English Language Arts Grade 3
Educational Links

Reading: Informational Text Standard 7

Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

• 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.
• On This Day With Lewis and Clark
  This set of 5 lesson plans from EDSITEment is designed to help students appreciate the immensity and mystery of the mission Lewis and Clark accepted. As "experts" investigating specific subjects assigned to Lewis by President Jefferson, students will conduct careful research. Reading brief diary entries of the men of the Corps will spark the interest of students as they relive the discoveries of the original participants.
• Question and Answer Books - From Genre Study to Report Writing
  This lesson looks at question and answer books as a genre. Through read-alouds and independent reading, students explore the content and format of these books, establish how they are different from and similar to other nonfiction texts, and discuss their possible uses for doing and presenting research.
• 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.
• The Aztecs: Mighty Warriors of Mexico
  After completing this lesson, students will be able to: identify the Aztecs as the builders of a great city and rich civilization in what is now Mexico; locate the Aztec Empire and its capital on a map; describe several aspects of Aztec culture; and understand the causes of the Aztec civilization's downfall.
• 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?
• The Statue of Liberty
  In this lesson, students learn about the effort to convince a skeptical American public to contribute to the effort to erect a pedestal and to bring the Statue of Liberty to New York. The activities in this lesson guide students through an investigation of primary historical documents and an analysis of the poem "The New Colossus," written by the nineteenth-century poet Emma Lazarus. From this page, teachers can access all the materials needed to complete the lesson.

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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.