Grade 2 ELA Unit 1

Character Study and Narrative Writing

In this unit, students will learn to pay close attention to how characters interact within a story and how they drive the actions. They will begin to ask and answer who, what, when, where, how, and why questions to further their understanding and to identify key details within a text to support their understanding. The students will learn to participate in collaborative conversations, beginning to identify and use appropriate grammar and punctuation when writing and speaking, specifically while discussing characters’ thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how they respond to major events within a text. The students will begin to listen to others perspectives and notice how others thoughts reinforce or contradict their own thoughts and understandings. Students will write a personal narrative where they will begin to apply what they have learned in reading to their own writing. The students will begin to develop fluency to aid in comprehension. This unit should be paired with the appropriate reading foundations lessons for your class.

This unit should be paired with the Reading Foundations units which focus on print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics, word recognition and building fluency. It is essential that these skills are not taught in isolation, but applied within students reading and writing.

Download the complete Grade 2 ELA Unit 1 framework to customize for your own planning.

Essential Outcomes

Reading

2R1: Develop and answer questions to demonstrate an understanding of key ideas and details in a text.
2R3: In literary texts, describe how characters respond to major events and challenges.
2R4: Explain how words and phrases in a text suggest feelings and appeal to the senses.

Reading Foundations – Fluency

2RF4: Read grade-level text with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

Language

2L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of academic English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
2L2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of academic English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Writing

2W3: Write narratives which recount real or imagined experiences or a short sequence of events, including details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings; use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Speaking and Listening

2SL1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse peers and adults in small and large groups and during play.

All Standards Addressed in this Unit

See Reading Foundations Units: 2RF3, 2RF3a, 2RF3b, 2RF3c, 2RF3d, 2RF3e
2RF4, 2RF4a, 2RF4b
2R1, 2R3, 2R4, 2R5, 2R6, 2R9
2L1, 2L2, 2L3, 2L3a, 2L4, 2L4a, 2L4b, 2L4c, 2L5, 2L5a, 2L5b, 2L5c, 2L5d, 2L6
2W3, 2W4
2SL1, 2SL1a, 2SL1b, 2SL1c, 2SL2, 2SL3, 2SL4, 2SL6

Essential Questions and Big Ideas

Why do literary texts matter?
- Stories can show us what is important and valued in our own lives and the lives of others.
How do readers build habits to read with stamina, fluency, meaning and attention to print?
- Readers and writers make decisions about the texts they read and topics they write about.
- Readers and writers think about texts before, during, and after they read.
- Readers use strategies to problem solve to aid in fluency, comprehension, and decoding.
How do writers build habits to engage and inform an audience on a personal experience?
- Writers make connections between how authors share character experiences and their own experiences.
What strategies do readers use to understand that characters face problems, characters lead readers to the author’s message, and characters can influence the way people live their lives?
- Readers make inferences about characters.
- Readers compare and contrast the characters in their stories.
- Readers and writers retell their stories to partners.
- Writers share what they are thinking about their characters.