1. Isaac School District No.5
ELAS Thematic Unit Overview Grade 5 – Unit 3
2012-2013
Unit 3: Clues to a Culture
DURATION: Six Weeks-
This unit focuses on aspects of Native American nations/cultures as revealed through pairing of literature and informational text...
Through defining and discussing the word culture, students compare nineteenth-century America from the Ojibway point of view in the
The Birchbark House to depictions in text such as Little House on the Prairie and If You Were a Pioneer on the Prairie. In order to glean
the commonalities and differences across nations, students read trickster stories and informational text; listen to music, and examine art
from a variety of Native American cultures. Class discussions reinforce awareness of how someone’s perspective can affect their view
of events and people. This unit ends with an informative/explanatory essay in response to the essential question.
Essential Questions: . Vocabulary:
How does literature provide insight into a
culture? culture
How does culture affect one’s point of view? personification
perspective
Essential Learning: point of view
Reading literature helps us learn more about sound imagery
the commonality of people and traditions of trickster tale
cultures.
Discussing a person’s perspective based on
their traditions and cultures helps us
understand their thinking.
Distributed Resources Aligned to Unit 3:
Walk Two Moons (Creech)
Island of the Blue Dolphins (O’Dell)
Sign of the Beaver (Speare)
Trickster Tales: Forty Folk Stories from Around the World (Sherman)
Coyote: A Trickster Tale from the American Southwest (McDermott)
Sequoyah: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing (Rumford)
Underlined vocabulary indicates a Tier II word. 1

2. Underlined vocabulary indicates a Tier II word. 2