Students explore the characteristics of a mystery, and how an author uses those characteristics to develop the plot, while reading about the American pastime of baseball in the text The Fenway Foul-Up.
As part of the upgrade to Fishtank Plus, this unit was revised in March 2021. See which texts and materials have changed as part of the revision in this guide to our 2nd Grade text adjustments. If you are looking for the previous version of this unit, you can find it in our archives here.
In this unit, 2nd graders explore the genre of mystery—in conjunction with exploring the American pastime of baseball—by reading the mentor text The Fenway Foul-Up. Over the course of the unit, students will be challenged to think about and notice the characteristics of a mystery and how an author uses the characteristics of mystery to develop the plot. Students will also be challenged to think about what makes a good detective and how much information detectives need before they can be confident enough in their decisions to avoid unfairly or unjustly accusing someone of committing a crime. Students will also discover that being a good detective involves teamwork; teamwork makes everything easier because people are able to play off of each other’s strengths and differing perspectives. While the main focus of this unit is on understanding the mystery genre, students will also be learning a great deal about baseball and content-specific vocabulary associated with baseball.
At this point in the year, it is assumed that students are inquisitive consumers of a text and are able to identify and describe characters and plot events in a text Read Aloud or silently. Therefore, this unit focuses on pushing students to describe the overall structure of a story, particularly identifying and explaining how the characteristics of a mystery support the plot of a story. Students will also be pushed to go beyond just describing characters and will instead be pushed to explain how characters respond to major events and challenges, and how different characters have different perspectives on events and why. If there are other spiraling skills from Units 1 through 5 that have not been mastered, they should continue to be included in daily lessons to ensure that students are fully able to access and comprehend the text.
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Book: Ballpark Mysteries #1: The Fenway Foul-Up by David A. Kelly (Random House Books for Young Readers, 2011) — 590L
Book: F is for Fenway: America’s Oldest Major League Ballpark by Jerry Pallotta (Sleeping Bear Press, 2012)
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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Like in the two previous units, the main focus of this unit is on reading with expression, particularly character dialogue, in order to show understanding of the text. In the core text, the character dialogue reveals a lot about a character’s motivation, feelings, and perspective; therefore, a large focus of this unit should be on including opportunities for students to practice rereading dialogue with intonation, expression, and volume to match interpretation of the passage.
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Throughout the year, students have focused on a variety of sentence-level writing strategies that have focused on making their sentences stronger and clearer. In this unit, students will practice using a variety of sentence types, in particular to help them improve their topic and concluding sentences in a paragraph. Practicing different sentence types enables students to vary their sentence structure when writing, as well as reinforcing the use of correct punctuation as they write.
Students have had practice brainstorming details for a given topic sentence and filling in an SPO, as well as distinguishing a topic sentence from given details. Students will use their new knowledge of sentence types to help them generate a strong topic and concluding sentences when writing their newspaper articles.
At the end of the unit, students will use their knowledge of a mystery story to write their own mystery. They will brainstorm and outline their story, and then write a first chapter that introduces the characters, setting, and problem. When describing characters, they will use descriptive language to show and not tell how a character is feeling and what they are like. Additionally, students will include a “cliffhanger” to build suspense and encourage the reader to keep reading.
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clumsy declared decoy eavesdrop expert hustle interrupted mumbled obvious replica rummage scamper shifty sifted snooped squinted stash startled suspicious vanish
MVP bullpen clue crime detective dugout grand slam home run infield motive red herring rivalry suspects witness
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F is for Fenway
RI.2.1
Explain what makes Fenway Park unique by answering questions to demonstrate understanding of key details.
F is for Fenway
RI.2.1
RI.2.4
Describe three baseball-specific words and why they are important to the game by determining the meaning of words in a story and explaining how they are connected.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 1
RL.2.3
RL.2.5
RF.2.4
Explain how David A. Kelly starts the story The Fenway Foul-Up and why by describing the overall structure of a story, including how the beginning introduces the story and the aspects of a mystery.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 2
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Describe how Kate and Mike respond to the news that Big D’s bat had been stolen by describing how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 3
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
RF.2.4
L.2.4
Explain why the chapter was titled “Sunflower Seeds” by recounting key details in a text and describing the features of a mystery.
Writing
Ballpark Mysteries #1
L.2.1.f
Identify the four different types of sentences and explain when they are used.
Writing
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapters 1-3
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
RL.2.6
W.2.3
L.2.6
Write a newspaper article detailing what has been happening at Fenway Park by retelling key details and characters’ perspectives on events.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 4
RL.2.2
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Describe Mike and Kate and how their different strengths make them a good team by describing how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 5
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain what Kate means by “It’s probably been right in front of us all this time” by describing how characters respond to major events and challenges.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 6
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain if Kate and Mike are right to suspect Kevin or if they are unfairly jumping to conclusions about him by describing how different characters respond to major events and challenges.
Writing
Ballpark Mysteries #1
L.2.1.f
Identify the four different types of sentences and explain when they are used.
Ballpark Mysteries #1
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
RL.2.6
W.2.3
Write a newspaper article detailing what has been happening at Fenway Park by retelling key details and characters’ perspectives on events.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 7
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain if Kate and Mike are right to suspect the photographer or if they are unfairly jumping to conclusions about him by describing how different characters respond to major events and challenges.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 8
RL.2.3
RL.2.6
RF.2.4
Explain the significance of the sentence, “Suddenly, the pieces fell into place” by describing how different characters respond to major events.
Ballpark Mysteries #1
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
RL.2.6
W.2.3
L.2.6
Write a newspaper article detailing what has been happening at Fenway Park by retelling key details and characters’ perspectives on events.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 8
RL.2.3
RF.2.4
Debate if Mike and Kate have solved the mystery and why by describing how characters respond to major events.
Ballpark Mysteries #1 — Chapter 9
RL.2.2
RF.2.4
Explain why Kate and Mike were MVPs by determining the central message of a story.
Ballpark Mysteries #1
RL.2.2
RL.2.5
W.2.3
L.2.6
Write a newspaper article detailing what has been happening at Fenway Park by retelling key details and characters’ perspectives on events.
Discussion
Ballpark Mysteries #1
RL.2.5
W.2.2
Describe how David A. Kelly uses elements of mystery to develop the plot of the story by describing the overall structure of a story and how elements of mystery help drive the plot of a story.
5 days
Writing
RL.2.5
W.2.3
Brainstorm and write the first chapter of a mystery book that demonstrates an understanding of the story elements in a mystery.
Assessment
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