Incorporating Literacy

Because I am an ELA teacher, incorporating literacy into everything is something I do on a daily basis. In fourth grade we teach using units ... and our units are awesome! Through the units we are able to integrate reading, writing, social studies, and science. Our units tend to alternate between science based like "Weather or Not" in which students learn about different types of weather while also learning how authors use weather to benefit books, and "Tales of the Heart" during which students learn about the human heart as well as the heart of stories and characters and Social Studies units like "Earth, Wind, and Sky" which focuses on Native Americans and Native American literature and "Literary Heroes" which focuses on heroes of the Revolutionary War as well as what it takes to be a hero.

Through our units we try to balance non fiction reading and research, fiction reading, personal writing, and content-specific writing.

One of the things we do at the end of our units that the kids really enjoy is our Performance Events. For our 3rd Unit "Animals are Characters Too!", we read lots of books about animals. We focus on things like personification and how authors portray animals in stories, and we also read and research all about animals. At the end of the unit we have students research two animals, choose the one they think would be best included into a (made up) wildlife refuge, and then write a persuasive letter to the wildlife refuge. This event is graded based on a rubric which has sections for their researcher (use of a graphic organizer), their writing, and their effort/use of time. You can check out our entire performance event here. The kids and I both love this assignment because it gets them using technology, researching (which they love!), learning all about science, reading, and writing. It integrates a lot of things and because they enjoy it they are focused and working hard!

Integration is a wonderful thing ... can't wait to see what it looks like in your classroom!