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.

In this 28 day unit, students will gain background information on historic wars, compare different genres' presentations of events, recognize different points of view, research an essential question, compile evidence, create warrants that lead to a claim which answers the essential question, and write an argumentative essay.

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.

This is a resource for an assessment for the common practice of writer's notebooks. The resources includes a 2-day lesson plan, rubric, sample, and resources for students to use. The assessment is focused on students sharing, editing their writing, and searching, attributing, and using images in a way to provide clarity.