A MODEL UNIT

Teaching English Language Arts to

Elementary Gifted, Talented, and Creative Students

Who Are Learning English as a Second Language

Although the following unit is based upon content selected for average third-grade students, it may be non-graded and used with teacher discretion for average, creative, talented, or gifted students.

Commonly, units are comprised of a series of multidisciplinary lessons centered around a theme such as a holiday, famous person, special event, or any number of other concepts and subjects. Diagrammed, a model unit would look like the following one, with various modifications.

MULTICONTENT MODEL THEME:

Major Winter Holidays

Mathematics

Reading - Language Arts – Music - Art

Computer Education - Social Studies - Science

Health/Physical Education - Media Center Studies

ENGLISH CONTENT SUB-MODEL

Language Arts

Drama

Speaking – Listening – Sentence Structure

Creative/Critical Thinking – Reading - Literature – Vocabulary

Spelling – Penmanship – Grammar – Mechanics – Usage

A complete multidisciplinary unit may incorporate the objectives listed in the next section. They were taken from the Bilingual, Gifted, Creative, and Talented Curriculum Guide and used in a unit on winter holidays.

All components of language arts cannot be taught in a single unit. The teacher will select ones that need to be taught or reviewed or ones that are crucial to the implementation of the specific unit. For a week’s unit on winter holidays, the following English skills have been chosen from the sub-model:

The skills chosen for this unit will be repeated in other units. According to need, some lessons will be taught in special concentrated sessions that are not necessarily theme related.

OBJECTIVES : A MODEL UNIT