Someone on Facebook asked:

I am trying to build a unit that introduces/previews California 4th graders to the essential reading literary terms. We follow the 2017 McGraw-Hill Wonders 4th grade curriculum. We would like to teach these lessons in 10 days. Each class about 45 minutes long.

Since the response for a 10-day unit is kinda long, I decided to drop it here, as well as run it through EduSynth, a BoodleBox bot I developed for blending high-effect size instructional strategies into lessons and content. I also had Claude 4.1 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro take a gander at it to blend in a variety of elements EduSynth had suggested. You can find my bots here.

A Response

Unit-Wide High-Effect Strategies to Implement Daily

• Daily Feedback (0.92 effect size): Throughout each lesson, provide immediate, specific, and corrective feedback. Use cues like, “That’s a great start. Now, can you find one more piece of evidence to make your point even stronger?”
• Self-Reported Grades (0.96 effect size): For key assignments or exit tickets, have students predict their level of understanding or score before you assess it. Follow up by having them reflect on the accuracy of their prediction.

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Day 1: Introduction to Literary Elements

• Learning Objective: Students will identify and define basic literary elements (character, setting, plot) by activating prior knowledge.
• Enhanced Entry Ticket (Prior Knowledge, 0.93): (10 min) Students complete the “K” (What I Know) and “W” (What I Want to Know) sections of a K-W-L chart about “What makes a good story?”
• Mini-Lesson & Activity (20 min):
  1. Gallery Walk (Prior Knowledge): Students do a 3-minute “Gallery Walk,” adding sticky notes to chart paper labeled “Characters,” “Setting,” and “Plot” with examples from stories they know.
  2. Direct Instruction: Introduce the formal definitions using an anchor chart, connecting them to the student examples from the gallery walk. Use a familiar story (e.g., “The Three Little Pigs”) to model.
• Activity (10 min): In pairs, students complete a “Story Element Sort,” categorizing short descriptions or pictures into character, setting, or plot.
• Enhanced Exit Ticket (5 min): Students complete the “L” (What I Learned) section of their K-W-L chart.
• Assessment: Review of K-W-L charts and observation during the sorting activity.

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Day 2: Character Traits & Motivation

• Learning Objective: Students will identify character traits and provide specific feedback using text evidence.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): List 3 words that describe a character from a book or movie.
• Mini-Lesson (15 min): Distinguish between physical and personality traits. Model using the “STEAL” method (Speech, Thoughts, Effects, Actions, Looks) with a short excerpt from a Wonders text.
• Enhanced Activity (20 min) (Feedback, 0.92):
  1. Character Trait Web: Students individually create a web diagram for a main character, finding text evidence for each trait.
  2. Structured Peer Feedback: In pairs, students share their webs. The listening partner uses a feedback frame: “I see you identified the trait of [trait]. Your evidence, [cite evidence], is strong because [explain connection]. Have you considered looking for evidence in the character’s actions?”
• Exit Ticket (5 min): Name one character trait and cite the text evidence that proves it.
• Assessment: Character trait web with cited text evidence and observation of peer feedback.

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Day 3: Plot Structure & Sequence

• Learning Objective: Students will teach and learn the five parts of the plot structure.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): Number these events in order: the wolf blows the house down, the pig builds a brick house, the pig lives happily ever after, the wolf threatens the pig.
• Mini-Lesson (10 min): Briefly introduce the Plot Mountain diagram and the five key terms: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.
• Enhanced Activity (25 min) (Jigsaw Method, 0.92):
  1. Expert Groups: Divide students into 5 “expert groups,” one for each part of the plot. Each group reads a short story and becomes an expert on identifying their assigned plot element within it.
  2. Home Groups: Rearrange students into new “home groups,” with one expert from each of the original groups.
  3. Collaborative Creation: Each expert teaches their plot element to their home group. Together, the group constructs a complete Plot Mountain diagram for the story, with each member contributing their expert part.
• Exit Ticket (5 min): On a blank plot mountain, label the climax. What happens right before it? What happens right after it?
• Assessment: Completed home group Plot Mountain diagrams.

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Day 4: Theme & Main Idea

• Learning Objective: Students will distinguish between theme and main idea by constructing an argument.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): What is the difference between what a story is about, and the lesson the story teaches?
• Mini-Lesson (15 min): Use an anchor chart to explicitly define Theme (the message/lesson) vs. Main Idea (what the text is mostly about). Model with a fable like “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
• Enhanced Activity (20 min) (Argumentation, 0.86):
  1. Students read a short story with a clear theme.
  2. They must then construct a written argument using a sentence frame: “I argue the theme is [state theme] because the text shows [evidence #1] and [evidence #2]. This is the lesson, not just the main idea, because it teaches us [explain the life lesson].”
  3. Students share their arguments with a partner who can respectfully challenge or build upon the idea.
• Exit Ticket (5 min): Is “honesty” a theme or a main idea? How do you know?
• Assessment: Written theme arguments, evaluating the use of evidence.

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Day 5: Point of View

• Learning Objective: Students will identify first-person and third-person point of view through structured peer mentoring.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): Circle the pronouns (I, me, he, she, they) in these sentences: “I went to the park. He saw a dog. They played together.”
• Mini-Lesson (10 min): Define first-person (I, we) and third-person (he, she, they) POV. Explain that the narrator’s pronouns are the biggest clue.
• Enhanced Activity (25 min) (Peer Mentoring):
  1. Strategic Pairing: Pair students with varied reading strengths.
  2. Assign Roles: The “POV Detective” is responsible for identifying the point of view. The “Evidence Collector” is responsible for highlighting the pronoun clues in the text that prove it.
  3. Think-Pair-Share:
     • Think: Individually, students read a short passage and try to identify the POV and clues.
     • Pair: The partners discuss their findings. The Detective states the POV, and the Collector shares the pronoun evidence they found.
     • Share: Pairs share their findings with the class.
• Exit Ticket (5 min): Write one sentence from a first-person point of view.
• Assessment: Observation of partner work and accuracy of POV identification.

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Day 6: Figurative Language – Similes & Metaphors

• Learning Objective: Students will identify and explain the relationships between literal and figurative language.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): Complete the sentence: “The new student was as quiet as a ______.” What two things are you comparing?
• Mini-Lesson (15 min): Define simile (using like or as) and metaphor (a direct comparison). Provide clear examples and non-examples.
• Enhanced Activity (20 min) (Concept Mapping, 0.66):
  1. Students are given a central concept (e.g., “The Sun”).
  2. They create a concept map. In one branch, they write literal descriptions (“is hot,” “is a star”).
  3. In other branches, they create similes (“is like a giant lightbulb”) and metaphors (“is a golden eye in the sky”).
  4. They draw lines connecting the figurative language to the feeling or image it creates (e.g., “golden eye” -> “makes me feel watched over”).
• Exit Ticket (5 min): Is “The classroom was a zoo” a simile or a metaphor? How do you know?
• Assessment: The completed concept maps, checking for understanding of the different language types.

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Day 7: Context Clues & Vocabulary

• Learning Objective: Students will use multiple strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): When you find a word you don’t know, what is the first thing you do?
• Mini-Lesson (10 min): Introduce the idea of being a “word detective” and looking for clues (definition, synonym, antonym, example) around an unknown word.
• Enhanced Activity (25 min) (Reciprocal Teaching, 0.74):
  1. In small groups, students read a passage containing a few challenging vocabulary words from the Wonders curriculum.
  2. They rotate through four roles to analyze the text:
     • The Predictor: “Based on the sentence, I predict the word arduous means…”
     • The Questioner: “What clues in the text can help us understand this word?”
     • The Clarifier: “The author uses the word ‘tiring’ later, which is a clue. So, arduous must mean something difficult.”
     • The Summarizer: “Understanding that arduous means difficult helps us understand how hard the journey was.”
• Exit Ticket (5 min): Use context clues to define the bold word: “The river was teeming with fish; they were so numerous you could see them jumping everywhere.”
• Assessment: Observation of group discussions and the clarity of their final definitions.

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Day 8: Text Structure & Features

• Learning Objective: Students will identify and create outlines based on text structures and features.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): Look at a page in your science textbook. List two features (like headings or bold words) you see.
• Mini-Lesson (15 min): Introduce key text structures (chronological, compare/contrast, cause/effect) and text features (headings, captions, diagrams). Explain how they act as a “road map” for reading.
• Enhanced Activity (20 min) (Outlining & Organizing, 0.86):
  1. Scavenger Hunt: Students hunt for 5 different text features in their Wonders textbook.
  2. Structured Outlining: Give students a short article with a clear cause/effect or compare/contrast structure. They must create a hierarchical outline (using indents or bullet points) that visually represents the structure of the text.
  3. Metacognition: Students write one sentence explaining why their outline’s format matches the text’s structure.
• Exit Ticket (5 min): If an article has the signal words “on the other hand” and “similarly,” what is its likely text structure?
• Assessment: The accuracy and logic of the student-created outlines.

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Day 9: Making Inferences & Drawing Conclusions

• Learning Objective: Students will make inferences and reflect on the quality of their evidence.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): The boy stomped into the house and slammed the door. How is he likely feeling? What clues told you that?
• Mini-Lesson (10 min): Introduce the inference equation: Text Clues + My Background Knowledge = Inference. Model with a short paragraph.
• Enhanced Activity (25 min) (Self-Judgment & Reflection, 0.81):
  1. Students work through several short passages on a worksheet, each requiring an inference.
  2. For each one, they fill out three columns:
     • My Inference:
     • Evidence from Text:
     • My Confidence (1-4):
  3. After completing the worksheet, they answer a reflection question: “Look at your #1 confidence answer and your #4 confidence answer. What was the difference in the evidence?”
• Exit Ticket (5 min): The ground is wet and there are puddles everywhere. What can you infer happened? What was your background knowledge clue?
• Assessment: The reflection question, which reveals their metacognitive understanding of evidence.

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Day 10: Review & Celebration

• Learning Objective: Students will demonstrate mastery of literary terms through retrieval practice.
• Entry Ticket (5 min): Write down the 3 literary terms you feel most confident about and the 1 you are least confident about.
• Enhanced Activity (30 min) (Spaced & Retrieval Practice, 0.62):
  • Retrieval Practice Stations: Set up stations where students must retrieve and apply knowledge without notes.
    • Station 1 (Interleaved): Read a short passage. Identify the Point of View AND find one example of a simile.
    • Station 2: Given a list of events, create a Plot Mountain.
    • Station 3: Read a paragraph. Write down the Main Idea and argue for the Theme.
    • Station 4: Look at a picture of a character. Infer three character traits and explain your reasoning.
• Final Assessment (10 min) (Effects of Testing, 0.63):
  1. Self-Reported Grade: “On a 5-question quiz about today’s terms, I predict I will get ___ out of 5 correct.”
  2. Low-Stakes Quiz: Give a quick 5-question quiz covering the station topics.
  3. Immediate Feedback & Reflection: Go over the answers immediately. Students grade their own quiz and write one sentence reflecting on their prediction.
• Celebration: Share favorite learnings and award “Literary Expert” certificates.