ELA  /  3rd Grade  /  Unit 3: Passing Down Wisdom: Hispanic and African American Folktales

Passing Down Wisdom: Hispanic and African American Folktales

Students explore the power of oral storytelling in African-American and Hispanic cultures through folktales that have been passed down within families and communities for generations.

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ELA

Unit 3

3rd Grade

Unit Summary

Students explore the power of oral storytelling in African-American and Hispanic cultures through reading and listening to a wide variety of folktales and stories that have been passed down within families and communities for generations. These stories serve as a launching point for students to explore and understand the world around them, to grapple with what it means to be a good person, and to consider what they can learn from the experiences of others. This unit, in connection with others in the course, will challenge students to think about the power of storytelling and the influence it can have on individuals and entire communities.

This unit focuses on helping readers see the connection between recounting stories, determining a central message, and using details to explain how the central message is conveyed. Through multiple readings of the same stories, students will be able to analyze and discover how messages are developed. Rereading the same folktale multiple times also supports students' fluency and vocabulary development. 

Students continue to work on sharing their ideas through discourse, focusing on how to provide evidence and examples to justify a particular idea or point. Being able to clearly articulate and support their own ideas sets students up for success in later units when they begin to build on to and critique the ideas of their classmates. 

Students continue to build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the text. In this unit students learn how to brainstorm and write literary analysis/opinion paragraphs, focusing on how to write topic sentences that state an opinion and then how to determine evidence and reasons that support the opinion. The unit concludes with students writing their own folktales or stories, using the core texts and strategies learned in previous units as a guide.

Texts and Materials

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Core Materials

Supporting Materials

Text Selection Rationale
All Course Materials

Assessment

The following assessments accompany Unit 3.

Content Assessment

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.

Cold Read Assessment

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.

Fluency Assessment

The Fluency Assessment allows teachers to monitor students' oral reading fluency progress with a reading passage drawn from one of the unit's core texts. Find guidance for using this assessment and supporting reading fluency in Teacher Tools.

Unit Prep

Intellectual Prep

Unit Launch

Before you teach this unit, unpack the texts, themes, and core standards through our guided intellectual preparation process. Each Unit Launch includes a series of short videos, targeted readings, and opportunities for action planning to ensure you're prepared to support every student.

Essential Questions

  • What lessons can we learn from folktales? 
  • Why are Brer Rabbit tales important? What can we learn from them? 

Reading Focus Areas

  • When readers retell a story, they tell events from the story using a clearly sequenced order of events.

  • To understand how a character influences the sequence of events, readers think about what he or she did to cause key events in the story.

  • Authors reveal the central message of a story by using predictable patterns and pathways.

Writing Focus Areas

Narrative Writing

  • Brainstorm a logical sequence of events.

  • Introduce characters and setting.

  • Write events that unfold in a logical way.

  • Use temporal words and phrases to manage the sequence of events.

Opinion Writing

  • State an opinion. 

  • Provide reasons that support an opinion.

  • Use linking words and phrases to connect reasons with evidence.

Speaking and Listening Focus Areas

  • Elaborate to support ideas. Provide evidence or examples to justify and defend a point clearly.

  • Use specific vocabulary. Use vocabulary that is specific to the subject and task to clarify and share thoughts.

Vocabulary

Text-based

appearanceclevercontentdisdainheedhumbleinjusticeincredulousjudgemindmusedneglectedoutsmartrenderedrivalsplendidstruttedstubborntendedtrespassingunfulfilledunsuspectingwisdom

Idiom/Cultural Reference

"meet your match"

Root/Affix

in-out-un-

To see all the vocabulary for Unit 3, view our 3rd Grade Vocabulary Glossary.

Supporting All Students

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.

Lesson Map

Common Core Standards

Core Standards

L.3.1
L.3.1.h
L.3.1.i
L.3.2
L.3.2.e
L.3.2.f
L.3.2.g
L.3.4
L.3.5
L.3.6
RL.3.2
RL.3.3
RL.3.9
SL.3.1
SL.3.1.a
SL.3.1.d
SL.3.6
W.3.1
W.3.1.a
W.3.1.b
W.3.1.c
W.3.3
W.3.3.a
W.3.3.c
W.3.4
W.3.5
W.3.8

Supporting Standards

L.3.1.d
L.3.1.e
L.3.1.f
L.3.1.g
L.3.3
L.3.4.b
RF.3.3
RF.3.3.b
RF.3.3.c
RF.3.3.d
RF.3.4
RF.3.4.b
RF.3.4.c
RL.3.1
RL.3.4
RL.3.5
RL.3.7
RL.3.10
SL.3.1.b
SL.3.2
W.3.10

Read Next

Passing Down Wisdom: Hispanic and African American Folktales
Lesson 1
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