Literature Circle Unit
Theme: Colonial Times and the Revolutionary War
Level: Grade Four
Genre: Historical Fiction
This Literature Circle Unit was designed to meet the needs of different instructional levels for students in a fourth grade classroom. This unit centers around life in Colonial times, as well as the Revolutionary War.
This unit includes three different Literature Circle groups, each reading different books about the Colonists and Revolutionary war. One Literature Circle group will be composed of lower readers, another will be composed of on-grade-level readers, and another composed of upper-level readers. The following plan is for the lower readers. The higher level reading group will be reading "The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple" while the on-grade-level readers will be doing "Civil War on Sunday" and "A Lion to Guard Us."
My hope for this lesson is that my readers will become more comfortable with reading and exploring text, have a growing understanding of doing the literature circle jobs and facilitating discussion around them, and learning about the colonial and Revolutionary War time period. This topic is important for these students to learn because as the North Carolina Standard Course of Study states, all fourth graders in the state of North Carolina are required to learn about "the history of colonization." It is also important for their general knowledge of the history of the United States. In order to learn more history, this needs to be their foundation. My unit is appropriate for this age group because I carefully chose books that would be on their reading level so that they would have a successful experience.
Reading level: Two
Reading level: Three
Reading level: Three
Related and Integrated Lesson Plans
Closure activity/Assessment
Bibliography and Reference materials