We are beginning our Biography Unit , which will help students to draw on literary and informational reading skills to read narrative nonfiction texts.  Students will revisit strategies for expository nonfiction and character analysis to determine importance, synthesize, and analyze important figures.  It also asks students to think complexly and collaboratively to develop their own ideas by comparing and contrasting information and ideas within and across books.

We are also beginning a new writing unit, Changing the World: Persuasive Speeches, Petitions, and Editorials, spotlights strategies that allow students to convey their point of view. Students will research a person of their choosing in order to add to/or revise their thinking. Students will support their opinion with evidence from a variety of sources. In this unit, students integrate linking words to help transition between ideas. Students will develop their expertise by researching, collaborating with peers, revising, and creating a final product.  The end product will be a poster, a two minute speech and a presentation in the Media Center spotlighting the person they chose to do research on and who they felt made a real difference in our world.