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Embracing Difference: The Hundred Dresses and Garvey's Choice
Students explore acceptance of themselves and others in order to start discussions about bullying, tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness, and focus on identifying the central message in a longer text.
ELA
Unit 5
3rd Grade
Unit Summary
In this unit, students read the core texts The Hundred Dresses and Garvey’s Choice as a way of exploring what it means to be accepting and tolerant of themselves and others. The Hundred Dresses challenges students to think about the different roles associated with bullying through the eyes of the narrator, who struggles with her own involvement with a classmate who is bullied. Garvey’s Choice illustrates the way others influence the way we see ourselves, both positively and negatively, and the power of accepting ourselves by tracing Garvey’s path to self-discovery and acceptance. Both texts are full of moments and messages that are easily relatable for students at this grade level. Therefore, it is our hope that the experiences of the characters in both texts will serve as a neutral launching point for deeper discussions about bullying, tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness.
The main focus of the unit is on identifying and tracing the central message across a longer text. Students will develop a deep understanding of each character’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations, which will help them identify and explain how the central message is developed and conveyed through the characters in each text. Students will also begin to understand how successive parts of a text build on each other to push the plot forward. Particularly with Garvey’s Choice, students will analyze the genre features of novels written in verse and how each part helps build and develop the central message.
When discussing the text, students continue to work on engaging with the thinking of others by building on, and paraphrasing, questioning, and clarifying ideas to understand. At this point in the sequence, students should be able to write fluently in response to the daily Target Tasks to show understanding of the text. In this unit students return to working on writing strong literary analysis and opinion paragraphs, building on work done in previous units on topic sentences, supporting details, and strategies for elaboration. Students also have an opportunity to write a continuation of The Hundred Dresses, reinforcing the narrative writing work done in previous units.
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Texts and Materials
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Core Materials
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Book: The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2004) — 870L
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Book: Garvey's Choice by Nikki Grimes (WordSong, 2016) — 620L
Supporting Materials
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Template: Narrative Writing Brainstorm
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Rubric: Narrative Writing Rubric (G3)
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Resource: Single Paragraph Outline
- Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading
Assessment
The following assessments accompany Unit 5.
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
Essential Questions
- What different roles do people play in bullying?
- What does it mean to be accepting of ourselves?
- What does it mean to be accepting of others?
Reading Focus Areas
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Stories in prose use predictable structures to help readers understand the story.
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Stories written in verse use predictable structures to help readers understand the story.
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Character relationships can directly impact the sequence of events and development of the central message.
Writing Focus Areas
Narrative Writing
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Use relevant text details or background knowledge from the text to develop characters, ideas, or situations.
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Write a sequence of events that unfolds naturally.
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Use precise words and phrases to develop events and experiences.
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Provide a sense of closure.
Opinion Writing
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Write a topic sentence that clearly states an opinion.
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Provide reasons that support an opinion.
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Use linking words and phrases to connect reasons with evidence.
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Include a concluding statement.
Speaking and Listening Focus Areas
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Build on a partner's ideas. Seek to genuinely understand what their peers are saying, and then build on.
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Paraphrase to make meaning. Paraphrase what others are saying in order to keep track of key ideas in a discussion.
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Question and clarify. Seek to clarify a particular point a student makes by asking follow-up questions.
Vocabulary
Text-based
absentmindedlycasualnesscowardconsoleddeliberatelydisgracefullyexquisiteforbiddingimpulsivelyinseparableincredulouslyincredulouslavishmake amendsmockrelievedself-imageswiftlytimidunintelligiblevividly
Root/Affix
-ful-ly-nessdis-en-in-un-
To see all the vocabulary for Unit 5, 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
Supporting Standards
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