Learning / Lower School

Fourth Grade Glimpse

四年级概要

Chinese Unit: 加州是我家 (California Is My Home) | English Unit: The Gold Rush

Life in the Gold Rush – 4th Grade Play

Huddled around a table, a group of fourth grade students discuss how to incorporate action, dialogue and setting into the English introduction of the historical fiction plays they are writing in Chinese class. One play is about a boy’s journey from Canton to Gold Mountain, while another is about an entrepreneur who took huge risks and faced discrimination. The students are working to include historically accurate details, so one student checks her book club folder, where just yesterday she recorded her observations about how Laurence Yep, the author of Dragonwings, used setting as a way to introduce the main character. Down the hall in Chinese class, one student rereads the notes he took when he interviewed his grandmother who immigrated from China and another examines primary source photographs as a way to gather ideas for her writing. In both classrooms, the students are working intently, looking forward to performing their plays as part of the unit’s culminating celebration.


Examples of Enduring UnderstandingsExamples of Essential QuestionsFocus of Integration
ChinesePeople move for various reasons and when they move, they impact communitiesWhy do people move?

In what ways do people impact communities?

In what ways do communities and culture impact people?
Culture, Innovation and Creativity, Change and Continuity
EnglishPeople move for various reasons and when they move, they impact communities.Why do people move?

When people move, what do they gain and lose?
Culture, Innovation and Creativity, Change and Continuity

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