Students explore the concepts of honesty, forgiveness, and friendship by reading Freckle Juice, Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up, grappling with the concepts of peer pressure and jealousy.
A note from our team: As part of the upgrade to Fishtank Plus, this unit will be revised this year. Some texts, materials, and questions may change as part of the revision.
In this unit students learn about making mistakes, honesty, and the power of forgiveness by reading the core texts Freckle Juice and Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up. In Freckle Juice, students explore what peer pressure is and the ways in which people can influence the decisions that we make. In Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up, students explore what it means to be honest, especially when it may seem difficult to tell the truth. Students will also explore the value of friendship and how jealousy can sometimes come between friends. Andrew in Freckle Juice and Keena Ford are both highly relatable characters who are struggling with issues that are common in second grade. Therefore, these books will give students a chance to grapple with and explore the nuances of peer pressure, honesty, friendship, and jealously in a non-threatening way.
For readers, this unit begins the transition from early chapter books that have an equal balance of words and pictures into chapter books where the picture support is removed. Therefore, over the course of the unit students will work on using the strategies they have learned to help build stamina in order to read longer texts. Besides building stamina, there are a few main focuses of the unit. One is on deeply understanding characters, including character motivations, perspectives, and relationships. Keena Ford shares lots of insight into how and why she does the things that she does, which will make it easier for students to internalize what it means to notice and track character over the course of a longer text. Another focus is on holding onto the plot across multiple chapters. This is the third chapter book that students will be reading, but the plot of this text is slightly more nuanced. Finally, students should continue to work on using context to figure out the meaning of unknown words and using the illustrations to deepen their understanding of the text.
As writers, students will continue to work on writing strong, focused text-based answers in response to the text. In this unit students will be pushed to include inferential and critical thinking to support their answers. They will also begin to use transition words as a way to support organizational structure and evidence. All grammar Focus Correction Areas in this unit are a review; therefore, students should be receiving weekly individualized feedback.
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Book: Freckle Juice by Judy Blume (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2014) — 570L
Book: Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up by Melissa Thomson (Puffin Books, 2009) — 620L
See Text Selection Rationale
This assessment accompanies this unit and should be given on the suggested assessment day or after completing the unit.
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Internalize Unit Standards and Texts:
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character relationships, character perspective, character motivation, conflict
Review: re-, un-, -ful, -less
Freckle Juice: freckles, recipe, infer, allowance, desperate, peer pressure, confidence, self-assurance
Keena Ford: mess, instead, mysterious, wacky, supposed, permanent, compromise, admit, complain, grateful, actually, “getting into mess,” conflicting, disappointed, sternly, jealousy, startled, snooping, apology
"clean slate", "back to the drawing board", "don’t cry over spilled milk", "get a taste of your own medicine", "get up on the wrong side of bed"
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Freckle Juice — Ch. 1
RL.2.3
RL.2.5
RF.2.4
Describe Sharon by making inferences based on the words and phrases Judy Blume uses to characterize and describe Sharon.
Freckle Juice — Ch. 2
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe how Andrew is desperate by analyzing details to draw conclusions about characters’ actions and motivations.
Freckle Juice — Ch. 3
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Describe how Andrew has changed and how Sharon’s and Andrew’s personalities contributed to the change by making inferences about character change and relationships.
Freckle Juice — Ch. 4
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Describe Andrew’s feelings toward Sharon by making inferences based on evidence that shows a character’s perspective on another character.
Freckle Juice — Ch. 5
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Explain what role Miss Kelly plays in the solution to Andrew’s problem by identifying and describing roles between characters.
Discussion
Freckle Juice
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
W.2.2
SL.2.2
Explain how other people influenced the decisions that Andrew made and what we can learn from him to make our lives better by identifying and interpreting key details that support the main lesson of a text.
Keena Ford — Book Review
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Predict what will happen in Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up by identifying and explaining evidence about character actions and motivations.
Keena Ford pp. 1 – 7
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Explain why Keena’s mom thinks a journal is a good idea by drawing conclusions about character motivation and relationships.
Keena Ford pp. 8 – 17
RL.2.3
RL.2.4
RF.2.4
Describe Eric and Keena’s relationship by drawing conclusions about character motivation and relationships.
Keena Ford pp. 18 – 28
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe the relationship between Keena and her father by identifying and describing evidence that shows character relationships and feelings.
Keena Ford pp. 29 – 37
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain how Keena’s feelings about second grade change by identifying evidence that shows character feelings and character change.
Keena Ford pp. 38 – 44
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe what “mess” Keena gets herself into and what she decides to do by identifying evidence that shows character conflict and perspective.
Writing
Keena Ford
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
W.2.1
Write a letter to Keena describing what she should do by stating a claim and supporting the claim with details from the text and personal connections.
Keena Ford pp. 45 – 51 — stop before 3:30
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe the conflicting feelings that Keena has by identifying and explaining evidence that shows character feelings and perspective.
Keena Ford pp. 51 – 62 — read to "NOW"
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe what makes Keena believe that it really is her birthday and how her mom responds by identifying and explaining evidence that shows character feeling and perspective.
Keena Ford pp. 62 – 66
RL.2.3
RL.2.4
RF.2.4
Describe how Miss Campbell reacts to Keena’s lies and what this tells us about Miss Campbell by identifying and explaining evidence that shows character feeling and perspective.
Writing
Keena Ford
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
W.2.1
Write a letter to Keena describing what she should do by stating a claim and supporting the claim with details from the text and personal connections.
Keena Ford pp. 67 – 73
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain how Keena feels about Linny and why they become friends by identifying and describing key details that show character feelings and relationships.
Keena Ford pp. 73 – 81
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain why Keena decides to go into Miss Hanson’s classroom by identifying and describing key details that show character feelings and motivations.
Keena Ford pp. 81 – 89
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Analyze how Miss Campbell is feeling and why by closely reading a text to determine evidence that deepens understanding of character feelings and motivations.
Keena Ford pp. 90 – 102
RL.2.2
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe how Keena, Eric, and Miss Campbell show forgiveness by identifying and describing key details that support the main lesson of a text.
Discussion
Keena Ford
RL.2.3
RL.2.5
SL.2.1
SL.2.6
L.2.6
Discuss and debate unit essential questions by stating a claim and supporting the claim with evidence and details from the entire unit.
Writing
Keena Ford
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
W.2.1
Write a letter to Keena describing what she should do by stating a claim and supporting the claim with details from the text and personal connections.
Assessment
Project
Scenario cards
SL.2.1
SL.2.4
Act out appropriate reactions to scenarios from the unit texts.