Highlighted here are ThinkCERCA's CERCA Sets and Direct Instruction lessons aligned with Grade 4 Expeditionary Learning Modules. These selected lessons will have your students thinking about hot-button current issues, such as immigration, and long-time moral questions, such as individual responsibility in a changing society. Each set is sure to prompt active classroom conversation and interesting writing!

Grade 4 Modules

Module 1A: Becoming a Close Reader and Writing to Learn: Oral Tradition, Symbolism, Building Community

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• Family History
  • Writing Prompt: Should immigrants follow the traditions of the country they move to or the country they left? (RI.4.2; W.4.1)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Main Ideas

Module 1B: Reading Closely and Writing to Learn: Poetry, Poets, and Becoming Writers

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• Sonnets
  
  • Writing Prompt: What values of the United States does the poem explain? (RL.4.5; W.4.2)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Poetic Structure

Module 2A: Researching to Build Knowledge and Teaching Others: Interdependent Roles in Colonial Times

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• Social Responsibility
  • Writing Prompt: Based on the article about him and Chavez's own words, how did Cesar Chavez change the world? (RI.4.9; W.4.1)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Making Arguments About Author's Purpose

Module 2B: Researching to Build Knowledge and Teach Others: Animal Defense Mechanisms

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• Evolution
• Writing Prompt: How did polar bear evolution from brown bears allow the species to adapt to its environment? (RI.4.1; W.4.1)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Evidence

Module 3A: Considering Perspectives and Supporting Opinions: Simple Machines: Force and Motion

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• A Better Battery
  • Writing Prompt: How does the author use a problem and solution structure to explain Khare's new battery? (RI.5; W.4.2)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Structure and Organization

Module 3B: Reading Closely and Writing to Learn: Perspectives on the American Revolution

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• Paul Revere and the Revolutionary War
• Writing Prompt: How does this author's version of Paul Revere's story, imagined from his own point of view, show the reader that he was a hero? (RI.4.8; WHST.4.1)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Thinking Like A Historian

Module 4: Susan B. Anthony, the Suffrage Movement, and the Importance of Voting

Supporting CERCA Sets:

• Voting
  • Writing Prompt: What does the outcome of the 2000 presidential election suggest about the importance of voting? (RI.4.1; W.4.2)

Supporting ThinkCERCA Direct Instruction Lessons:

• Writing About Social Studies