ELA / 3rd Grade / Unit 6: Roald Dahl
Students explore how two humorous works of Roald Dahl contain deeper messages about courage, friendship and stepping in to save others.
ELA
Unit 6
3rd Grade
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In this third-grade literature course, students explore the concepts of courage and friendship, beginning in Unit 1 with an author study of Roald Dahl. Even though Roald Dahl is known for writing silly, exaggerated stories with highly engaging characters, his stories have important themes and messages embedded in them.
In addition to launching a year-long exploration of the themes of friendship and courage, these texts will also help establish a positive classroom culture as students analyze what it means to help others, be a good person, and show courage. We hope this unit, in connection with all of the units in our third-grade literature course, will help students develop a deep and nuanced understanding of both friendship and courage.
In reading and writing, this unit focuses on setting a strong foundation for text analysis. Students will dive deep into characters and study the ways in which authors develop characters. They will analyze author’s word choice, both as a strategy for figuring out unknown words and as a way to improve their own narrative writing. Roald Dahl’s fun and playful writing style also allows for an exploration of how reading with expression and fluency helps develop comprehension.
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The following assessments accompany Unit 6.
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.
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.
The central thematic questions addressed in the unit or across units
Literary terms, text-based vocabulary, idioms and word parts to be taught with the text
"be foiled""bear it""beg your pardon""pay back"arrangeclingfaintfearsomefilthyfurygaspglimpsegraduallygulphelplesshorridhoistedinnocentinstigateintendslongmagnificentnastynonsenseobedientordinarypalepeerpitypresencerevengerevoltingschemesshrinksmearedsmearstubbornthistles
-less-ly-somenon-non-
To see all the vocabulary for Unit 6, view our 3rd 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.
Describe the Enormous Crocodile.
Standards
RL.3.3
RL.3.2RL.3.3
Analyze why people seek retaliation and if seeking retaliation is an effective way to solve a problem.
L.3.6RL.3.3SL.3.1SL.3.1.aSL.3.1.d
Explain the difference between a fragment and a complete sentence.
L.3.1.fL.3.1.iL.3.3.b
Describe Mr. and Mrs. Twit.
Describe Mr. and Mrs. Twit’s relationship and how they treat each other.
Explain what evidence Roald Dahl uses to show that Mr. Twit is an instigator.
Describe how Mr. and Mrs. Twit respond to the plan and why their responses are different.
Determine if a sentence is a complete sentence or incomplete sentence.
Describe what evidence Roald Dahl includes to describe where and how Mr. and Mrs. Twit live.
Describe what evidence Roald Dahl includes to help readers better understand Muggle-Wump and Roly-Poly bird and why they are important.
Explain how Muggle-Wump has changed and why by analyzing key details that describe character traits, motivations and relationships.
Evaluate the animals’ plan for revenge and if they got what they intended.
Identify the four different types of sentences and explain when they’re used.
L.3.6RL.3.2RL.3.3SL.3.1SL.3.1.aSL.3.1.dSL.3.6
Determine two or three traits that describe the Twits in depth.
L.3.6RL.3.2RL.3.3SL.3.1.aSL.3.1.d
Gauge student understanding of unit content and skills with one of Fishtank's unit assessments.
SL.3.1
Explain what we can learn about writing stories from Roald Dahl and why it is important to study the work of authors by listening to interview clips from Roald Dahl describing his motivations for writing.
SL.3.6
5 days
Write stories in the style of Roald Dahl.
L.3.1.iL.3.2.fW.3.3.aW.3.3.d
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The content standards covered in this unit
L.3.1 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
L.3.1.f — Ensure subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.
L.3.1.i — Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.
L.3.2 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
L.3.2.e — Use conventional spelling for high-frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words (e.g., sitting, smiled, cries, happiness).
L.3.2.f — Use spelling patterns and generalizations (e.g., word families, position-based spellings, syllable patterns, ending rules, meaningful word parts) in writing words.
L.3.3 — Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.
L.3.3.a — Choose words and phrases for effect.
L.3.3.b — Recognize and observe differences between the conventions of spoken and written standard English.
L.3.4 — Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
L.3.4.a — Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
L.3.5 — Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.
L.3.6 — Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went looking for them).
RL.3.2 — Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.
RL.3.3 — Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
RL.3.5 — Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.
SL.3.1 — Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
SL.3.1.a — Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.
SL.3.1.d — Explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion.
SL.3.6 — Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.
W.3.3 — Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
W.3.3.a — Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
W.3.3.d — Provide a sense of closure.
Standards that are practiced daily but are not priority standards of the unit
L.3.1.a — Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences.
L.3.1.b — Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns.
L.3.1.c — Use abstract nouns (e.g., childhood).
L.3.4.b — Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).
L.3.4.c — Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).
L.3.5.a — Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps).
L.3.5.c — Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered).
RF.3.3 — Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
RF.3.4 — Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
RL.3.1 — Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
RL.3.4 — Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.
RL.3.7 — Explain how specific aspects of a text's illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting).
RL.3.10 — By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 2—3 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
SL.3.1.b — Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).
W.3.4 — With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1—3 above.)
W.3.5 — With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
W.3.6 — With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
W.3.10 — Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
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