English Language Arts Grade 4
Educational Links

Writing Standard 2

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

• 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.
• Dear Librarian: Writing a Persuasive Letter
  Students will develop and support a position on a particular book by writing a persuasive letter about their chosen title; use a guide to help them organize their persuasive ideas into written form; outline a persuasive piece that expresses points in a clear, logical sequence so the reader can follow their reasoning; publish their persuasive piece as a letter.
• Declare the Causes:The Declaration of Independence
  This unit from EDSITEment capitalizes on the propensity to complain to increase student awareness of the precedents behind the Declaration of Independence. By the completion of this unit, students will be able to describe and list the sections of the Declaration of Independence and explain the basic purpose of each. They will also be able to give an example of a document that served as a precedent for the Declaration, list and explain one or more of the colonists' complaints included in the Declaration, and demonstrate an awareness of the Declaration of Independence as a historical process developed in protest of unfair conditions.
• Diamante Poems
  A diamante poem is a poem in the shape of a diamond. It doesn't have to rhyme but each line uses specific types of words like adjectives or -ing words. You and the computer can make a diamante poem together.
• Fourth Grade On-Demand Informative / Explanatory Writing Samples
  Sample informative / explanatory pieces written by fourth graders in response to a uniform text-based prompt.
• Fourth Grade Range of Writing Informative / Explanatory Writing Samples
  These pieces provide examples of informative / explanatory writing for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences, over both extended and shorter time frames.
• Go West: Imagining the Oregon Trail
  After this lesson, students will have learned about the pioneer experience on the Oregon Trail,compared and contrasted modern-day travel experiences with travel experiences of the 19th century, and synthesized historical data through creative writing.
• 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.
• Shape Poems: Writing Extraordinary Poems About Ordinary Objects
  Students will recognize the characteristics and format of a shape poem; compile a list of content area terms and sensory images (collaboratively as a class and also independently) that relate to a shape or object, as part of the process of brainstorming a word bank for their shape poem; apply spelling knowledge and strategies when brainstorming words for the word bank and writing and revising their shape poem.
• Student Interactives: Bio-Cube
  Students can use the Bio-Cube to summarize a person's life after reading or before writing a biography or autobiography. If students create these bio-cubes on the lives of famous Americans, it would welcome the comparison of historical figures.
• The Preamble to the Constitution: How Do You Make
  This page contains 5 EDSITEment lessons in which students investigate the purposes of the U.S. Constitution, as identified in the Preamble to the Constitution, and study fundamental values and principles as they are expressed in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

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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.

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