English Language Arts 3

Unit 1: Story and Text

Big Idea: stories are built from parts you can name — a character, a plot, a setting, a conflict, a theme — texts do jobs and come in genres, text features help you find things, and authors use literary devices to make writing vivid.

• Character
• Plot
• Setting
• Conflict
• Theme

• Functions of text
• Genres of text

• Using text features

• Descriptive language
• Poetic language
• Figurative language
• Images
• Imagery
• Rhythm
• Rhyme
• Simile
• Alliteration

Unit 2: Strategies and Processes

Big Idea: strong readers, speakers, thinkers, and writers each use a toolkit of strategies. Using reading strategies to figure out and understand words and texts, oral language strategies to speak and listen well, metacognitive strategies to think about your own thinking, and the writing process to improve a piece of writing.

• Predicting from illustrations and prior knowledge
• Rereading
• Retelling in your own words
• Locating the main idea and details
• Using language patterns and phonics to decode words
• Identifying sight words
• Monitoring
• Self-correcting errors

• Focusing on the speaker
• Asking questions to clarify
• Listening for specifics
• Expressing opinions
• Speaking with expression
• Staying on topic
• Taking turns
• Connecting with audience

• Reflecting
• Questioning your own thinking
• Goal setting
• Self-evaluating

• Revising
• Editing
• Considering audience

Unit 3: Language Features, Structure, and Conventions

Big Idea: the smaller building blocks of language — how we sound when we talk, patterns and families of words, neat handwriting, well-built sentences, and the rules of punctuation — give both speech and writing their clarity.

• Tone
• Volume
• Inflection
• Pace
• Gestures

• Word patterns
• Word families

• Legible handwriting

• Structure of compound sentences

• Punctuation
• Apostrophe use in contractions