About this Lesson

In this lesson, third grade students revisit a grade-level, informational anchor text about the Mojave Desert. Students frame their thinking with an essential question: “How do animals adapt to challenges in their habitat?”. While rereading, students follow along as the teacher reads, reread with a partner, or reread independently. Throughout the lesson students answer text-dependent questions about animal adaptations in small groups and whole class. Finally, students complete a graphic organizer and write a paragraph comparing two animals from the Mojave Desert. The anchor text used in this lesson is “Amazing Wildlife” of the Mojave by Laurence Pringle and is included in the Literature Anthology of the Wonders curriculum used by this teacher. It is included as a Literature Big Book in the Wonders curriculum used by this teacher. For more specific information about adapting the Wonders program, please visit the Wonders Materials Adaptation Project.

This video shows a real-life classroom, with all the real-life challenges and successes found in daily interactions between students and teachers. It has been selected because it includes illustrations of the Core Actions and Indicators embedded in the day-to-day work happening in schools, and so it offers opportunities to practice using and norming expectations around the Instructional Practice Guide. 

Instructional Practice Toolkit

We recommend watching this lesson in the context of using the Instructional Practice Toolkit, a professional learning module designed to support understanding of planning and instruction aligned to college- and career-ready  (CCR) standards.  Included on this page with the lesson video is the Instructional Practice Guide, which is included in the Instructional Practice Toolkit.