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Fourth Grade Writing/ELA
First Quarter – Unit 1 /
Writing
ELACC4W1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts,(response to literature) supporting a point of view with reasons.
Prior Learning (CCGPS)Students learned opinion writing in third grade. This year, there is more of an emphasis on organization.
a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose.
  • Introduce the response to literature with a beginning that will hook the reader

  • Select a focus and a point of view based on audience, length, and format requirements

  • Organizes response to literature with:
  • Introduction
  • Body
  • Conclusion

  • Select an appropriate organizational structure:
  • chronological order
  • logical order
  • Similarity and difference
  • Posing and answering questions
  • introduction, body, conclusion

ELACC4W3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Prior Learning (CCGPS)Students learned opinion writing in third grade. This year, there is more of an emphasis on organization.
a. Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally
  • Use sensory details to communicate setting, characters, and plot

  • Begin narrative piece with an opening that hooks the reader

  • Organize with a clear beginning, middle, and end and events that happen in logical order

  • Use traditional narrative structures for conveying information:
  • Chronological order
  • Logical order
  • Beginning, middle, and end

Credit for Templates:

From Standards to Rubrics in 6 Steps: Tools for Assessing Student Learning, K-8

Written by Kay Burke and published by Corwin Press

Troup County Schools 2014

Teacher Checklist - First Quarter Unit 1

Writing/Language Arts Common Core

1

ELACC4W4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in Standards 1–3 above.)
Prior Learning (CCGPS)This was introduced in third grade. Attention to audience is new.
  • become more mature writers

  • organize a piece of writing based on task and purpose

  • develop fully a piece of writing based on task and purpose

ELACC.4.W.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Prior Learning (CCGPS) New learning.
  • Analyze a literary work. (Refer to Reading standards to see what type of analysis they should be doing.)
  • Use textual evidence to support analysis.

  • Reflect on a literary work (e.g., response to literature).
  • Make text-to-text, text-to-world, and text-to-self connections
  • Use textual evidence to support reflection.

  • Conduct research connected to literary works (e.g., time period in which it was written, research on author’s life).
  • Use textual evidence to support research.

ELACC4W10:Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences
Prior Learning (CCGPS) Students have been writing since Kindergarten. They should have been participating in Writing Workshop, writing across the curriculum (i.e. Writing to Win), and writing to prompts for All-County Write.
  • Maintain a routine writing practice (collaborating as well as writing independently).

  • Practice maintaining focus on prolonged projects, writing or working a little each day on a larger project over time.

  • Write texts of a length appropriate to address the topic or tell the story

Speaking and Listening
ELACC.4.SL.3: Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points. New learning.
Prior Learning (CCGPS)New learning
  • Differentiate between evidence and main points

  • Identify main points

  • Identify supporting reasons or evidence

Language
ELACC4L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
a. Userelative pronouns (who, whose, whom, which, that) and relative adverbs (where, when, why).
Prior Learning (CCGPS): Pronouns were taught in third grade. Relative pronouns are new.
  • Know that a relative pronoun is a pronoun that refers to a previously used noun. (Example: My first grade teacher, whose name I can’t remember, used to wear purple sneakers every day.)

  • Identify and use relative pronouns correctly when writing or speaking:
  • Who
  • Whose
  • Whom
  • Which
  • That

  • Know that a relative adverb refers to a previously used noun of place, time, or reason. (Example: They are filming a new movie in the small town where I grew up!)

  • Use relative adverbs correctly when writing or speaking:
  • Where
  • When
  • Why

f. Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correcting rhetorically poor fragments and run-ons
Prior Learning (CCGPS): New learning.
  • Differentiate between grammatically complete sentences,
sentence fragments, and run-on sentences.
  • Revise incomplete, fragments, or run-ons by:
  • combining sentences with a conjunction
  • adding end punctuation and beginning a new sentence
  • by adding to the sentence to make it complete (e.g. subject or predicate

  • Differentiate between:
  • rhetorically poor and “functional fragments”
  • rhetorically poor run-ons and ”functional run-ons”
“Rhetoric” is defined as the art of speaking or writing effectively and/or persuasively.
Rhetorical fragments (a.k.a. functional fragments) are incomplete sentences that are used in writing to persuade the reader, or to evoke some emotional response from the reader's perspective. A rhetorically poor fragment would be one that does not invoke in the reader any emotional response. It is simply incorrect.
Run-ons are almost never used rhetorically. Students should be able to spot them and correct them.
g. Correctly use frequently confused words (e.g., to, too, two; there, their).
Prior Learning (CCGPS)New learning.
  • Identify homophones

  • Correctly use frequently confused words

  • Use references to ensure that the correct homophone is used when writing

ELACC4L2:Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
a. Use correct capitalization.
Prior Learning (CCGPS): Students have learned capitalization of words in titles, holidays, names, holidays, dates, the pronoun I, and first words in sentences.
  • Use correct capitalization:
  • beginning of sentences
  • proper nouns (names of days, people, countries, months, streets, cities, states, etc.)
  • proper adjectives
  • titles
  • for the pronouns “I”

d. Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.
Prior Learning (CCGPS): New learning.
  • Read irregularly spelled words in grade level text

  • Read a variety of genres on grade level for exposure to irregularly spelled words

Credit for Templates:

From Standards to Rubrics in 6 Steps: Tools for Assessing Student Learning, K-8

Written by Kay Burke and published by Corwin Press

Troup County Schools 2014

Teacher Checklist - First Quarter Unit 1

Writing/Language Arts Common Core

1

ELACC4L3: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.
a. Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely.*
Prior Knowledge (CCGPS): Taught in third grade.
  • In writing and speaking, select precise words that will:
  • set the tone
  • communicate feelings
  • communicate mood

  • In writing and speaking, use:
  • Precise language
  • Action verbs
  • Sensory details
  • Appropriate modifiers
  • Active rather than passive voice

ELACC4L6: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific vocabulary, including words and phrases that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and words and phrases basic to a particular topic (e.g., wildlife, conservation, and endangered when discussing animal preservation).
Prior Learning (CCGPS) In third grade, this standard focused on spatial and temporal relationships.
  • Read literary and informational texts and incorporate new words into oral and written language.

  • Read and use accurately domain-specific vocabulary (content-related words)

  • Be able to tell the difference between similar words and justify the reasoning behind the thinking involved

  • Be able to read and use specific words that signal precise
  • actions
  • emotions
  • states of being

  • Acquire and use words and phrases basic to a particular topic

Credit for Templates:

From Standards to Rubrics in 6 Steps: Tools for Assessing Student Learning, K-8

Written by Kay Burke and published by Corwin Press

Troup County Schools 2014

Teacher Checklist - First Quarter Unit 1

Writing/Language Arts Common Core