifelong learning and effective communication. Through a sequential and challenging curriculum, our students will become proficient readers, effective writers, active listeners and articulate speakers. Students learn to respect various points of view while displaying creative, collaborative, and critical thinking skills. The Language Arts Program enables our students to participate effectively in a technological, complex and ever-changing world.

Course Description:

The purpose of this course in Language Arts is to build on the reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing skills of the current fourth grade students. With the use of a quality literature anthology, an intensive grammar program and sophisticated writing program, enrichment materials, age appropriate novels, and technology, students in the fourth grade will build skills that will strengthen their ability to communicate and demonstrate their thinking.

Authors:Amanda Goodwin and Alyssa DeSimone

Date Submitted: August 2011

4th Grade Language Arts

Topic/Unit #1: Let’s Explore

Approximate # of Weeks: 6 weeks

Essential Questions: How do new experiences help a person to grow?

Upon completion of this unit students will be able to:

Reading:

  • Make inferences and analyze text while reading. (4.RL.1)
  • Identify problem and solution. (4.RI.5)
  • Summarize. (4.RI.2)
  • Identify main ideas and details. (4.RI.2)
  • Analyze character. (4.RL.3)
  • Identify character, setting and plot. (4.RL.3)
  • Read charts, maps, and diagrams to increase comprehension. (4.RL.7)
  • Preview and make predictions while reading to increase comprehension. (4.RI.1)
  • Read aloud grade appropriate material with ease (4.RF.4)
  • Speak clearly and with expression. (4.RF.4)
  • Vary reading pace. (4.RF.4)

Writing:

  • Write for a variety of purposes using the personal narrative format. (4.W.3)
  • Use a variety of transitional words and phrases to manage the sequence of events (4.W.3 c)
  • Respond to literature through personal writing-poetry. (4.W.3)
  • Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events in a narrative (4.W.3 b)
  • Write non-fiction text journal entry. (4.W.1)
  • Write and revise a variety of personal narrative beginnings and endings. (4.W.4)
  • Provide a conclusion hat follows from the narrated experience or event (4.W.3)

Language:

  • Use a dictionary to identify unfamiliar words. (4.L.4)
  • Use context clues to define vocabulary words. 4.L.4)
  • Identify word parts to find meanings-compound words. (4.L.4)
  • Identify the four types of sentences and add appropriate punctuation. (4.L.1)
  • Identify complete subjects and complete predicates. (4.L.1)
  • Identify simple subjects in context. (4.L.1)
  • Identify simple predicates in context. (4.L.1)
  • Identify and select direct objects in sentences. (4.L.1)
  • Identify prepositions and prepositional phrase in context. (4.L.1)
  • Identify and rewrite sentence fragments. (4.L.1)
  • Identify compound sentences and conjunctions in context. (4.L.1)
  • Identify sentences as compound, run-on, or comma splice. (4.L.1)

Speaking and Listening:

  • Use strategies to improve fluency-repeated reading, partner reads, choral reading. (4.SL.1)
  • Make inferences based on listening. (4.SL.2)
  • Use appropriate strategies to prepare, rehearse and deliver an oral presentation. (4.SL.4)
  • Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organize manner. (4.SL.4)

Interdisciplinary Standards (njcccs.org)

  • Standard 9.1 -21stCentury Life and career skills.

Students will demonstrate their creative skills in guided reading center projects, think critically when discussing literature in whole and small groups, and collaborate in mini center projects or literature circles.

  • Standard 8.1 – Computer and information Literacy

Students use computers to research various topics from reading

Activities – Include 21st Century Technologies:

  • Listen to audio clips (21st Century Tech)
  • Smart Board Lessons
  • Unitedstreaming.com for videos
  • Interactive websites
  • Web Quests
  • PowerPoint
  • Macmillan online resources
  • Related Multimedia
  • Class Discussion
  • Literary Graphic Organizers
  • Informational Text Graphic Organizers
  • Journal Response
  • Literature Response
  • Research Project
  • Word Study
  • Author Study
  • Come up with a solution to an everyday problem

Writing Assignments:

  • Student Journals
  • Short Essay
  • Research Reports
  • Personal Narrative
  • Develop a “Seed Idea”
  • Use a Timeline to Plan Story
  • Build a Story Step-by-Step
  • Developing the Heart of a Story
  • Study and Write Using Leads
  • Write from a Memory

Enrichment Activities:

  • Create a pamphlet
  • Have a debate
  • Create a mystery-themed game
  • Rewrite the ending to a story
  • Retell a mystery story or movie
  • Write a newspaper headline/article about a mystery
  • Write a guide for surviving in extreme temperatures
  • Research an ecosystem and describe its inhabitants’ adaptations
  • Create a brochure for a national park
  • Brainstorm ways to protect endangered ecosystems and environments
  • Write a letter to someone you admire
  • Create interview questions to ask an astronaut
  • Explain how to build a raft using research
  • Reflect on an enjoyable outdoor experience and write about it

Methods of Assessments/Evaluation:

  • Oral/Written Exit Slips
  • Reflective Journal
  • Journal Reflections
  • Project
  • Visual Interpretation
  • Read Response
  • Discussion Board/Blog
  • Weekly Assessments
  • Class work
  • Homework
  • StudyIsland
  • Center Activities
  • DRA
  • Open Ended Questions
  • Essays
  • Web Quests
  • Writer’s Workshop Assignment
  • Multimedia Presentation

Resources: Text, Literature (RL), Informational (RI)

  • Student Textbook
  • Leveled Readers
  • Hottest Coldest Highest Deepest by Steve Jenkins (RI)
  • Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa by Don Brown (RI)
  • Black Bear:North America’s Bear by Stephen R. Swinburne (RI)

Online Resources:

  • Teacher webpage
  • Online textbook resources:
  • SpellingCity:
  • Author Websites

Topic/Unit #2: Take a Stand

Approximate # of Weeks: 6

Essential Questions: What kinds of events or issues inspire people to take a stand? What kinds of stories or people inspire you to take a stand?

Upon completion of this unit students will be able to:

Reading:

  • Identify author’s purpose for writing text. (4.RI.8)
  • Make inferences and draw conclusions about characters and plot. (4.RL.1)
  • Read at different speeds using scanning, skimming, or careful reading as appropriate. (4.RF.4)
  • Set purpose for reading and check to verify or change predictions during/after reading. (4.RL.3)
  • Monitor comprehension and accuracy while reading in context and self-correct. (4.RI.1)
  • Use word origins and base words to find the meaning of an unfamiliar word. (4.RF.3)
  • Use graphs and tables to assist in comprehension of nonfiction texts. (4.RI.7)
  • Understand author’s opinions and how they address culture, ethnicity, gender, and historical periods. (4.RL.6)
  • Use strategies to monitor comprehension and analyze text-visualization. (4.RL.1)
  • Summarize a selection through revision and confirmation of predictions. (4.RL.1)
  • Compare and contrast characters from text to text. (4.RL.7)
  • Make connections between text to text, text to self, and text to world. (4.RL.7)
  • Read properly with proper intonation and phrasing. (4.RF.4)
  • Use reference materials for research purposes. (4.RI.9)
  • Identify problem and solution in text. (4.RI.5)

Writing:

  • Write narratives to develop real or imagines experiences or events (4.W.3)
  • Use a variety of transitional words and phrases to manage the sequenceof events (4.W.3)
  • Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely (4.W.3)
  • To orient the reader by establishing the situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally (4.W.3)
  • Write routinely over extended time frames and shorter time frames for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes and audiences (4.W.10)
  • Uncover internal details by reenacting a story(4.W.1)
  • Study and create leads for a personal narrative (4.W.9)
  • Bring forth a story in a sequential order. (4.W.3)

Language:

  • To identify nouns and proper nouns in context. (4.L.2)
  • To write sentences using proper nouns with appropriate capitalization. (4.L.2)
  • Identify singular and plural nouns in sentences. (4.L.2)
  • Differentiate between personal and possessive pronouns (4.L.2)
  • To distinguish between the proper use of interrogative pronouns who, what, and which. (4.L.2)
  • To identify action verbs and linking verbs in context. (4.L.2)
  • To differentiate between main verbs and helping verbs in sentences. (4.L.2)
  • To identify adjectives and adverbs in context. (4.L.2)
  • To identify prepositions and prepositional phrases. (4.L.2)
  • To identify conjunctions and the words they connect in sentences. (4.L.2)
  • Infer meaning of unfamiliar words by using context clues. (4.L.4)
  • Use a dictionary and glossary to define unfamiliar words. (4.L.4)
  • Identify, understand, and use literary elements in writing-idioms, alliterations, metaphors, and similes. (4.L.5)

Speaking and Listening:

  • Listen for a variety of purposes. (4.SL.2)
  • Summarize an oral story. (4.SL.2)
  • Use appropriate strategies to prepare, rehearse, and deliver an oral presentation. (4.SL.4)
  • Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organize mannor. (4.SL.4)
  • Use sound effects as part of an oral presentation. (4.SL.5)
  • Distinguish between situations that call for formal and informal English (4.SL.6)

Interdisciplinary Standards (njcccs.org)

  • Standard 9.1 -21stCentury Life and career skills.

Students will demonstrate their creative skills in guided reading center projects, think critically when discussing literature in whole and small groups, and collaborate in mini center projects or literature circles.

  • Standard 8.1 – Computer and information Literacy

Students use computers to research various topics from reading

Activities – include 21st Century Technologies:

  • Listen to audio clips (21st Century Technology)
  • Smart Board Lessons
  • Unitedstreaming.com for videos
  • Interactive websites
  • Web Quests
  • PowerPoint
  • Macmillan online resources
  • Related Multimedia
  • Class Discussion
  • Literary Graphic Organizers
  • Informational Text Graphic Organizers
  • Journal Response
  • Literature Response
  • Research Project
  • Word Study
  • Author Study
  • Come up with a solution to an everyday problem

Writing Assignments:

  • Student Journals
  • Short essay
  • Write with Emotion
  • Story tell with an Angle
  • Write from Personal Experience
  • Adding Scenes to Your Writing
  • Using Story Mountains to Improve Narratives

Enrichment Activities:

  • Design a baseball card for a famous baseball player
  • Create a cheer or song about team spirit and fairness
  • Interview a person who is new to your school, town, state, or country
  • Research your family’s ancestry
  • Explain how a specific Chinese invention changed the world
  • Name famous landmarks in China
  • Write a journal entry about life before electricity
  • List inventors and their inventions and create a matching game
  • Research, list, and describe the most dangerous snakes
  • Describe the physical characteristics of reptiles

Methods of Assessments/Evaluation:

  • Oral/Written Exit Slips
  • Reflective Journal
  • Journal Reflections
  • Project
  • Visual Interpretation
  • Read Response
  • Discussion Board/Blog
  • Weekly Assessments
  • Classwork
  • Homework
  • StudyIsland
  • Center Activities
  • DRA
  • Open Ended Questions
  • Essays
  • Web Quest
  • Writer’s Workshop Assignment
  • Multimedia Presentation

Resources: Text, Literature (RL), Informational (RI)

  • Satchel Paige by Lesa Cline-Ransome(RI)
  • A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson by Michelle Y. Green (RI)
  • The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley (RI)

Online Resources:

  • Teacher webpage
  • Online textbook resources:
  • SpellingCity:
  • Author Websites

Topic/Unit #3: Making a Difference

Approximate # of Weeks: 6

Essential Questions: Can ordinary people make a difference? Who has made a difference by helping people? How? Who has made a difference by helping the planet? How?

Upon completion of this unit students will be able to:

Reading:

  • Identify author’s purpose. (4.RI.8)
  • Make predictions and inferences. (4.RL.1)
  • Recognize plot elements within text. (4.RI.5)
  • Increase fluency through repeated and choral reading. (4.RF.4)
  • Recognize literary elements-foreshadowing and symbolism. (4.RI.5)
  • Define unknown words through the use of word parts-prefix. (3.1)
  • Use illustrations and visualization to increase comprehension. (3.1)
  • Read and identify works of different genres. (4.RL.5)
  • Use text features to navigate non-fictional texts. (4.RI.7)
  • Apply strategies to increase comprehension: compare and contrast,

summarize. (4.RI.5)

  • Identify main idea and details in nonfiction texts. (4.RI.1)
  • Identify the sequence of events. (4.RI.5)
    Writing:
  • Write an opinion piece on topics or texts supporting a point of view withreasons and information (4.W.1)
  • Create an expository brochure (4.W.2)
  • Study and craft a thesis statement (4.W.1)
  • Support a thesis statement with rich and appropriate details (4.W.1)
  • Gather a variety of materials to add in essay writing (4.W.7)
  • Build a cohesive draft recognizing sources of supporting materials to guide the drafting process (4.W.8)

Language:

  • Distinguish between your and you’re. (4.L.1)
  • Distinguish between there, their, and they’re, and use in context correctly. (4.L.1)
  • Distinguish between its and it’s, and use in context correctly in sentences. (4.L.1)
  • Choose the correct form of be. (4.L.1)
  • Write sentences using good and well in the correct format. (4.L.1)
  • Write descriptive sentences using doesn’t and don’t. (4.L.1)
  • Correctly identify the differences between a,an, and the. (4.L.1)
  • Distinguish between whose and who’s. (4.L.1)
  • Identify that to, two, and too have similar sounds but different meanings and spellings. (4.L.1)
  • Decode multiple meaning words. (4.L.4)
  • Define unfamiliar words using thesaurus-synonyms. (4.L.4)
  • Apply knowledge of word meanings and context clues. (4.L.4)
  • Use figurative language purposefully. (4.L.5)
  • Use homophones properly. (4.L.5)
  • Apply decoding strategies to read unknown words while working independently. (4.L.6)
  • Recognize figurative language in texts; metaphor and similes (4.L.5)
    Use new vocabulary related to a particular topic. (4.L.6)
  • Listen to identify tone, mood, and emotion in verbal and nonverbal communication. (4.L.6)

Speaking and Listening:

  • Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points (4.SL.3)
  • Use body language and expression to make dialogue come to life. (4.SL.1)
  • Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organize manner. (4.SL.4)

Interdisciplinary Standards (njcccs.org)

  • Standard 9.1 -21stCentury Life and career skills.

Students will demonstrate their creative skills in guided reading center projects, think critically when discussing literature in whole and small groups, and collaborate in mini center projects or literature circles.

  • Standard 8.1 – Computer and information Literacy

Students use computers to research various topics from reading

Activities – include 21st Century Technologies:

  • Listen to audio clips (21st Century Tech)
  • Smart Board Lessons
  • Unitedstreaming.com for videos
  • Interactive websites
  • Web Quests
  • PowerPoint
  • Macmillan online resources
  • Related Multimedia
  • Class Discussion
  • Literary Graphic Organizers
  • Informational Text Graphic Organizers
  • Journal Response
  • Literature Response
  • Research Project
  • Word Study
  • Author Study
  • Come up with a solution to an everyday problem

Writing Assignments:

  • Student Journals
  • Short essay
  • Collecting Ideas as Essayists
  • Contrast Narrative and Non-narrative Structures
  • Writing with Insight and Honesty
  • Creating a Thesis
  • Angling a Story to Support a Thesis
  • Gathering a Variety of Information

Enrichment Activities:

  • Write a folktale about two animals
  • Explain why animals must have enemies
  • List things you would like to change about the future
  • Listen to and read Dr. King’s speech and look for persuasive techniques
  • Develop a charity or organization to help someone or something
  • Design your own business
  • Describe and illustrate a Native American tepee
  • Create artistic symbols to represent your personal values
  • Act out a weather forecast
  • Explain how nature can inspire artwork

Methods of Assessments/Evaluation:

  • Oral/Written Exit Slips
  • Reflective Journal
  • Journal Reflections
  • Project
  • Visual Interpretation
  • Read Response
  • Discussion Board/Blog
  • Weekly Assessments
  • Class work
  • Homework
  • StudyIsland
  • Center Activities
  • DRA
  • Open Ended Questions
  • Essays
  • Web Quest
  • Writer’s Workshop Assignment
  • Multimedia Presentation

Resources: Text, Literature (RL), Informational (RI)

  • Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan (RL)
  • Clever Tortoise by Francesca Martin (RL)
  • The Weaving of a Dream by Marilee Heyer (RL)

Online Resources:

  • Teacher webpage
  • Online textbook resources:
  • SpellingCity:
  • Author Websites

Topic/Unit #4: Viewpoints

Approximate # of Weeks: 6

Essential Questions: Can you tell what a person’s viewpoint is based on his or her actions, what he or she says, writes, or creates? Why is it important to try to understand the viewpoints of others?

Upon completion of this unit students will be able to:

Reading:

  • View and respond in writing to a picture. (4.RI.7)
  • Preview and make predictions before reading. (4.RI.7)
  • Read and discuss selections in different genres, including fantasy, biography, poetry, that develop the theme of “Viewpoints.” (4.RL.5)
  • Identify topic sentence and supporting details. (4.RI.2)
  • Analyze text structure as a tool for understanding. (4.RI.2)
  • Summarize the events in a story. (4.RI.2)
  • Identify plot and subplot elements in a story. (4.RI.5)
  • Make inferences. (4.RI.1)
  • Identify conflict and resolution in a story. (4.RI.5)
  • Identify setting. (4.RI.2)
  • Identify the theme in a story. (4.RI.1)
  • Evaluate information for fact, opinion and author’s purpose to entertain, inform, or persuade. (4.RI.2)

Writing:

  • Develop believable characters (4.W.3)
  • Weave dialogue, action and thought together to create a cohesive fictional piece (4.W.3)
  • Produce clear and coherent fictional stories in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience (4.W.4)
  • With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthenwriting as needed by planning revising, and editing (4.W.5)
  • Use technology to produce and publish writing (4.W.6)

Language:

  • Choose between and identify subject and object pronouns. (4.L.1)
  • To choose whether to use I or me in context. (4.L.1)
  • To choose appropriate demonstrative adjectives to complete sentences. (4.L.1)
  • To understand how to make present tense regular verbs agree with singular and plural subjects. (4.L.1)
  • To learn that most past tense verbs end in –ed and identify actions that have happened in the past. (4.L.1)
  • To identify irregular past tense verbs. (4.L.1)
  • To identify negatives in context and to rewrite sentences to avoid double negatives. (4.L.1)
  • To discover that adjectives ending in –er are used to compare most nouns. (4.L.1)
  • Increase vocabulary by studying suffixes –less, -est,-ed, -er, -es, -ly; and prefixes-mis (4.L.4)
  • Increase vocabulary by studying word families. (4.L.4)
  • Identify and use transition words. (4.L.4)
  • Use grade appropriate vocabulary. (4.L.4)
  • Use a glossary to define and pronounce words in a text. (4.L.4)
  • Use context clues to define new vocabulary. (4.L.4)
  • Use a dictionary to define multiple meaning words. (4.L.4)
  • Identify and use homophones. (4.L.5)
  • Recognize and decode homographs. (4.L.4)
  • Examine literary elements: protagonist and hyperbole. (4.L.5)

Speaking and Listening:

  • Present written work to an audience. (4.SL.1)
  • Paraphrase a short piece of writing through listening. (4.SL.2)
  • Read selections aloud for fluency with proper intonation, expression and phrasing. (4.SL.2)
  • Use descriptive oral language. (4.SL.6)

Interdisciplinary Standards (njcccs.org)

  • Standard 9.1 -21stCentury Life and career skills.

Students will demonstrate their creative skills in guided reading center projects, think critically when discussing literature in whole and small groups, and collaborate in mini center projects or literature circles.

  • Standard 8.1 – Computer and information Literacy

Students use computers to research various topics from reading