For our current UOI on Role-Models, Grade 5 is focusing on Writing to Recount with specific focus on biographies.
Students inquired into the text features of a biography in three rotations:
1) Reading biographical books
2) Looking at biographies online through www.duckster.com/biographies
3) Listening to biographical stories on www.brainpop.com
EAL students went further with this and created a shared Google Draw document to document their understanding of the text features. The beginner EAL students used Google translate to understand the headings and gave examples of nouns/pronouns in both English and their mother tongue.
Unpacking the features and structure of a text can help students understand how texts vary in purpose and audience. As the summative assessment, Grade 5 will apply their understanding of the current UOI through a biographical recount of a chosen role model.