Context
My unit was created for my CI 4000 Curriculum and Instruction class in Fall 2005 semester.  This unit was designed for fourth grade and is centered around the early exploration and settlement of the Coastal Plain region of North Carolina. 

In this unit, students will be introduced to explorers who first came to North Carolina, economic reasons for settling the area, different groups who came to the coast, and problems that these groups had.  In participating in this unit, students will be involved in a variety of activities that range from reading comprehension, to free writing activities, to content based games, and much more.  Students will be practicing comprehension, writing, listening, sequencing, and recall skills throughout this unit.

Impact
By integrating social studies, reading, and writing, students will learn about part of the history of the state in which they live.  Students will examine the history of colonization of the state (3.0), as outlined in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.  In completing the activities of this unit, students will also receive practice in comprehension skills such as summarizing and finding the main idea (2.04), as well as practicing their writing and the use of the English language in a variety of genres (4.0, 5.0).  Students will interact with a variety of texts and practice their oral and listening skills (2.09).

Alignment

Standard 7
Indicator 1:  I met this standard in developing lessons based on a large body of knowledge that I wanted the students to know, mainly a competency goal from fourth grade's SCOS.  I worked with my cooperating teacher to break down and pace myself so as to give the proper amount of time to concepts related to Social Studies content.
Indicator 2:  This unit was designed using an interdisciplinary approach.  Each lesson incorporated both Social Studies content and Language Arts skills.  The final lesson incorporated math skills, also.
Indicator 3:  To promote new learning using prior knowledge and misconceptions, I first assessed students to find out what they knew about the region we were studying.  To do this, I had the students complete a KWL so I could find out what their prior knowledge and misconceptions were.   I also had students write questions they would like to know so that their interests would be addressed at some point during the unit.
Indicator 4:  This unit has several communication strategies, including reading, writing, listening, and speaking.  Students were asked to perform these tasks throughout the unit in each lesson so as to incorporate Language Arts and communications.  A variety of teaching strategies were also used in teaching this lesson; these include direct instruction, paired reading, free response to reading, narrative writing, games, etc.
Indicator 6:  This indicator was met because I included techniques for differentiation in each lesson plan that was written.  Student populations such as gifted learners, low level learners, visual learners, and auditory learners were addressed.
Indicator 7:  Throughout this lesson, assessments were designed to gather information about students' learning and understanding of the concepts.  Formal assessments in the form of quizzes and rubrics were used, as well as informal assessments in the form of teacher questioning and class discussions were used.

• Standard 4
  Indicator 8:  In designing and delivering lessons for this unit, I demonstrated my knowledge of North Carolina history.  This was accomplished by reading, researching, and identifying appropriate sources for student use throughout this unit.

• Standard 8
  Indicator 2: In asking students to read with a partner and also read to complete activities, I encouraged students to monitor their reading comprehension.
  Indicator 3:  In requiring students to read silently and with a partner to locate information for lesson activities, I encouraged students to think critically about what they were reading.  I also encouraged critical thinking about what they were writing by asking students to write responses to higher order thinking questions and then checking their writing for errors and completeness.

• Standard 11
  Indicator 1:  Students communicated in these lessons through writing stories and narratives, speaking with partners and reading aloud, and listening as partners read and as I read aloud to them.  In doing these things in my unit, I met this indicator.
  Indicator 4:  In designing and teaching this unit, students gained a better understanding of the humanities through discussions about what life would have been like in the days of the early colonists.  Discussions about society, technology, and the lifestyle of the people who lived during these times.
  Indicator 5:  I used technology in several of the lessons for this unit.  In one lesson, students were to word process their writing in a document.  In another lesson, I created a cause-and-effect chart on the computer so that students could organize the data they found in their readings.