These grades 3 curriculum modules are designed to address CCSS ELA outcomes during a one-hour English Language Arts block. The overarching focus for all modules is on building students’ literacy skills as they develop knowledge about the world.

Taken as a whole, these modules are designed to give teachers concrete strategies to address the “instructional shifts” required by the CCSS.

Structure of a Module

Each module provides eight weeks of instruction, broken into three shorter units. Each module includes seven assessments:
– Six unit-level assessments that almost always are on-demand: students’ independent work on a reading, writing, speaking, or listening task.
– One final performance task that is a more supported project, often involving research

About Downloadable Resources:

Grade 3 ELA Curriculum Map: The Grade 3 curriculum modules are designed to address CCSS ELA outcomes during a one-hour English Language Arts block.

Grades 3-5 ELA Curriculum Plan: This document contains the curriculum plan for grades 3-5 ELA from Expeditionary Learning.

Texts from Expeditionary Learning: The texts listed in this document cover Module 1, Module 2A, Module 2B, Module 3A, Module 3B, and Module 4 of the Grades 3-8 English Language Arts curriculum from Expeditionary Learning.

Appendix 1: Protocols and Resources

Appendix 2: Graphic Organizers

Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners: The new Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners Resource Guides for ELA and Mathematics provide guidance to educators on how to take the curriculum materials on EngageNY and provide additional scaffolds for ELL students according to their level of English language proficiency.

The Grades 3-8 ELA Curriculum Modules, A Look at Assessment Design: This document outlines Expeditionary Learning’s step-by-step process for designing effective assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

Writing in the Modules: While this document focuses on writing, all strands of the ELA standards (reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language) are all tightly interwoven in the modules.

Overview of Research in the NYS Grades 3-8 ELA Modules: The purpose of this document is to highlight how research supports the three ELA shifts that the Common Core requires and meets the standards in Expeditionary Learning Grades 3–8 ELA curriculum.

Helping Students Read Closely: The purpose of this document is to give teachers additional guidance to understand the design of close reading lessons in Expeditionary Learning’s Grades 3-8 ELA curriculum, and also to think about how to modify module lessons or design close reading lessons of their own.

Foundational Reading and Language Standards Resources Package for Grades 3–5: This Foundational Reading and Language Standards Resources Package for Grades 3–5 is designed with three purposes: to articulate the research base for instruction regarding reading foundations standards; to point teachers to where that instruction lives “within the modules”; and, most important, to offer teachers options about how to organize an additional literacy block to comprehensively address these standards beyond and alongside the module lessons.

Foundational Reading and Language Standards, Word Study Criteria: Word study is a combination of phonics, spelling, and vocabulary instruction (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Jonston, 2000). In a nutshell, word study gives students an opportunity to investigate and understand patterns and word relationships and apply this knowledge to their reading and writing.

Foundational Reading and Language Standards, Additional Work with Complex Texts: This resource includes guidelines for creating and organizing text-specific activities, ideas for tailoring tasks to meet students’ needs, and a sample five-day schedule.

Foundational Reading and Language Standards, Fluency Resource: Purpose: Because students in the intermediate grades tend to be more independent than primary grade students, teachers may consider supporting them to self-assess and set goals for their fluency skills.

Foundational Reading and Language Standards, Show the Rule: Show the Rule™ was developed to address the CCSS Language Standards while engaging students in rich literature. Students immediately practice and apply what they have learned through creative writing rather than by completing worksheets.

Foundational Reading and Language Standards, Independent Reading: The purpose of this document is to serve as a resource to elementary school English Language Arts teachers in launching and sustaining a strong independent reading program. Many teachers already have robust plans in place: Please view this document as a resource to enhance or extend your existing work.

Lesson 2 - Close reading and learning about habitat