Task Description: This task is embedded in a 3-4 week unit that uses the topic of animal cognition as a means to teach students how to analyze and navigate informational texts, as well as study the purposeful decisions an author makes to best convey his/her point of view in writing. This unit contains a series of 3 tasks that build in complexity. This task asks students to read an informational text and write an essay in which they use textual evidence to explain how the author develops his/her point of view on the question, "Can animals think?" Responses must adhere to standard English grammar and usage convention, focusing on standard capitalization.

Task Description: This task asks students to write an informative/explanatory essay, demonstrating knowledge they have gained about the science of forensic anthropology. Student must be able to determine the central idea of a text and analyze its development through the course of multiple texts and differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information. The Forensic Anthropology task is embedded in a 4-week curricular unit on informational texts in which students read four informational texts on the subject of forensic anthropology. The students complete three assessments tasks that build in complexity and are sequenced to scaffold student learning.

Task Description: This task asks students to write an information/explanatory report demonstrating what they learned from an informational text. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the main idea of the text - not all bugs are bad - by retelling key details. This task is embedded in a unit that introduces students to informational texts as sources of information, or ŇteachersÓ that we can learn from. After spending time exploring nonfiction texts, through read alouds as well as collaborative and independent research, students will demonstrate their understanding by writing a book about what theyŐve learned from a nonfiction read aloud. The unit length is approximately 3 weeks, depending on studentsŐ incoming familiarity with nonfiction, and can be extended with enrichment activities.

Task Description: This task asks students to write an opinion on an informational text reading. Students must be able to use reasons and facts to support their opinions based on information provided in the informational text. This 2-3 week unit extends student understanding of informational texts, through having students use these texts as the basis for their writing.

Task Description: Students write an essay using key details from the text to explain why John Muir devoted his life to conservation efforts and describe the effect that his work had on preserving the beauty of nature. This task is embedded in a 2-3 week unit that uses the topic of human impact on environment as a means to teach students how to analyze and navigate informational texts. Students will write an essay at the end of the unit demonstrating their mastery of the content and their ability to make inferences within a specific text.

This packet contains pre-reading, pre-teaching vocabulary and background knowledge supports for English Language Learners for the John Muir: Conservationist on the Quarter task.

This packet provides instructional supports for students with disabilities and is for use with the John Muir: Conservationist on the Quarter task.

Common Core Task Description: This task asks students to write an informative text and use information/facts to write a report about what was learned. This 3-4 week unit leads students in an exploration of informational texts. Read alouds and structured conversations are used to guide students in the process of using an informational text as a learning tool (i.e., gathering facts from what an author has written). Students then use what they have learned from a mentor text to create their own teaching text. Extensions for continued learning around frogs are included.

Task Description: This unit uses the topic of food choice as a means to teach students how to analyze and navigate informational texts. This 2-3 week unit contains a series of three tasks that build in complexity. This culminating task asks students to use textual evidence to write an essay analyzing how the author organized and developed his argument regarding the omnivoreŐs dilemma in his chapter, ŇThe OmnivoreŐs DilemmaÓ from Michael PollanŐs The OmnivoreŐs Dilemma (Young ReaderŐs Edition)

Task Description: Students will ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, and how, to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. Students will also write informative texts. This packet contains two units designed to support studentsŐ journey towards proficiency in writing and reading of informational texts about a subject which they have studied. The task included in the units asks each student to write an informational text about a subject on which he or she has already developed expertise (but continues to research and read about more in preparation for this writing).

Task Description: Students will write an objective summary of a text, analyzing a central idea of that text and its supporting ideas and information. Students will also write argument pieces, taking a stance on the topic of sports programming in high school, supporting their claims with clear reasons and information derived from the video and print informational texts provided. This packet contains two units designed to support studentsŐ journeys towards proficiency in reading and analyzing nonfiction texts, analyzing information across multiple texts, and writing argument essays based on their research. The task included asks each student to read and watch several nonfiction texts that give information about an issue, to take a stance on that issue, and defend that stance in an argument essay, drawing on the provided texts for support.