Informational Reading and Writing
Unit description: Students will identify central ideas and key supporting details, as well as develop and answer questions related to topics, key ideas, and claims within informational text(s). Through both discussion and writing, students will explore topics and convey appropriate details relevant to support a given or student-created topic.
Essential Outcomes
Reading
- 3R1: Develop and answer questions to locate relevant and specific details in a text to support an answer or inference.
- 3R2: Determine a theme or central idea and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize portions of a text.
- 3R8: Explain how claims in a text are supported by relevant reasons and evidence.
Reading Foundations- Fluency
- 3RF4: Read grade-level text with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension
Language
- 3L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of academic English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
- 3L2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of academic English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing
- 3L4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
- 3L6: Acquire and accurately use conversational, general academic, and content-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went out for dessert).
Writing
- 3W2: Write informative/explanatory texts to explore a topic and convey ideas and information relevant to the subject.
Speaking and Listening
- 3SL1: Participate and engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse peers and adults, expressing ideas clearly, and building on those of others.
- 3SL2: Determine the central ideas and supporting details or information presented in diverse texts and formats (e.g., including visual, quantitative, and oral).
- 3SL4: 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.
- 3SL6: Identify contexts that call for academic English or informal discourse.
All Standards Addressed in this Unit
- See Reading Foundations Units: 3RF3 a-d
- 3R1, 3R2, 3R3, 3R4, 3R8
- 3RF4
- 3L1, 3L2, 3L3, 3L4, 3L5, 3L6
- 3W2 a-e, 3W6
- 3SL1, 3SL2, 3SL3, 3SL4, 3SL5, 3SL6
Essential Questions and Big Ideas
- How can you use text features to support your understanding?
- Readers and writers use key supporting details and key ideas to identify the central idea of informational texts.
- Text features provide additional information/understanding of the text.
- Who do claims within a text impact understanding?
- Readers and writers use key supporting details and key ideas to support and verify claims within informational texts.
- How are opinions/claims formulated?
- Claims are formed based on questions that are asked about a text and evidence is collected to support the claim.
- Reasoning is used to explain how the evidence supports the claim.
- How do readers share what they have learned from text?
- Readers develop and answer questions related to topics and central ideas to better understand a text.
- Readers summarize their new understanding during conversations and in writing.
Prerequisite Skills
- 2R1: Demonstrate an understanding of key ideas and details in a text.
- 2R2: Identify a main topic or central idea and retell key details in a text; summarize portions of a text.
- 2W2: Write informative/explanatory texts that introduce a topic.
Download the complete Grade 3 ELA Unit 2 framework to customize for your own planning.