4th Grade ELA | Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Unit Summary

In this unit, students dig deeply into how families shape a person's identity, values, and beliefs and how relationships with others can change a person's identity. Students also explore what it means to have good fortune and how a person's view on fortune varies depending on his/her values and beliefs. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with other units from the entire year-long sequence, will help build a deeper understanding of how we become who we are and the positive and negative factors that influence us along the way.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon was chosen as an engaging text to help build excitement at the beginning of the year, while simultaneously allowing for deep discussions about character, setting, vocabulary, and the larger theme of identity. Over the course of the novel, the author, Grace Lin, includes lots of detail and description to reveal information about characters and how they change based on experiences and relationships. Students will be challenged to notice the details that Grace Lin includes and analyze how the details build to support a deeper, more nuanced understanding of characters. Grace Lin also includes lots of powerful vocabulary and figurative language as a way of helping readers visualize exactly what is happening in the story. Students will be challenged to figure out the meaning of unknown words and figurative language and analyze why the author made particular word choices.

In this unit students will also begin to use summarization as a strategy to track the plot of a longer text. In this unit 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, learn 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. Work done in this unit serves as the foundation for literary analysis and paragraph writing in later units. The unit culminates by having students write a narrative, using the mentor text and strategies from previous units as a guide.

Please Note: In February 2025, this unit and its lesson plans received a round of enhancements. The opinion and narrative writing projects in this unit have been updated. This unit is now 37 instructional days (previously 36 days). Teachers should pay close attention as they intellectually prepare to account for the updated pacing, sequencing, and content.

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Texts and Materials

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Core Materials

Book: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011) — 810L

Supporting Materials

Rubric: Opinion Writing Rubric (G4)
Rubric: Narrative Writing Rubric (G4)
Rubric: Single Point Opinion Writing Rubric (G4)
Rubric: Single Point Narrative Writing Rubric (G4)
Rubric: Editing Checklist 1 (G4, U1)
Rubric: Editing Checklist 2 (G4, U1)
Resource: Sentence/Fragment Cards
Resource: Character Description Recording Sheet (G4, U1, L5)
Resource: Complete Sentences Handout (G4, U1, L7)
Resource: Sentence Scramble Cards (G4, U1, L9)
Resource: Sorting Words & Phrases Handout (G4, U1, L10)
Resource: Run-On Sentence Cards (G4, U1, L13)
Resource: Single Paragraph Outline
Resource: Character Description Recording Sheet (G4, U1, L15)
Resource: Character Description Recording Sheet (G4, U1, L26)
Resource: Character Perspective Recording Sheet (G4, U1, L28)
Resource: Narrative Brainstorming Graphic Organizer
Resource: Story Brainstorming Page (G4, U1, L30)
Supplies: White paper
Supplies: Scissors
Markers or crayons
Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading

Text Selection Rationale

All Course Materials

Assessment

The following assessments accompany Unit 1.

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.

Download Fluency Assessment

Unit Prep

Intellectual Prep

Suggestions for how to prepare to teach this unit

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

The central thematic questions addressed in the unit or across units

How are people transformed through their relationships with others?
What does it mean to have good fortune?

Reading Focus Areas

To describe a character in depth, readers must notice a character's thoughts, actions, relationships, perspectives, and conflicts.
Characters can change over the course of a story based on their relationships with others, key conflicts, or lessons learned.
Summarizing is used to recap or recall key information in a story.

Writing Focus Areas

Opinion Writing

Use single-paragraph outlines to brainstorm cohesive paragraphs.
Write strong topic sentences that clearly state an opinion.
Provide reasons and evidence to support a particular opinion.
Elaborate on the reasons to show understanding of the text and topic.

Narrative Writing

Use relevant text details or background knowledge from the text to develop characters, ideas, or situations.
Brainstorm and draft a story with a logical sequence of events that unfolds naturally.
Use thoughts and feelings to help the reader get to know characters.
Use setting details to start a story.

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

Literary terms, text-based vocabulary, idioms and word parts to be taught with the text

Text-based

affectionatelyappalledashamedastonishedattainawedcherishedcontentedlydespairdelightfuldeceivedestineddiscontentengrossedenragedenvyhesitateimpulsiveinexplicablymisfortuneobedientoutwitprotestsacrificescrutinizingstubborntauntedurgeviciousness

Root/Affix

-ful-less-nessdis-im-in-mis-un-

To see all the vocabulary for Unit 1, view our 4th 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

Lesson

Describe Fruitless Mountain and Minli's family.

Finding Fortune: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Unit Summary

Texts and Materials

Core Materials

Supporting Materials

Assessment

Content Assessment

Cold Read Assessment

Fluency Assessment

Unit Prep

Intellectual Prep

Essential Questions

Reading Focus Areas

Writing Focus Areas

Opinion Writing

Narrative Writing

Speaking and Listening Focus Areas

Vocabulary

Text-based

Root/Affix

Supporting All Students

Lesson Map

Common Core Standards

Core Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Reading Standards for Informational Text

Reading Standards for Informational Text

Reading Standards for Literature

Reading Standards for Literature

Reading Standards for Literature

Speaking and Listening Standards

Speaking and Listening Standards

Speaking and Listening Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Supporting Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Language Standards

Reading Standards: Foundational Skills

Reading Standards: Foundational Skills

Reading Standards for Literature

Reading Standards for Literature

Speaking and Listening Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

Writing Standards

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