These student learning goals are the things you should be able to do independently for any text.

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Student Learning Goals & Expectations

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
What can learning about different cultures teach us?

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You will be reading realistic fiction texts that tell stories & give information about different cultures.
Reading about customs & traditions of different groups of people can help form an appreaciation for cultural diversity and your own culture.

Unit 3- Intro.

Some features of Realistic fiction:

• tells about characters and events that are like people and events in real life

• takes place in a realistic setting

• includes dialogue and descriptive details

Genre:
Realistic Fiction

Fiction texts have elements of fiction. These elements of fiction create the story structure, or plot.

​​Genre: Realistic Fiction

Fiction texts contain the following elements of fictions:
Characters, Setting, Problem (Conflict), Solution (Resolution) and theme. These elements create the plot.

​​Elements of Fiction

​Understanding story structure makes it easier to follow the development of a story from beginning to end. Stories have a plot, or series of events, that take place in a particular setting. Usually, stories begin with a problem that the main character must solve. The action rises to a climax, or turning point, and then falls as the problem is solved.

​​Plot Diagram

You can often figure out the meaning of unknown words by using context clues in a sentence or clues beyond the sentence in a paragraph.
Context clues can describe, restate, or define the unknown word.
Words and phrases that point to cause-and-effect relationships may also help determine the meaning of words or phrases since they often hint at a word’s meaning.

Vocabulary

When you summarize a story, you identify the most important ideas, details, and events and then retell them in your own words.

• A summary restates events in the order in which they happen in the story. A summary can also include details about the important things characters do, say, and feel. It should not contain your personal opinions about the characters or events.

• Students can summarize parts of the story as they read, or they can summarize the whole story after they finish reading it.

Summarizing allows you to monitor your own comprehension of ideas and story events and can help you remember and better understand what you have read.

​Reading Comprehension:
Summarizing

Key characteristics of realistic fiction.

• Realistic fiction features present-day characters who resemble people you might actually know. The characters’ conflicts and relationships are often familiar to readers.

• Events happen in settings that are real or seem to be real.

• Details in realistic fiction reflect life as it is in the present day.

• Descriptive details help the reader experience the story by appealing to the senses.

• Realistic fiction includes dialogue that sounds the way real people speak. Dialogue often reveals what characters think or feel about other characters or even relationships and conflicts.

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​Literary Elements: Dialogue

Dialogue appears in quotation marks and is the exact words a character says.
A new paragraph is used each time a different character speaks

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​Literary Elements: Dialogue

A verb shows what the subject does or is.
An action verb expresses action. The bus driver drives us to school.  

• Some common action verbs are eat, run, walk, work, put, and talk. The boy eats cereal. They put the books on the shelf. We talked for many hours.

• Commonly misused verbs include lie/lay, sit/set, and rise/raise.

  Incorrect: I will lay on the bed.

  Correct: I will lie on the bed.

  Correct: Omar will set the book down. Liz will sit on the floor.

  Correct: Jake rises early in the morning. Ana raised her hand.

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​Grammar: Verbs (Action Words)

A theme of a story is an idea or message about life that the author wants to convey to readers.

• A story can have multiple themes and often has one overall theme.

• The author uses character, setting, and plot details to develop the theme of the story.

• A theme is usually not directly stated; instead, it must be inferred using details about the characters, setting, and plot.

• To determine a theme, students should think about what the characters do and say and what happens to them.

• Then students should ask themselves what message the author might want to convey to the reader through these things.

Reading Comprehension: Theme

Syllables in words with the VCV pattern can divide after the first vowel (V/CV).
The first syllable in these words ends in a vowel. It is called an open syllable.

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​Spelling/Phonics: Open Syllables