Biography grade 2

Introduce informational writing in 2nd grade

In this unit, students improve reading and writing standards and skills as they explore biographies of famous leaders and change agents. In this biography-based unit, students explore biographies of changemakers around the world. The unit has three main sections. In the first section, students research and learn about people who have changed the world by inventing or discovering something new.

In this section, students will explore how inventions or discoveries can change the world and what it takes to turn an idea into action. In the second section, students research and learn about people who have changed the world by making the world and environment a better place for everyone. In the third section, students research and learn about people who have changed the world by standing up for what they believe in and fighting for what others think is impossible.

In this section, students will explore the ways some leaders have persevered in the face of obstacles and stood up for themselves or their ideas when many had stopped believing in them. Additionally in this section, students are asked to compare and contrast two biographies about the same person. Compare and contrast in this unit should go deeper than text features and structures.

Although students can note differences in text features, the main focus should be on comparing and contrasting the different points and the reasons the authors use to support the points in two texts about the same person. In each of the sections, students read biographies that expose them to a wide variety of themes, content, and history.

Because of this, it is incredibly important that the necessary framing is done before reading a text so that students can deeply engage with the biographies and fully understand the challenges and successes of the different people being studied. Finally, this unit helps students recognize how reading multiple texts about the same topic helps them learn more about a topic, especially because authors include different facts and details depending on their purpose for writing.

When discussing the text, students use all of the strategies they have learned in previous units to participate in partner, small group, or whole class discussions. Students continue to build their writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task question using subordinating conjunctions to write more complex sentences. Students also have multiple opportunities to continue to build their informational writing skills, with an emphasis on crafting strong paragraphs.