Responsive Curriculum Design for Fourth Grade English Language Arts
Standards for this Unit:Informational Text
4.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
4.3: Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or historical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information from the text.
4.9: Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Foundational Skills
4.4.a: Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.
4.4.c: Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
Speaking and Listening
4.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (1:1, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clarity.
4.2: Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
Language
4.1 a-c: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 4 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies (e.g., context through definitions, examples or restatements; common grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots; consult reference materials)
Central Issue for This Unit
What does it take to be an entrepreneur?
Formative Assessments
Weekly conferences for goal-setting self-assessment
Text evidence checklist
Exit slips and quickwrites / Summative Assessments
Presentation rubric on entrepreneurs
End-of-unit essay
Informal reading inventory
Richly Detailed Source Materials
Wulffson, D. (2000). Toys! Amazing stories behind some great inventions. New York:Henry Holt.
Websites of child entrepreneurs (e.g, developed by three teens to sell magnetic new driver notification signs to be attached to the car door).
Digital slideshow called “Inventions by Kids” (
Interrelated Daily Lesson Sequence and Instructional Purposes
Day 1: Introduction to entrepreneurs, using Invention by Kids website (establishing purpose)
Day 2: “Play-Doh” close reading and discussion (modeling and thinking aloud)
Day 3: “Slinky” close reading and discussion (modeling and thinking aloud)
Day 4: Small groups meet to read and discuss “Seesaw” and “Lego”; journal writing (guided instruction and collaborative learning)
Day 5: Small groups meet to read and discuss “Tops,” “Mr. Potato Head,” and “Playing Cards” (guided instruction and collaborative learning)
Days 6-10: Students read remainder of book independently, others confer with teacher and set goals; journal writing (guided instruction and independent learning)
Day 11: Students reconvene small groups to discuss remainder of group; journal writing (guided instruction, collaborative learning, and independent learning)
Day 12: Classwide discussion of key ideas and introduction of presentation rubric (collaborative and independent learning)
Days 13-14: Research and development of group presentations (collaborative learning)
Days 15-20: Student presentations and essay development (collaborative learning and independent learning)
Culminating Projects
Group presentation on analysis of literary devices used in assigned reading.
Literacy analysis essay critiquing the three readings and comparing authors’ craft across the three.
Grouping Considerations:
Homogeneous groups for guided instruction (List student groups) / Grouping Considerations:
Heterogeneous groups for collaborative learning (List student groups)
Focus on Diverse Learners
English Learners
Additional guided instruction on general academic and domain specific vocabulary.
Pair with language brokers during collaborative learning.
Push-in support with bilingual specialist. / Students with Disabilities
Use parallel texts during independent reading
Discuss written production with assistive technology specialist
Use Bookshare resources for audio support of three readings. / Advanced Learners
Use parallel texts to supplement independent reading
Discuss alternative presentation modes with TAG specialist
Expand research to include a research on “near-miss” inventions (e.g., Walter Hunt invents the safety pin but sells his patent before ever profiting from it.)
Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher, 2011