4th Grade Social Studies and Literacy

Grade and Subject(s)

Overarching
Understanding
Goals

What are the reasons that people move?

What hardships do people endure as a result of moving?

Why do immigrants move to the United States?

What caused the movement and expansion of the U.S. throughout history?

1
UGs
#1
#4

Introductory
Performance(s)

#2

Guided Inquiry
Performance(s)

#4

Culminating
Performance(s)

#3

Skill Strands

#4

Think critically about

situations

Sequence of
Understanding
Performances

Support claims
with evidence

Unit-Long
Understanding Goals

Human
Migration

Make inferences
about text
selections

Generative Unit Topic

Develop empathy
towards others

Understanding Performances

Ongoing Assessments

Students will interview a family

member or friend who has
experienced moving to a new
place. They will present a brief
summary of their interview with
the class in order to share the
story with other students. The
students will discuss the trends
that they hear throughout the
presentations.

Can students make connections between

the different interviews? Can students
compare and contrast the different
situations and how people were feeling?
Can students compare the persons
experiences to their own? Moving to a
new school/city might be tough

Students will compare and

contrast fiction and non-fiction
texts about the movement and
expansion of the United States
throughout history. Texts will
include the perspective of those
experienced Westward expansion
as well as the perspective of
historians.

Can students connect the information in

texts to what we learned during
interviews? Can students make
inferences? What made these people
comfortable while moving? What scared
them? Using the information from
interviews, students should be able to
compare moving now and then.

Students will write an essay about a

place that they wish that they could
move to. The students will utilize
technology to research the place and
develop evidence to support their
ideas in their essays. The students will
be able to express their interests and
creativity when deciding what criteria
is important to them when deciding
where to move.

How can the examples that we studied

throughout the unit help us to develop
reasons we may want to move
somewhere? Students should be able to
reflect on the reasons people move and
the experiences they have in order to
develop research questions and
collecting supportive details for the new
place that they would like to move to.

1 Write an essay that uses details and evidence to support an opinion

2 Compare and contrast the point of view in text selections
3 Refer to details and examples in a text to make inferences
x Major Focus
Unsupported/Required
Reinforced