Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

·         Effective readers use different strategies and skills to understand a variety of texts.

·         Effective readers are independent learners who use critical thinking skills.

·         Effective readers are able to select and use relevant information that requires evaluating a variety of sources.

·         Effective readers know that literature provides an understanding of human experience.

·         Effective writers utilize the writing process to organize and strengthen all modes of writing. 

·         Effective writers practice and use editing skills for self and peer writing evaluation.

·         Effective writers use conventions correctly.

·         Effective writers write in complete sentences varying sentence structure and length using appropriately punctuated, dependent clauses.

·         Effective writers identify and use the parts of speech correctly.

·         Effective writers know their audience and purpose.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.

·         What is text? How do we apply different strategies and skills to understand a variety of texts?

·         How do we communicate? What is effective communication? Why does effective communication require a process?

·         What is standard English? Why do we need to know and use standard English rules?

·         How do we apply stylistic elements and appropriate formats?

·         What is critical thinking? How do we think critically in our lives?

·         What is responsible research? What makes information relevant?

·         How do I use information?

·         What is literature?

·         How can we make personal connections through literature?

·         What makes us human?

  Highest Frequency Standards

Reading:

1c/1f/4e. Determine the main idea or essential message in a text/Find support in the text for main ideas/Explain the text's main point and use relevant details to support the explanation

1i.  Use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words

4d. Make predictions, draw conclusions, and analyze what they read, hear, view

5a. Use organizational features of printed text to locate information

6b. Use literary terminology accurately (setting, character, conflict, plot, resolution, dialect, point of view)

6c. Apply knowledge of literary techniques (foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, flashback)

Writing:

2a. Write in a variety of genre - narrative/descriptive
2b. Develop ideas and content with significant details, examples, and/or reasons.
2c. Organize ideas so that there is an inviting introduction, logical arrangement of ideas, and a satisfying conclusion.
3a. Identify parts of speech, such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.
3b. Use standard English usage in writing, including subject/verb agreement (pronoun referents, modifiers, homonyms, and homophones.)
3c. Write in complete sentences. 
3d. Use paragraphs correctly so that each paragraph is differentiated by indenting or blocking and includes one major but focused idea.
3e. Use conventional spelling in published work.  (writing and editing)
3f.  Punctuate correctly (for example:  apostrophes, quotation marks, end marks, and commas) (writing and editing)

High Frequency Standards

Reading:

1g. Use words recognition skills (roots, prefixes, suffixes) to comprehend text
1h. Find the sequence of steps in a technical publication
4a. Recognize and author's or speaker's point of view and purpose

4c. Distinguish between fact and opinion
5c. Paraphrase, summarize, and synthesize information about a topic in a variety
of ways (ex. Graphic organizers)

6a/6d. Read, respond to a variety of fiction and poetry/ Read, respond to, and discuss literature that represents points of view from places, people, and events that are familiar and unfamiliar.

Writing:

2d. Use transitions to link ideas.
2e. Plan, draft, revise, and edit for a legible final copy.
2f. Use a variety of sentence structures with varied length.
2g. Write with a voice appropriate to purpose and audience.
2h. Choose a range of words that are precise and vivid.

Other Standards & E-skills

1a. Compare and contrast fiction and poetry texts with similar characters, plots, themes
1b. Summarize fiction and poetry
1e. Infer by making connection between separated sections of a text
4b. Use reading to solve problems and answer questions
5f. Locate meanings and pronunciations of unfamiliar words using dictionaries, glossaries, and other sources

5g. Give credit for borrowed information by listing sources

District 11 Diamond Units/Lessons Overview - includes information about the purpose, goals and structure of these sample instructional units.