Westward Expansion Research Paper

In guided reading groups, students will be reading texts at their reading level that target specific skills. Learning specific reading and writing skills is the focus of these groups, not the content they are reading. Students will be moved in and out of groups based on their needs. In this unit, fifth grade students will begin by hearing a read aloud story about westward expansion in the United States. During read aloud, attention is given to modeling fluent reading and writing strategies previously discussed in class to determine meanings of unknown words (using context, affixes and roots, dictionaries/glossaries/thesauruses) and building background knowledge. Students will participate in a class discussions being sure to ask and respond to questions posed by posed by teachers and peers. Many texts about westward expansion will be read using a shared reading format. Again, modeling reading strategies and engaging in in-depth comprehension will be the focus. Students will follow along in their own copy and making note of key details in order to summarize the text. Summarizing will first be modeled for students, followed by many opportunities to practice in small groups and individually. Graphic organizers will be used to provide students with supports that can be scaffold as needed.

Each pair will be given texts based on their reading level so they can partner read the texts and summarize the content. The class will discuss and identify the goals of partner reading before they begin: collaboration, assisting on another, etc. At the end of the unit, each pair will present their summaries to the class along with visuals that help the rest of the class to understand the