Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• W.6.3 – Opening A: Students examine narrative nonfiction texts and record notices and wonderings about the genre of narrative nonfiction. This process prepares students to generate their own narratives about real events.
• W.6.3 – Work Time A: Students participate in a genre study of narrative nonfiction. They identify the techniques and characteristics that are typical of narrative nonfiction and determine the extent to which a picture book (Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race) contains the characteristics of narrative nonfiction.
• SL.6.2 – Work Time A: Students analyze a model narrative nonfiction text, interpreting information presented in diverse formats and explaining why the included information is effective.
• W.6.3 – Work Time B: Students work with their crewmates to draft their narrative nonfiction picture book pages. The narratives they produce describe real events using effective techniques, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
• W.6.5 – Work Time B: With support from their crewmates, students strengthen their writing through drafting, revising, and rewriting their narrative nonfiction picture book pages.
• W.6.3 – Closing and Assessment A: Students examine a model performance task, evaluating its use of narrative nonfiction writing and identifying the extent to which it demonstrates the criteria for the performance task.
• SL.6.2 – Closing and Assessment A: Students analyze a model performance task, interpreting information presented in diverse formats and explaining why the included information is effective.
• In this lesson, students focus on working to become effective learners, collaborating with their crewmates as they begin drafting the text and illustrations for their performance task.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• Among the characteristics of narrative nonfiction students may notice in the model texts is the use of text features, such as a foreword, timeline, glossary, author’s note, and primary source photographs of the historical events and people depicted in the story. Challenge students to go beyond writing and illustrating their section of the class story by enhancing the class book with these additional text features.

How It Builds on Previous Work

• Students have been researching another underrepresented individual in space science, their focus figure. For the Mid-Unit 3 Assessment, they composed an essay about why that individual’s accomplishments were remarkable. For the final lessons of the module, students work with their crews to craft a children’s picture book version of their focus figure’s story. Each crew is responsible for contributing one section to the class anthology of stories about these focus figures. This lesson launches that work by examining the characteristics of narrative nonfiction for primary school readers to ensure students compose their own stories using these genre features.

Support All Students

• Help ELLs better understand the principles of narrative nonfiction writing by bringing in (or inviting them to bring in) examples of narrative nonfiction written in their home languages. Students can examine these texts in home-language pairs, reflect in writing on the key features of the text, and/or compare and contrast their home-language texts with Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race. These activities both support ELLs’ understanding of the expectations of narrative nonfiction writing and highlight the value of their home languages as a resource for taking on new assignments in class. ▲
• Provide an optional writing planner or story board to aid students in mapping out the arc of their narratives before beginning to compose their narratives.
• Encourage students to carefully manage their time and delegate tasks. Break down the steps of the performance task into checklist form. Provide an estimated amount of time for each step. Include a line for crewmates to initial next to the steps for which they will be responsible.

Assessment Guidance

• The performance tasks at the end of every module are neither formative nor summative assessments. They are not formative since they come at the end of the module, concluding students’ learning about the module topic and the literacy skills they have built over eight or nine weeks. However, they are also not summative because they are heavily scaffolded to help students create high-quality work and so are not a strong measure of what students can do independently. For these reasons, it is not recommended that performance tasks are analyzed with the same lens used to analyze assessments. Look at students’ performance tasks through the lens of the attributes of high-quality student work (authenticity, complexity, and craftsmanship).
• Students may be overwhelmed by the amount of work shown in the model presentation. Assure students that they will have plenty of time in class to work toward the final product, drafting and revising each step.
• Remind students that they are not being assessed on the quality or content of their contribution to the class anthology of focus figures. Rather, the End of Unit 3 Assessment requires students to trace and evaluate the arguments being made through the narrative nonfiction stories. Students practice these skills in Lessons 5 and 10, using the same note-catchers they will use during the assessment in Lessons 15–16.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will continue to draft and prepare their pages of the picture book, focusing specifically on how the illustrations add to the meaning of the text. Models and structured work time ensure students have the materials and time necessary to produce high-quality work.