1. Shauna Sanders
FRIT 7737: Practicum in School Library Media Centers
Information Literacy Unit
Dr. Repman
Fall 2010

2. UbD Stage 1
Title of Unit Reading, Writing, and
Blogging…Oh my!
Grade
Level
3rd Grade
Curriculum
Area
English Language Arts Time
Frame
As long as needed…
Stage 1 – Identify Desired Results
Georgia Performance Standards:
ELA3R3: The student uses a variety of strategies to gain meaning from grade-level text.
• The student makes judgments and inferences about setting, characters, and events and supports
them with evidence from the text.
• The student identifies and infers main idea and supporting details.
ELA3W1: The student demonstrates competency in the writing process.
• The student writes a response to literature that demonstrates understanding of the text, formulates
an opinion, and supports a judgment.
ELA3C1: The student demonstrates understanding and control of the rules of the English language,
realizing that usage involves the appropriate application conventions and grammar in both written and
spoken formats.
• The student uses appropriate capitalization and punctuation (end marks, commas, apostrophes and
quotation marks.)
Standards for the 21st
Century Learner by AASL:
Standard 3: Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic
society.
3.1.3 Use writing and speaking skills to communicate new understandings effectively.
3.1.6 Use information and technology ethically and responsibly.
Understandings
Students will understand that:
• Talking and writing about what they are reading will help them to better understand the text.
• Responding to literature requires more than just summarizing the text.
• Blogging about what they are reading can be a different way to share their thoughts and
questions and to gain new understanding from their peers.
• Using technology ethically is their responsibility as a citizen.
• When using technology, the rules of using appropriate capitalization and punctuation still
apply.

3. Related Misconceptions:
• You don’t have to use periods and punctuation when blogging (typing).
• It doesn’t matter what you say to others online, because they can’t see you.
Essential Questions
Overarching Questions:
• Why do I need to think about and ask
questions about what I am reading?
Topical Questions:
• How is writing about my thoughts going
to help me better understand what I am
reading?
• Why is it important to listen to what
others have to say?
• How is asking other students questions
about the book we are reading going to
help me?
• Why do I have to be respectful online?
Knowledge and Skills
Knowledge
Students will know:
• Key terms: blog, respond, punctuation,
capitalization, ethically, inferring,
judgments
• How to login to their blog account
• How to blog
• How to be respectful to each other online
• How to comment on their blog
Skills
Students will be able to:
• Respond about what they are reading
• Answer questions about what they are
reading
• Infer about what they are reading
• Pose questions to others in their group
• Provide details to support their
opinions
• Construct appropriate grade level
sentences with correct capitalization
and punctuation

4. Stage 2 - Evidence
Performance Task(s)
Goal: Your goal is to create a blog that reflects your thoughts, questions and responses
to your group’s current book you are reading together in your guided reading group.
Role: You are the author and designer of your blog.
Audience: Your audience is the other members of your reading group along with your
teacher, Mrs. Sherman and your media specialist, Mrs. Sanders.
Situation: You have been asked to create and maintain a blog that will reflect your
understandings of the books you read within your guided reading group. The blog
should also demonstrate your ability to infer and make judgments about the book as well
as cause your group members to really think about the book in a different way.
Product Performance and Purpose: You will create and maintain a blog that will
demonstrate your understanding of the books you are reading.
Standards and Criteria for Success: Your blog should…
 Include vocabulary words that you have come across during your reading
 Include main characters and plot descriptions when necessary
 Includes supporting details from the story
 Poses questions to other members about the story
 Answer questions that others ask you about the book
 Include appropriate capitalization and punctuation
 Demonstrate your understanding of the story
Other Evidence
Observation: The media specialist will conduct quite a bit of online observations to make
sure students are respecting others during their comments and entries.
Observation: The teacher will continue to monitor students’ ability to infer and identify main
ideas through guided reading lessons within the classroom with each group.
Follow-up Assessments: Due to the nature of this assignment and the students’ reading
levels, the students will be given another reading benchmark assessment in compliance with
the Literacy Collaborative Framework around mid-year. This assessment will either show
improvement in comprehension and fluency or lack of improvement. Third grade will also be
evaluated on their writing skills around March with a statewide rubric. This blogging unit has
been one of the biggest focuses the classroom teacher has and is continuing to use to help with
writing skills.

5. Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences
Collaboration and Test Score Analysis
For this unit, a third grade teacher, Mrs. Sherman, and I, the media specialist decided
to work together to help her students improve their reading comprehension and
writing abilities. We looked over the students’ CRCT scores (attached below) from
the previous school year and determined that they need lots of assistance with
comprehension. Through individual benchmark testing conducted by the teacher at
the beginning of this school year, the teacher had more specifically determined that
one need in reading deals with being able to infer and identify main ideas of the texts.
She also mentioned that many of her students lack the ability to write a cohesive
sentence correctly, with capitalization and punctuation. This particular teacher is
also very interested in learning all kinds of new technology. She was one of the first
teachers to use an airliner in her classroom and has requested to use the school’s
new ELMO.
These third grade students have also been learning about responding to literature in
their classrooms. In the third grade Literacy Collaborative Framework, the students
begin to use and keep a readers’ notebook. The students are required to write a
letter to their teacher once a week about the book they are reading during their
guided reading group. The teacher then responds to the child each week and asks
further questions in a follow up letter.
After meeting several times with this teacher and discussing some possible options
to assist her students with these skills/standards, we finally decided to introduce her
and her students to the world of blogging! The students will work on improving
their reading comprehension skills of inferring and identifying the main idea and
their writing skills by maintaining a weekly blog about their books. The students will

6. also learn that one can use their writing skills to communicate new understandings
and how to use technology ethically and responsibly.
Introductions
Mrs. Sherman and I will take the time to set up her class blog at www.kidblog.org.
We will set the class up into their reading groups. We will also make sure all of the
logins work and that we understand how to make posts and comments. The first
lesson with the students will be co- taught together. We will meet with the students
in her room during their reading block and show them how to find the website, login
and create a post. Mrs. Sherman is going to create an index card for each student
with all their login information. She is also going to create a schedule for the use of
the computers within her classroom for blogging. Students will know which day is
their group’s day to blog.
The first media center lesson will focus on using technology/online resources
responsibly and ethically. We will watch a few videos about online safety and being
respectful to each other online and will have a discussion. I will create a wiki for
these videos and other resources for this unit.
http://shermanthirdgrade.pbworks.com/w/page/32664580/Blogging-Unit
During the Process
Once the students have successfully logged in and created their first blogs, then we
will begin to redirect the content of their blogs. We will provide checklists of things
to include in their blog depending upon the genre of the book they are reading at the
time. In the media center, I will pull the blog up periodically and show examples of
questions that I can ask another student about the book they are reading. I will also
have a lesson on finding the main idea. We will visit the website,
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/rcmi1.htm
and use the practice to help improve the students’ ability to identify the main idea. I
will also read short chapters from some of their favorite books like The Diary of a
Wimpy Kid and then talk about the main ideas. Throughout the entire unit (year), I
will continue to blog with the students along with the teacher to help pull deeper

7. thinking from the students.
The classroom teacher will continue to conduct her guided reading groups in her
classroom and lessons on inferring, identifying main ideas and constructing proper
sentences with capitalization and punctuation. The teacher will also decide when a
student is ready to advance to the next guided reading level based on their
performance in their groups.
During the Process
The teacher and I will meet periodically to discuss directions that we need to work
on with the students. We will guide the students into these directions with our
questions we provide them in the blogging environment. This unit will basically run
for the course of the year. However, based on the mid-year benchmark testing and
the teacher’s discretion, the group members may change throughout the year. Also,
if some groups become quite successful and confident with inferring and main ideas,
then we may add a new skill to their checklists when blogging.
Notes to the Instructor
Addressing differentiation: For students who are below grade level in reading and/or
writing, there will need to be some additional assistance with completing their performance
task. Most of the students should be able to create their own blog and maintain it. However,
there are two groups of students that may need one-on-one assistance with blogging each
time.
RETHINK, REFLECT, REVISE: The nature of the performance task lends itself to having the
students constantly rethink, reflect and revise their work. The intended goal of the task is
for the students to realize that they are improving their reading abilities by writing about
what they are reading. The students will use the checklist to make sure they have included
all parts of the assignment before they turn it in. This checklist will provide another
opportunity for the students to revise before turning in their completed assignment.
Sources Used for this UbD Unit

8. ALA | AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. (n.d.). ALA | Home - American
Library Association. Retrieved September 30, 2010, from
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandar
ds/standards.cfm
GPS by Grade Level, K-8. (n.d.). GaDOE. Retrieved September 30, 2010, from
https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/Pages/BrowseStandards/GPS_by_Gr
ade_Level_K-8.aspx
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/rcmi1.htm
www.kidblog.org
http://www.ikeepsafe.org/iksc_kids/
http://tv.disney.go.com/disneychannel/commonsense/
http://www.ikeepsafe.org/psa/#gotovideo
Learner Analysis
Mrs. Sherman’s Class
CRCT Data from 2nd
Grade

9. Spring 2010 (Date of test)
*Repeating Third Grade
Name ELA Gramm/
Sentence
30
ELA
Research/
Writing
Process 20
Reading
Literary
Comp.24
Reading
Reading for
Informa. 8
Reading
Skills and
Vocab. 8
ELA Reading
J P.
Spring 2010
7 4 14 1 1 765 792
J P. Retake 11 4 2 796
EW.
Spring 2010
14 9 9 2 6 797 795
EW Retake 9 3 5 796
Learner Anaysis
Sherman’s Original Benchmark Results used for Reading Groups
September 2010
Name ELA
Grammar
30
ELA
Sentence
12
ELA
Research
8
Reading
Vocab.
8
Reading
Comprehen
32
Compos.
ELA
Compos.
Reading
JA 29 11 7 7 31 857 861
LB 26 11 6 6 27 835 827
AC 19 7 7 8 28 807 843
AF 22 8 3 6 22 807 809
MG 21 6 6 4 19 807 794
AJ 20 9 5 5 26 809 819
NM 28 9 7 7 28 839 836
IM 25 7 6 8 26 819 831
EO 29 11 7 7 26 857 827
HP 24 10 8 8 25 831 827
JP
Spring 2009
10 7 4 4 9 780 767
BQ 10 6 7 7 25 786 822
RR 28 10 8 6 26 850 822
LR 26 11 7 8 22 839 815
CR 8 3 1 4 14 761 781
SR 25 10 8 7 25 835 822
KS 17 8 6 6 23 802 812
FT 26 11 6 7 27 835 831
MV 28 11 7 7 28 850 836
EW
Spring 2009
12 5 4 1 14 780 773
AW 18 9 4 7 24 802 819
KW 26 9 8 5 29 835 831

10. Student Benchmark Level
JA L
AC L
AF* E
MG K
AJ M
NM M
IM M
GO* PreA
EO L
HP M
JP* H
BQ* E
RR L
LR M
CR* H
SR L
KS K
FT M
MV L
EW* K
AW K
KW K

11. **Note: Beginning Third Graders should benchmark around an L-N.
Students with * receive assistance with reading, writing or speaking through ESS
services.