English Language Arts Grade 3
Educational Links

Reading: Informational Text Standard 2

Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.

• Alaska Native Stories: Using Narrative to Introduce Expository Text
  This lesson uses traditional stories of the Native peoples (i.e., narrative text) to introduce students to the study of animals in Alaska (i.e., expository text).
• American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins
  After completing these activities, students will be able to: identify the original thirteen British colonies on a map; understand how physical geography affected settlement; understand how settlers' backgrounds influenced their values, priorities, and daily lives; examine artifacts and make inferences about the people and the historical periods that they represent; imagine typical daily life for different families in colonial America in the late 1700s; write a letter from the viewpoint of someone who lived in a different time and place.
• Balancing Three Branches at Once
  This page contains 4 EDSITEment lessons in which students use primary source documents to investigate of how the three branches of the American government can check each other.
• Biographies: Creating Timelines of a Life
  Studying biographies is of interest and value to young learners. This lesson from ReadWriteThink supports students' exploration of sources to create a timeline about the life of a person. The experience requires students work together and research and resolve conflicting information. Extension activities include developing essays from the research.
• Critical Perspectives: Reading and Writing About Slavery
  In this lesson, students critically examine the perspectives of slaves and slave owners.
• Engaging Students in a Collaborative Exploration of the Gettysburg Address
  This lesson plan invites groups of students to learn more about the historical significance of President Abraham Lincoln's famous speech as well as the time period and people involved. Students will work together, participating in inquiry projects based on the speech, using the words and phrases of the speech itself.
• Exploring Compare and Contrast Structure in Expository Texts
  This lesson from ReadWriteThink focuses on the strategy of compare and contrast. Students use graphic organizers and clue words to evaluate nonfiction text, and they participate in a variety of other activities.
• History in Quilts
  Throughout history, women and sometimes men have used the art of quilting for many diverse purposes: to keep warm, to decorate their homes, to express their political views, to remember a loved one. Heighten your students' awareness of how quilts have reflected and continue to reflect the lives of the people who create them, and of how quilts record the cultural history of a particular place and time. This theme of History in Quilts contains two separate lessons that can stand alone or be taught in conjunction with one another.
• It Came From Greek Mythology
  This page contains 6 EDSITEment lessons based around teaching Greek mythology. Students will study basic plots of three Greek myths and discuss three types of themes in Greek myths. They will also explore contemporary uses of terms from Greek mythology and analyze artistic and literary works based on or inspired by Greek myths.
• Northwestern Shoshone Fish Song
  This lesson is written in partnership with and approved by the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation Cultural Specialist, Patty Timbimboo-Madsen and Paula Watkins, library consultant to the tribal nation.
• On the Home Front
  This page contains 4 EDSITEment lessons in which students investigate how non-combatants contributed to the war effort during World War II and are then invited to reflect on how young people can contribute to the solution of contemporary national problems. Students will also investigate how posters were used to encourage home front efforts during World War II.
• Peace Poems and Picasso Doves
  This lesson, from ReadWriteThink, supports third-grade students as they apply think-aloud strategies to reading, as well as to the composition of artwork and poetry. Activities include collaborative as well as individual work. Technology tools are integrated as students research symbols of peace and as they prewrite, compose, and publish their poetry.
• Reading and Writing About Pollution to Understand Cause and Effect
  In this lesson, students access prior knowledge about water pollution before exploring the topic further using read-alouds. They then complete a sequencing graphic organizer using a story of a fish and its journey from the mountains to a polluted waterway. Finally, students' understanding of cause and effect is reinforced using a hands-on experiment, art project, and graphic organizer.
• Research Building Blocks: "Organize This!"
  Research skills can help students find answers for themselves. In this mini lesson, students organize the information they have compiled through the research process by using sentence strips.
• Research Building Blocks: Skim, Scan, and Scroll
  Research skills can help students find answers for themselves. This lesson teaches students the skill of "Skim, Scan, and Scroll," which is taken from a research - skills unit and is one step of successfully completing a written research report.
• The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad
  Analyzing archival material such as photos, documents, and posters, students can truly appreciate the phenomenon of the Transcontinental Railroad. They can begin to answer some important questions: Why was the Transcontinental Railroad built? How did it affect Native Americans? Other minorities? How was the environment affected? What were the advantages of railroad travel? Who used the railroads, and why? Who built the railroad?
• Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students will build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. Students will be given a rubric and shown several examples. They will then complete the writing process and share their autobiographies with the class.

---

http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Sara  Wiebke and see the Language Arts - Elementary website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - Jennifer  Throndsen.

These materials have been produced by and for the teachers of the State of Utah. Copies of these materials may be freely reproduced for teacher and classroom use. When distributing these materials, credit should be given to Utah State Board of Education. These materials may not be published, in whole or part, or in any other format, without the written permission of the Utah State Board of Education, 250 East 500 South, PO Box 144200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-4200.