Unit 8 — Imagine! Invent!
Description
Students explore informational texts about inventions and inventors, learning to recognize characteristics of nonfiction texts and explain the purpose of text and graphic features. The unit emphasizes making inferences using evidence and background knowledge, recognizing the central idea, and identifying claims and supporting evidence. Students distinguish major and minor characters and understand how character and setting influence plot. They read biographies to learn about inventors and their innovations. The writing focus is informational: students research inventions and explain their importance, create presentations about inventors, or design and present an original invention idea. Students analyze word choice and figurative language to understand author's craft.
Essential Questions
- How can I recognize the characteristics of non-fiction texts?
- How can I explain the purpose of text and graphic text features?
- How can I make inferences using evidence and background knowledge?
- How can I recognize the central idea of a text?
- How do illustrations support key details in a text?
- How can I identify major and minor characters?
- How do character and setting influence the plot of a story?
Learning Objectives
- Explain purpose of text features
- Recognize features of informational texts
- Make inferences using evidence and background knowledge
- Identify purpose of compare and contrast text structure
- Explain how illustrations support key details in a text
- Recognize and explain author's purpose
- Distinguish major and minor characters
Suggested Texts
- Timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives — nonfiction
- A Bumpy Ride — nonfiction
- Edison's Best Invention — nonfiction
- A Century of Amazing Inventions — nonfiction
- Rosie Revere, Engineer — fiction
- Frindle — fiction
Supplemental Resources
- Printed biographical information about inventors for research
- Graphic organizer for invention research with sections for purpose and importance
- Chart paper for displaying invention sketches and explanations
- Sentence strips with text evidence from biographies
Language
Reading: Informational Text
Writing
Students engage in design thinking and innovation processes to solve problems. Students create inventions and evaluate technological solutions for real-world challenges.
Formative Assessments
- Text feature analysis activities
- Inference activities using evidence from texts
- Central idea and supporting details identification
- Character identification (major vs. minor) exercises
- Biography reading and note-taking
Summative Assessment
Cite Text Evidence Open-Ended Responses
Benchmark Assessment
— not configured —
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding of text features and inferences through oral responses to teacher questions, with visual supports such as labeled diagrams of text features or sentence frames to guide explanation. Students may respond to a reduced set of questions or complete a graphic organizer with teacher or aide support to organize evidence before responding.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During reading of informational texts about inventions and inventors, provide students with graphic organizers that visually separate text features (e.g., headings, captions, diagrams) from body text, helping them process how each feature functions. For inference-making and central idea tasks, offer sentence frames or partially completed organizers so students can demonstrate comprehension without being limited by writing demands alone. Allow oral responses or dictation as alternatives to written open-ended responses, and consider highlighting key evidence in texts before students begin annotation or note-taking activities. Break biography reading tasks into smaller, clearly sequenced steps, checking for understanding frequently before moving to the next stage.
Section 504
Provide extended time for reading informational texts about inventors and for completing open-ended citation responses, as the dense nonfiction content and inference demands require sustained focus. Preferential seating away from distractions supports sustained reading and the close attention needed to locate and analyze text evidence. Ensure all graphic materials, diagrams, and text features in invention-related texts are presented clearly and in formats the student can readily access, including print copies of any content displayed on a screen.
ELL / MLL
Introduce key vocabulary from the inventions and inventors content domain — such as invention, innovator, evidence, and feature — before reading begins, using visuals, labeled diagrams, and real or pictured examples of inventions to build concept familiarity. Provide simplified, step-by-step directions for inference and central idea tasks, and encourage students to use their home language to brainstorm or organize ideas before expressing them in English. Picture-supported informational texts and bilingual glossaries of nonfiction text feature terms can help students access content meaning while developing English academic vocabulary.
At Risk (RTI)
Connect the unit's focus on inventors and inventions to students' prior experiences and everyday knowledge of tools and technology, helping them build the background understanding needed to make inferences from informational texts. Offer entry-level versions of text feature and central idea tasks that begin with highly visual, shorter nonfiction passages before progressing to more complex biographies. Structured note-taking templates and partially completed graphic organizers reduce cognitive load while still guiding students toward identifying evidence and supporting details independently over time.
Gifted & Talented
Challenge students to move beyond identifying text features and central ideas by analyzing how an author's deliberate structural and craft choices — such as compare-and-contrast organization or figurative language — shape a reader's understanding of an inventor's significance or impact. Students may pursue independent research on a lesser-known inventor or a contemporary innovation, evaluating the quality and reliability of multiple informational sources and synthesizing evidence to construct a well-supported original argument. Encouraging students to consider the broader societal or ethical implications of an invention deepens their engagement with nonfiction content at a higher analytical level.