Unit Overview
Content Area: English Language Arts
Unit Title: Writing Realistic Fiction
Target Course/Grade Level:3rd Grade Timeline: 4-6 weeks
Unit Summary: Students will write fictional narratives with realistic settings and characters using clear descriptive language. Students will explore realistic fiction by others to identify key components of narrative writing such as characters, setting, plot, conflict, and solution. Students will write narratives which include these elements and are clear, organized, sequential, engaging and appropriate for the intended audience.
Primary interdisciplinary connections: Character Education, Science, Social Studies, Math, Health, Technology
21st century themes and skills: Creative Thinking and Problem Solving, Communication and Collaboration, Life and Career Skills: -flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility.
Anchor Standards for Writing:
Text Types and Purposes
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
Production and Distribution of Writing
4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
Range of Writing
10. 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 tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening:
Comprehension and Collaboration
3. Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
4. Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
Anchor Standards for Language:
Conventions of Standard English
1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
Learning Targets/Activities
Domain: Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language
Cluster: Text Types and Purposes, Production and Distribution of Writing, Range of Writing, Comprehension and Collaboration, Knowledge and Ideas, Conventions of Standard English
Standard # / Standards
W.3.3a-d / Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
  1. Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
  2. Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.
  3. Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order.
  4. Provide a sense of closure.

W.3.4 / With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
W.3.5 / With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
W.3.10 / 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.
SL.3.3 / Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
SL.3.4 / Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
SL.3.6 / Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.
L.3.1.i / Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
i. Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.
L3.2.a,b,e,g / Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
  1. Capitalize appropriate words in titles.
  2. Use commas in addresses.
  1. Use conventional spelling for high-frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words (e.g., sitting, smiled, cries, happiness).
  1. Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.

L.3.6 / Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went looking for them.)
Unit Essential Questions
  • How do fictional writers engage their audience in a real or imagined event?
  • How do writers use their own experiences to generate ideas for fiction?
  • How do writers develop a believable realistic fictions story using the writing process?
/ Unit Enduring Understandings
  • Writers can generate fiction ideas from their own lives or reading mentor texts.
  • Realistic fiction writing includes story elements such as characters, setting, problem and solution.
  • Writers use specific strategies to plan, write and revise realistic stories.

Unit Learning Targets
Students will ...
  • Establish and focus on a moment/part of a real or imagined experience/event. (W.3.3, W.3.8)
  • Use prewriting strategies (such as: brainstorming, graphic organizers, oral storytelling, freewriting, notes and/or logs). (W.3.3)
  • Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters. (W.3.3.a)
  • Organize events into a natural sequence. (W.3.3.a)
  • Use transition words to show sequence of events. (W.3.3.c)
  • Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts and feelings to develop experiences. (W.3.3.b)
  • Use dialogue to develop experiences and show character’s feelings and emotions to situations. (W.3.3.b, L.3.6)
  • Appropriately use commas and quotation marks in dialogue. (L.3.2.c)
  • Show the response of characters to situations. (W.3.3.b)
  • Provide a concluding statement or section. (W.3.3.d)
  • Produce an organized narratve piece that provides clarity and cohesiveness and is appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (W.3.4)
  • Plan, revise, and edit writing with guidance and support of peers and adults in order to strengthen writing. (W.3.5)
  • Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two). (W.3.10)
  • Identify and produce simple, compound, and complex. (L.3.1, L.3.1.i)
  • Capitalize appropriate words in a title. (L.3.2.a)
  • Use conventional spelling for high-frequency words. (L.3.2.e)
  • Use spelling patterns to assist in spelling words. (L.3.2.f)
  • Consult references to determine and/or confirm spelling of words.(L.3.2.g)
  • Orally share realistic fiction writing with an audience. (SL.3.3, SL.3.4, SL. 3.6)

Learning Activities
  • Mini-lessons
  • Modeling
  • Shared, guided and independent reading
  • Flexible groups
  • Mentor texts/read alouds
  • Teacher/peer conferencing/editing
  • Leveled readers
  • Think alouds
  • Reading journal
  • Writer's Workshop
  • Whole class writing
/
  • Reading Response Journals and/or prompts
  • One on one editing w/ teacher
  • Writing prompts
  • Small and Large Group Discussions
  • Independent writing

Evidence of Learning
Formative Assessments
  • Graphic organizers
  • Drafts
  • Conferences
  • Self Editing
/
  • Peer Editing
  • Adult Editing
  • Rubric Analysis of Independent writing samples

Summative Assessments
  • Published Realistic fiction piece
  • Sharing realistic fiction piece

RESOURCES/TECHNOLOGY
Teacher Instructional Resources:
  • Teacher chosen resources
  • Guided Reading Leveled Books (Stone Fox, Frindle, Donovan's Word Jar, Clementine, etc.)
  • Units of Study - Lucy Calkins
  • 6 + 1 Write Traits
  • Various Realistic Fiction books such as “Amelia and Elenor Go for a Ride” by Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick, A Picnic in October by Eve Bunting, etc.
  • Websites
  • Read Alouds/Mentor Texts -
  • Leveled readers
  • Calkins Units of Study/Curricular Plans
  • Strategies That Work, Harvey and Goudvis
  • Reading With Meaning, Debbie Miller
  • Lessons in Comprehension, Frank Serafini
  • Growing Readers, Kathy Collings
  • 7 Keys to Comprehension; Susan Zimmermann
  • Mosaic of Thought; Susan Zimmerman
  • Conferring:The Keystone of Readers Workshop; Patrick Allen
  • Guided Reading, Fountas and Pinnell
  • Guided Comprehension in the Primary Grades, Maureen McLaughin
  • The Big Book of Graphic Organizers; Jennifer Jacobson & Dottie Raymer
  • Reading Passages that Build Comprehension; Linda Ward Beech
  • Reading Rockets

Integration of Technology:
  • SmartBoard during instruction
  • Computers (Classroom and Library)
  • Online resources
  • Computer lab

Technology Resources:
Click the links below to access additional resources used to design this unit:

Multiple articles and lessons to teach various skills related to different styles of writing.

Opportunities for Differentiation:
  • Mentor Text Choices (Level, Character, Setting, Topics, etc.)
  • Writing Lengths
  • Degree of support/scaffolding by teacher
  • Paired vs. group vs. independent writing
  • Technology use

Teacher Notes: