UNIT TITLE: Charlotte’s Web
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 2nd Grade Language Arts
TEACHER: Alexandra Hughes
STAGE ONE
Desired Results:
- Reading – Literature
o Identify key ideas and details
 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and
how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and
challenges.
o Identify or recognize elements of craft and structure
 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the
beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
 Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by
speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue
aloud.
o Integrate knowledge and ideas
 Use information gained from the illustration and words in a print or
digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
o Increase range and complexity of texts
 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories
and poetry, in the grades 2-3 text complexity brand proficiently, with
scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
- Reading- Foundational Skills
o Develop fluency with familiar words and texts
 Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
 Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and
expression on successive reading.
 Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and
understanding, rereading as necessary.
- Writing
o Use a variety of texts types to communicate different purposes
 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short
sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts and
feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of
closure.
- Communication
o Develop ability to present knowledge and ideas
 Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant,
descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.
 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in
order to provide requested detail or clarification.
o Increase expressive and receptive vocabulary
 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning
words and phrases based on grade 2 reading and content, choosing
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flexibility from an array of strategies.
 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships,
and nuances in word meanings.
 Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and
being read to, and responding to texts, including using adjectives and
adverbs to describe (e.g., When other kids are happy that makes me
happy).
Collaboration and Reflection
o Develop collaboration skills
 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about
grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
 Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or
information presented orally or through other media.
 Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify
comprehension, gather additional information, or deepen understanding
of a topic or issue.
Essential Questions:
1. What is friendship?
2. Why is friendship important?
3. How should humans interact with the
natural world?
4. What is the importance of time?
Knowledge:
- The main theme of the book is the
friendship between Charlotte and
Wilbur.
- Other themes are loyalty, the natural
world, time, perseverance and death
- When Wilbur wants to accomplish
something he perseveres and does not
give up
- Friends are an important part of one’s
life and can greatly enhance one’s
experiences.
Enduring Understandings:
1. Friendship is the close relationship
between two beings and can exist
between humans and animals.
2. Friendships are important for a persons
well being. Friends support each other
through both good and bad times and
provide companionship.
3. The natural world is important because
it is made up of all things not created
by humans (plants, animals, and
landscape) but that humans need to
survive. Humans should treat the
natural world with respect and
admiration.
4. Time helps us structure our days but it
is also something that we cannot
control.
Skills:
- Explore and identify characters,
setting, plot, and theme
- Use text, images, and dialogue to
reconstruct story events
- Integrate the seven comprehension
strategies from Mosaic of Thought
(monitoring meaning, activating
background knowledge and creating
schema, questioning, inferring, using
sensory and emotional images to
deepen understanding, determining
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It is important to be loyal to your
friends and family and to keep
promises.
Animals and humans all eventually die,
it is a part of life
Humans and animals should be treated
with kindness
The main characters are Wilbur,
Charlotte, and Fern.
The story takes place mainly on
Zuckerman’s Farm although the
Arable’s farm and the fair are other
important settings
Vocabulary:
- Loyalty
- Perseverance
- Runt
- Obliged
- Adrift
- Bandstand
- Carousing
- Crochet
- Forlorn
- Frolic
- Gnaw
- Gullible
- Idiosyncrasy
- Languish
- Listless
- Monotonous
- Magnum Opus
- Pummel
- Sedentary
- Slops
- Untenable
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STAGE TWO
importance, synthesizing)
Recognize that there are multiple
definitions of the same word
Identify and organize details of a story
both visually and verbally using a
graphic organizer
Define an adjective and pull examples
of adjectives from the text
Describe a character using adjectives
Paraphrase the plot
Make predictions about various
outcomes
Relate events in the story to events in
one’s life and in other books
Retell a sequence of events in order
Compare and contrast the main
characters in the story and connect
them to student’s own experience
Use learned vocabulary in sentences
Make distinctions between the literal
meaning and the interpretation of
literature through small group
discussions and writing
Use strategies to interpret and
comprehend text (reread the sentence,
look at the picture, read the entire
sentence and go back, start with the
first sound and move on)
Explore perspective by writing
descriptive word lists from the point of
view of a character
Develop an understanding of life, death
and the passing of time
Write in complete sentences using part
of the question in the answer as well as
learned vocabulary words.
Performance Assessments:
- Orally answer comprehension questions about each chapter within a small group
- Write complete sentences and paragraphs in response to reading that show an
understanding of characters, setting and plot
- Write complete sentences demonstrating understanding of learned vocabulary
- Role play through Hot Seat (student’s put themselves into a character’s shoes and
answer questions written by their peers)
- Demonstrate understanding of the setting, characters, and story sequence through
graphic organizers
- Select a character in the book and write a descriptive paragraph using the new
vocabulary words from this unit
- With a cooperative group, create a script for the novel that includes the new vocabulary
(with a rubric to define criteria)
- Visualize and illustrate the Zuckerman’s barn from the description