This 14 day Unit Plan integrates the Utah Core Standards for Language Arts and for Reading and Writing in History/Social Studies with the existing Utah Social Studies Standards. The students read, research, draw conclusions, and write beginning level argumentative essays comparing/contrasting major world religions. For a more thorough summary see the Background For Teachers section.

  This resource is for teachers to aid students through the expeditionary and inquiry-based learning process of Genius Hour. Genius Hour is a passion project students can participate in using 20% of class time every week (about 1 hour). They will learn how to ask good questions around a topic they're interested in, conduct research, and ultimately produce and present evidence from their findings.Time frame: 1 hour per week every term (About 10 hours)Format: asynchronous, virtual, or in class with groups

Students should have autonomy in their learning and be given the opportunity to light their interest in learning about something that intrigues them. At times they don't know how to start this process or to do it effectively to find their answers. In this Genius Hour Introduction and Plan students will learn how to research, find answers and create a project that they can share with others to share what they learned while taking autonomy in their learning.  Thumbnail image link website. 

This 18 day unit explicitly teaches text structures, summary, text features, reading informational text about Mesopotamia, and writing a book about Mesopotamia. Instruction moves from high scaffolding to moderate scaffolding to independent practice as students become familiar with the various text structures, how to identify them, what graphic organizer will work with each text structure, how to use notes recorded in graphic organizers to write summaries, and how to compile an informational book. Mesopotamia is the content used as an anchor.