Big Idea: Literacy is essential to learning. It is the pathway to lifelong learning and the key to life’s opportunities.

Enduring Understanding: We invest ourselves in the literacy process when understanding becomes reciprocal.

Content Standard #1 Students construct meaning as they comprehend, interpret, and respond to what they read and write.

Essential questions: Students will deliberately interrogate the content standard to be learned by pondering these questions which may have no obvious right answer, but may raise other important questions and will sustain interest as they gain understanding.

ü What is meaning?

ü What is understanding?

ü What is literacy?

ü What is my role in literacy?

ü How do I know I understand something (metacognition)?

ü What do I do if I do not understand?

ü What personal experiences do I bring to understanding?

ü Why do people interpret and respond to reading differently?

ü Are my ideas and understandings valid? How do I know when mine are different?

ü How do we know which interpretation is “right”? How do I support my ideas?

Benchmark 1.1	Make predictions and describe inferences and connections within material and between new material and background knowledge
Benchmark 1.2	Integrate new important print/non-print information with their existing knowledge to draw conclusions and make application.
Benchmark 1.3	Provide oral, written, and/or artistic responses to ideas and feelings generated by the reading material, providing examples of the way these influence one’s life and role in society.
Benchmark 1.4	Demonstrate understanding of main ideas and formulate arguments using supporting evidence.
Benchmark 1.5	Accurately paraphrase reading material, reflecting tone and point of view.

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Enduring Understanding: Literacy requires continuous active engagement to construct meaning.

Content Standard #2 Students apply a range of skills and strategies to read.

Essential questions: Students will deliberately interrogate the content stand to be learned by pondering these questions which may have no obvious right answer, but may raise other important questions and will sustain interest as they gain understanding.

ü What do I do when I don’t understand what I am reading?

ü Why is it important to use strategies before, during, and after reading?

ü How do you choose a literacy strategy according to your purpose?

ü How do literacy strategies differ? Why?

ü How can I achieve independence in my reading?

Benchmark 2.1	Apply decoding strategies to grammatical structures and analyze word parts, word connotations, and denotations in context to understand reading material and develop vocabulary.
Benchmark 2.2	Apply strategies to interpret, analyze, and evaluate the language, literary elements, literary devices, and overall intent of print and non-print material.
Benchmark 2.3	Use features and organization of fiction and non-fiction materials to comprehend increasingly complex material.
Benchmark 2.4	Adjust rate and style of reading to content and purpose of the material.
Benchmark 2.5	Use a variety of reading strategies (ask questions, check predictions, summarize, self-correct, reread, use context, and adjust rate, etc.) to comprehend complex material, reflect on information, and monitor progress.

Enduring Understanding: As a lifelong process, literacy requires reflective and critical thinking and interaction.

Content Standard # 3: Students set goals, monitor, and evaluate their progress in reading.

Essential questions: Students will deliberately interrogate the content standard to be learned by pondering these questions which may have no obvious right answer, but may raise other important questions and will sustain interest as they gain understanding.

ü How do I know what I know?

ü How do I know when I know?

ü What do I do when I don’t know?

ü What are my strengths? What are my needs? Why?

ü What are my goals?

ü What are my plans to meet my goals?

ü What are some strategies to reach my goals?

ü How can I monitor my progress? How can I improve?

ü What is most important for me to learn?

ü How can I develop my own voice?

ü How can I achieve independence in my learning?

ü How can improving my literacy skills improve my life?

ü What is knowing?

Benchmark 3.1	Articulate and evaluate strategies to solve reading problems, self-monitor progress, and direct one’s own reading.
Benchmark 3.2	Set reading goals, monitor progress toward goals, and analyze reading successes.
Benchmark 3.3	Select authors, subjects, and print and non-print material, expressing reasons for selections, and explain information and insights gained.

Enduring Understanding: Understanding involves adapting prior knowledge to new situations and purposes and making significant connections.

Content Standard # 4 Students select, read, and respond to print and non-print material for a variety of purposes and to connect to the broader world.

ü How does my personal experience impact what I view, read, or hear?

ü How does my attitude toward print and non-print material impact myself and others?

ü How do I select material to meet the purpose of my reading?

ü How do I support my interpretations? Why do I need to?

ü How do I use literacy to connect to the broader world of ideas, concepts and issues?

ü How can literacy be affected by personal, cultural, and social assumptions?

ü How does culture affect literacy?

ü How does language help us recognize and develop empathy?

Benchmark 4.1	Integrate purposes for reading into daily life (e.g. personal satisfaction, lifelong reading habits, reading as a leisure activity, sharing, and reflecting upon the reading).
Benchmark 4.2	Identify and respond to social and cultural beliefs underlying print and non-print material.
Benchmark 4.3	Analyzes, evaluates and creates materials that demonstrate civic and social responsibilities and cultural perspectives of diverse populations including American Indians.

Enduring Understanding: Readers depend on their ability to critically investigate and analyze information in order to elaborate their understanding from various sources.

Content Standard #5 Students gather, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information from a variety of sources, and communicate their findings in ways appropriate for various purposes and audiences.

Ø What questions do I need to ask in order to narrow my topic?

Ø Why should curiosity be part of the learning process?

Ø What are the various ways I can present the information I’ve learned?

Ø Who will be my audience, and how will that impact my presentation?

Ø Investigate what?

Ø What sources are available?

Ø How do I know my information is valid? What is valid?

Ø Once I have the information, what do I do with it?

Ø How do I organize the information?

Ø Which sources are appropriate for my subject?

Ø What questions do I need to ask?

Ø How can I use my findings to draw conclusions and predict outcomes?

Benchmark 5.1	Locate, analyze and interpret material to investigate a question, topic or issue (documents) and/or to perform a complex task for a variety of purposes (schedules, maps, instruction, consumer reports, and technical manuals).
Benchmark 5.2	Logically gathers, analyzes, synthesizes and responds to information from a variety of sources.