This lesson was initially created through the Basal Alignment Project and was then further developed by the 4th grade team from Pleasant Valley School in Harrison Township, New Jersey during the Adapting Instructional Materials project. Many districts and schools are waiting until curriculum aligned to the Common Core State Standards comes to the market before buying new materials. This means teachers are left to find ways to adapt their current curriculum to meet the new Standards. The Adapting Instructional Materials Project evolved to fill this need.

The project focused on building models to increase teacher and district capacity, as well as to increase the availability of freely accessible, Common Core-aligned materials for districts that need them now. To learn more about this work, read the “Adapting Basal-Based Literacy Programs” article from Aligned or access the complete case study, which includes resources and training materials.

During World War II, a group of Marines known as Navajo Code Talkers developed a special code to send and receive secret messages. Because of their hard work and sacrifices, Navajo code talkers helped the United States win World War II. Eventually, they were recognized and honored for their contributions. (Pearson Reading Street, 2010)

This lesson was created as part of the Basal Alignment Project, during which teachers created CCSS-aligned lessons for existing literary and information texts in basal readers. All page numbers and unit/week designations found in this lesson relate to the edition of the basal reader named above. If you are using a trade book or different edition of this title, the page/unit/week references in this lesson will not match. Consult the content referenced in the body of the lesson to determine appropriate page numbers for your text.