Students learn about the concepts of fairness and justice and people who worked to overcome injustice, while developing informational reading strategies for reading narrative nonfiction texts.
ELA
Alternate Unit 5
1st Grade
In this unit, students explore the concepts of fairness and justice by learning about many of the equal rights movements that have happened in the United States. Over the course of the unit, students study the fight for women’s rights, the civil rights movement, the fight for labor and workers’ rights, the LGBTQ+ movement, the disability rights movement, and the Indigenous Water Protectors movement. With each movement, students read biographies of people who are not in positions of power and analyze how they were able to fight for justice, equity, and change. This unit builds on work done in the Kindergarten unit “What is Justice?” and pushes students to build a deeper understanding of discrimination, justice, and action beyond just the civil rights movement.
Students continue to think about how details are connected. Students explore how one person can influence others in various ways, noticing the connections between people and events. Students also continue to think about the specific reasons authors include in the text and illustrations to help support ideas about the different movements for equality. During discussions, students continue to work on engaging with the thinking of others.
Students continue to build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task question using a variety of simple and complex sentences. Students also learn how to brainstorm and craft paragraphs when writing either informational or opinion writing pieces using a single-paragraph outline. Over the course of the unit, students have multiple opportunities to craft opinion paragraphs that state an opinion, include two to three reasons, and provide a sense of closure about the content of the unit. The unit culminates with students continuing to solidify their research skills by conducting research on one of the people they read and learned about in the unit and writing a final informational piece.
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The following assessments accompany Unit 5.
The Content Assessment pushes students to synthesize unit content knowledge or unit essential questions in writing. The Content Assessment should be used as the primary assessment because it shows mastery of unit content knowledge and standards.
The Cold Read Assessment tests students' ability to comprehend a "cold" or unfamiliar passage and answer standards-based questions. The Cold Read Assessment can be given in addition to the Content Assessment as a pulse point for what students can read and analyze independently, a skill often required for standardized testing.
To understand events in a text, readers think about how details are connected.
Authors include specific reasons in the text and illustrations to support points in a text.
Name a topic.
Supply facts about the topic.
Provide closure.
State an opinion.
Include two to three reasons to support the opinion.
Provide a sense of closure.
Build on others' talk in conversation by responding to the comments of others through multiple exchanges.
Use specific vocabulary. Use vocabulary that is specific to the subject and task to clarify and share their thoughts.
acceptingaccessibleactivistboldburdenconfidencedemanddetermineddefiantdemonstrationdignitydisrespectgritmotivatednegotiationnonviolencepassionatepolitepreposterousprotectorresistancerefuseresilienttrailblazerunstoppableurgeurgent
dis-non-un-
To see all the vocabulary for Unit 5, view our 1st Grade Vocabulary Glossary.
In order to ensure that all students are able to access the texts and tasks in this unit, it is incredibly important to intellectually prepare to teach the unit prior to launching the unit. Use the intellectual preparation protocol and the Unit Launch to determine which support students will need. To learn more, visit the Supporting all Students teacher tool.
This unit is built around Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards. In particular, students build a deeper understanding of the following K-2 Standards:
By the end of the unit, students should be able to articulate the following key knowledge:
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