4th Grade - Gateway 2

The materials for Grade 4 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2d. Materials provide some supports for students to demonstrate their knowledge of topics through integrated skills (e.g., a combination of reading, writing, speaking, and listening) after they have followed text-dependent questions and tasks. As students read rich texts across the year, they frequently interact in discussions and writing about the materials.

At the end Tangerine, a shared reading book, provides 5 specific research topics to build knowledge that was integral to the novel: the effects of an eclipse, the citrus industry in Florida, sinkholes, the growth of soccer in the US, and dealing with bullying. (See 3rd 9 weeks, Day 25.)

To fully support students’ work with culminating tasks over the course of the school year, the teacher will have to identify and /or create supporting resources. The materials do provide some examples and guidance as to external resources for this purpose.

The instructional materials for Grade 4 partially meet expectations that materials support students’ increasing writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the school year. There is consistent, daily time for writing practice over the course of the year. During the differentiation block, students have as many as 30 minutes each day to complete text-based writing tasks.

While prompts are tied to texts of gradually increasing rigor (all within the grade level), there is minimal explicit support for students to practice revision, editing, and for moving from single parts to comprehensive written pieces. Writing tasks at the end of the year are very similar to the beginning of the year. Rubrics are available to support teachers as they determine students’ writing level and assess growth.

In the Focus on Text Structure portion of the shared reading selections, there is support guiding teachers to think aloud and create anchor charts, demonstrating the composing process and then transcribing. The skill of summarization is reinforced many times during this modeling portion of shared reading. The Grade 4 Teacher Manual does provide an overview of writing purpose, but there is little explicit guidance providing teachers with plans, protocols, and other models.

In the Grade 4 Teacher’s manual (p. 11), it states: “You will see that there are not as many interactive read aloud lesson plans as there are shared reading lesson plans. This difference is deliberate. Nearly half of the 45-minute time segments for interactives must be reserved for process writing so that students learn to compose, revise, and edit their own writing pieces. We have not designed this portion of the curriculum. Teachers should work together to use consistent process writing procedures and language and to sequence the three writing genres (narrative, informative, and persuasive/argumentative) across the school year.

In the materials, writing tasks are all on-demand and are text-dependent, which is a strength. However, there is no plan for modeling or support materials for a writing process present in materials. For example, on page 48 the Teacher’s Manual states “Model for students at the beginning of the year to establish norms for length and quality," but no models are provided in the instructional materials.

Many writing prompts ask students to use the skill of summarization or to write summaries, models of summaries or protocols for how to write a summary are not included. Teachers would need to find or develop their own lessons, models or protocols of how to write a summary. For example, during the Second Nine Weeks of Shared Reading, Week 5, Day 21, Blood on the River, the following task is included: “Write a summary of the events when Newport went to visit Powhatan.”

Writing topics chosen are appropriate and engaging for the grade level in which they are presented and varied in type of writing asked to do.

Examples of the writing tasks present (which include the protocol of including text evidence) for Grade 4 students include the following:

• In the First Nine Weeks of the Shared Reading, Day 22 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: “Think about Willy Wonka’s decision to close and then reopen the factory. Do you think he was in the right? Give reasons for your opinion.”
• In the Second Nine Weeks of Interactive Read-Aloud, Day 3 of Go Straight to the Source: “Just like last time, I will give each of you a sheet of paper with a picture of an artifact. It’s not a Ferris Wheel, but a ___. There is plenty of room in the margins around the picture to write what you notice, questions you wonder about, and thoughts you might have. I want you to write at least two things you notice, two questions you wonder about, and two thoughts you have about what you see in the picture. Be sure to draw arrows from what you write to something in the picture.”
• In the Third Nine Weeks of Shared Reading, Day 15 of Tangerine by Edward Bloor: “Both Antoine and Paul saw Arthur hit Luis with a blackjack. What actions do you think each one will take? Give reasons.”
• In the Fourth Nine Weeks of the Interactive Read-Aloud, Day 1 of The Moon Book: “Try to imagine that you were looking up at the night sky thousands of years ago. You know nothing about the moon or the stars except what you can see in the sky. A friend asks you what you think the moon is. What would you tell your friend? Write a paragraph from an ancient person’s point of view. Give yourself a name if you like!”

Teachers would need to create their own supports for some students to write to the prompt. Some writing prompts require students to use organizational skills. For example, “This story has multiple problems. Different characters have different problems, and some characters have more than one problem. Describe two characters and their problems. Tell what the author’s purpose is for including multiple problems” (My Life As A Book, Third Nine Weeks of Shared Reading, Week 7, Day 32).

If teachers would like to incorporate the writing process into lessons (in order to meet the standards), they would need to generate their own materials and allocate more time than originally budgeted by the

The instructional materials for Grade 4 partially meet expectations that materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials. Students do engage with components of the research process over the course of the year and complete short projects. There are minimal opportunities for students to complete full research projects independently that have gone through a process of revision. The component pieces included, however, do support student practice in research tasks. Teachers will have to identify outside materials for students to complete full research projects. There is some guidance to support teachers as they identify time within their schedules to build research work (e.g., in the Fourth Grade Manual, page 88, it is recommended teachers plan brief research units with the days remaining in each quarter of the school year’s shared reading.)

The standards for 4th grade ask that students engage in “short research projects that build knowledge about a topic.” In the yearlong materials, students are asked to “recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print (W.4.8)” Students do work to build independence and apply skills into new context as they read and explore texts as well as record their findings. The research tasks for 4th grade are in labeled in the lessons as “Follow Up” for shared reading and “Written Response” for interactive reading. Most writing prompts in the grade 4 Bookworms can be answered with one paragraph in length (all in response to texts), and many are followed over the next several days by related prompts on the same topic for the duration of the book. Rather than being built into separate culminating tasks, these short research projects are connected by texts, and students receive one after each reading until the text has been completed. Students are expected to complete the task during the language arts block.

Examples of some of the short research projects are as follows:

In the first nine weeks, students read, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and have the following writing prompt: (Week 7, Shared Reading)

• Watch the 1971 film: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The film is 100 minutes, so break it into three parts. After watching each segment, discuss how the movie is different than the book and speculate about why the maker of the movie made the change.
• Assign a written response each day so that the students argue that either the book or the movie was a better composition.

In the 2nd nine weeks, students read, Around the World in a Hundred Years (Day 4, Interactive Read-Alouds). The written expression prompt at the end of the lesson has students explore the text to answer the following prompt.

• Take a close look at the map showing the Line of Demarcation. Remember that Portugal got all the lands to the east of the line, and Spain got all the lands to the west. Write a paragraph telling which country got the better bargain and why. [Remember that students will need to view page 45 as they write.]

In the 3rd nine weeks, students respond to the following prompt after reading, My Life as a Book (Week 8, Shared Reading).

• Write a brief news story that tells the real events on South Beach.

In the 4th nine weeks, students respond to the following prompt while after reading Earthquake (Day 5, Interactive Read-Alouds)

• Make a list of safety rules for our school in case of an earthquake. We will post them so everyone can see them in an emergency.

Research projects that extend across texts and use various sources would need to be developed by the teacher. No research guidelines such as categorizing information, taking notes or providing lists of sources are provided. (W.4.8) Teachers would need to develop organizational tools and research protocols to assist students with more in-depth research projects that span across texts or sources as well as to assist in investigation of different aspects of a topic. (W.4.7)

It is also noted that there are few opportunities to research using digital sources (W.4.8), so teachers would need to be supplement this component in order to fully support students’ success with the research standard.