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Common Core Curriculum Maps | Grade 3 Unit 3 | Creative, Inventive, and Notable People

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How are the words “creative” and “inventive” similar? How are they different?

Grade 3 ▶ Unit 3 Creative, Inventive, and Notable People

In this third six-week unit of third grade, students read biographies about musicians, artists, and inventors of the early twentieth century.

OVERVIEW

They read fiction that shows the passion of an artist and poetry that shows a different way of thinking, and biographies of creative people living and working in the same time period. They also read about conjunctions and use them while composing sentences that describe what they learned about the inventors. They create a Power Point presentation and build upon the conjunctions “word work” by writing an opinion piece about a favorite person in the unit. Finally, they record themselves fluently reading a poem, illustrate the poem, and post them together on the web for parents to enjoy.

FOCUS STANDARDS These Focus Standards have been selected for the unit from the Common Core State Standards. RI.3.3: Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect. RL.3.1: Ask and answer such questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers. SL3.1: Engage effectively in a range or collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. SL.3.1(a): Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion. W.3.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. L3.1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. L.3.1(h): Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. L.3.1(i): Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences. Common Core State Standards, ELA (1.5 MB)

STUDENT OBJECTIVES

Define and apply words such as “creative” and “inventive” to describe artists, musicians, and inventors in the early twentieth century. Work with base words to create new words by adding prefixes and suffixes. Ask and answer questions about a fiction book related to being an artist. Read biographies of artists, musicians, and inventors. Take simple research notes while reading those biographies. Design and create five slides for a Power Point presentation on an inventor. Learn about conjunctions and use them to create simple, compound, and complex sentences related to inventors. Write an opinion piece based on the three key words in this unit: creative, inventive, and notable. Record themselves reading a poem. Create an accompanying illustration that captures the poem’s meaning and display on a class web page.

SUGGESTED WORKS (E) indicates a CCSS exemplar text; (EA) indicates a text from a writer with other works identified as exemplars.

LITERARY TEXTS

Stories Emma’s Rug (Allen Say) (EA) Rocks in His Head (Carol Otis Hurst and James Stevenson)

Poems “Paper I” (Carl Sandburg) (EA) “Paper II” (Carl Sandburg) (EA) “The Folk Who Live in Backward Town” (Mary Ann Hoberman) “Jimmy Jet and his TV Set” (Shel Silverstein)

Stories (Read Aloud) The Sign Painter (Allen Say) (E)

Poems (Read Aloud) The Pot That Juan Built (Nancy Andrews-Goebel and David Diaz) No One Saw: Ordinary Things Through the Eyes of an Artist (Bob Raczka)

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

Informational Text My Name is Georgia: A Portrait (Jeanette Winter) Vincent van Gogh: Sunflowers and Swirly Stars (Brad Bucks and Joan Holub) The Yellow House: Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side (Susan Goldman Rubin) Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail (Laurence Anholt) When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson (Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick) Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso (Andrea Davis Pinkney) Thomas Edison: A Brilliant Inventor (TIME For Kids Biographies) (Editors of TIME For Kids with Lisa DeMauro) Henry Ford: Putting the World on Wheels (TIME for Kids Biographies) (Editors of TIME For Kids with Dina El Nabli) Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the Telephone (TIME for Kids Biographies) (Editors of TIME For Kids with John Micklos, Jr.) Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride (Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick)

Informational Text (Read Aloud) The Museum Book: A Guide to Strange and Wonderful Collections (Jan Mark and Richard Holland) (E) Ah, Music! (Aliki) (E) Paul Gauguin (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) (Mike Venezia) Van Gogh (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) (Mike Venezia) Here’s Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves (Bob Raczka) Inventing the Future: A Photobiography of Thomas Alva Edison (Marfe Ferguson Delano) To Fly: The Story of the Wright Brothers (Wendie Old and Robert Andrew Parker) Hidden Worlds: Looking Through a Scientist’s Microscope (Stephen Kramer and Dennis Kunkel) Fantastic! Wow! And Unreal!: A Book About Interjections and Conjunctions (Ruth Heller)

ART, MUSIC, AND MEDIA

Artists Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein (1906-1906) Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait with Palette (1901) Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait (1887-1888) Alice Neel, Faith Ringgold (1976)

Musicians Richard Avedon, Marian Anderson, Contralto, New York (1955) World-Telegram staff photographer, Louis Armstrong (1953) Arnold Newman, Igor Stravinsky (1946)

Writers Winold Reiss, Portrait of Langston Hughes (no date) Edoardo Gelli, The Last Portrait of Mark Twain (1904) Artist Unknown, Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan (1888)

SAMPLE ACTIVITIES AND ASSESSMENTS Teacher Notes: Although the fiction titles are more contemporary, the artists, musicians, and inventors are all from the twentieth century. You may want to study the artists and musicians in the first half of the unit and then spend the last three weeks on the inventors.

Class Discussion Begin this new unit with a discussion of its title: “Creative, Inventive, and Notable People.” Use the following questions to guide the conversation: What does it mean to be “creative”? (base word “create”) Whom do you know that is creative? What other words can we make from the base word “create”? (Possible answers: creation, created, creating, recreate, uncreative, and recreation) What does it mean to be “inventive”? (base word “invent”) Whom do you know that is inventive? What does it mean to be “notable”? (base word “note”) Whom do you know that is notable? How are the words “creative” and “inventive” similar? How are they different? (RF.3.3c, L.3.5b, L.3.5c, L.3.4c, L.3.4b)

Class Discussion / Literary

Introduce The Sign Painter, written and illustrated by Allen Say (who also wrote Grandfather’s Journey from unit two). In this book about a man and a boy who paint billboards, the illustrations play an important role in telling the story. While you read it aloud, challenge the students to question and think, and ask them to jot down questions. Read at a leisurely pace so that students have the opportunity to ask questions about specific illustrations, words, or pages of the book where they might lose focus or struggle with understanding the story. (RL.3.1)

Informational Reading / Note Taking

Reading biographies of artists and musicians provides an opportunity for students to focus on noting important information in the text. Tell students that while they are reading or listening to someone else read a biography, they should note the key events that occur in the subject’s life. Have students recall and generate a list of the key question words to consider such as “who, where, when, why, what, and how.” Divide students into small groups and assign each group a question stem. Have students create a chart with the questions down the left hand column of the chart. Then create a similar chart on the board or a notepad in the front of the room. Using the key question words to guide comprehension, read aloud a biography of a famous person such as the singer Marian Anderson. As students hear answers to their questions have them raise their hands. Write answers on a class chart and have the students write the information on their own charts. (RI.3.7, RI.3.1, RI.3.3, W.3.8, L.3.2a)

Research / Informative Writing

Have students choose an age-appropriate biography to read from a series, such as the TIME for Kids series of biographies. Instruct the students to note-take based on the key questions (as described in the previous activity) while reading the biographies. Then partner the students to share information and create a short series of PowerPoint slides to answer each of the questions (who, where, when, why, what, and how) as well as to highlight three to five key events in the person’s life. Have students combine several questions on one slide such as “where” and “when.” Limit each pair to a total of 5 slides, with the last slide showing the key events in the inventor’s life. Combine the slides into one presentation, and present it to an audience such as the students’ parents or another classroom. (SL.3.1a,SL.3.4,RI.3.3, W.3.8, W.3.2, W.3.5, L.3.1, L.3.2, L.3.3, W.3.10)

Research / Informational Text / Oral Presentation

Have each child choose an invention they love (e.g., an iPod or a bicycle). If students prefer, allow them to choose a p ainting by one of the featured artists or a song performed by one of the featured musicians (see Art, Music, and Media). Students will then research who invented the object. Have students create a presentation of the information they discover about the inventor of their favorite object. Allow students to photograph the object so that they can display an image of it while they tell about the history of their invention. If students picked a work of art or song, display a photograph or play a recording as the student shares their research. Require students to answer the guiding question stems (“who, where, when, why, what, and how”) in their presentations. (RI.3.5, W.3.7, W.3.8, SL.3.4)

Language Activity / Graphic Organizer

Using Ruth Heller’s book Fantastic! Wow! And Unreal!: A Book About Interjections and Conjunctions, teach the coordinating (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so) and subordinating conjunctions (after, before, when, while, since, until). Apply conjunctions by creating simple, compound, and complex sentences from a cause and effect graphic organizer. For example, consider the invention of the assembly line by Henry Ford. What caused him to invent it? What were the effects of the invention? Have students create cause and effect-related sentences orally,and then have have them write the sentences down. Look for the use of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions in their work. (L.3.1h, L.3.1i, RI.3.3)

Fluency / Poetry Activity

The poems in this unit show how poets look at the world in a different way. Students should choose one of the poems and then practice reciting it in the way that best exemplifies the meaning of the poem. With a video camera, record the students reading poems. Then, have students create an accompanying illustration to display while you play the recording of their poetry reading. Alternately, both the recording and the illustration could be put on the web for parents to listen to and see. (SL.3.5, RF.3.4b)

Reflective / Opinion Writing

Give the students this prompt: “You began this unit with a discussion about three words: creative, inventive, and notable. Choose the person from this unit that you believe to be the most creative, inventive and notable. Write about the person you choose, and give reasons how they are creative, inventive and notable.” (W.3.1, L.3.2)

Class Discussion / Art Connection Select one work for a large group discussion. Discussion should focus on choices that the artist made to communicate the importance of the subject.

Contextual Research Activity / Art Connection Have students select a work of art to view. While viewing the work, students will create a list of questions about the person seen in the work. Students will use these questions as inspiration for research on their subject. Students will use their research to write an essay on their artist, including their thoughts on why they believe that the person is considered creative, inventive, or notable.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES "When Marian Sings" When Marian Sings author, Pam Munoz Ryan, reads an excerpt of the book. (RF.3.4) Biocube Biography Summarizer (ReadWriteThink) (RI.3.2) Note: Use this online tool to automatically generate biography summaries. Spark Lab Inventor Profiles (Smithsonian, The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention & Innovation) (RI.3.10) N ote: This website includes the biographies of Charles F. Brannock, Joseph B. Friedman, and Charlotte Cramer Sachs. Rooting Out Meaning: Morpheme Match-Ups in the Primary Grades (ReadWriteThink) (RF.3.3)

TERMINOLOGY biographies complex sentence compound sentence coordinating conjunction note taking power point presentation research questions simple sentence subordinating conjunction

MAKING INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS

This unit teaches: Art: Picasso, Alice Neel, and van Gogh Music: Jazz (e.g., Ella Fitzgerald) and opera (e.g., Marian Anderson) History: Inventors (e.g., Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell) Science: Inventions (e.g., the assembly line, light bulb, and telephone) and flight (e.g., the Wright Brothers and Amelia Earhart)

This unit could be extended to teach: History: Inventors (e.g., before and after the twentieth century) Science: Light/optics (e.g., light, reflection, and lenses), sound (e.g., sound waves, the human voice, and the human ear), and vision/hearing (i.e., how they work in the human body)

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