Institute for Learning
An Investigation Into Ocean Animal Life (Grades 3-4)
An Investigation Into Ocean Animal Life (Grades 3-4)
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Students study oceans and ocean animal life by reading and discussing a range of texts including books, an encyclopedia entry, and an article from National Geographic. Students study categories of living things, learn about the purpose and structure of informational texts and conduct research to write an informational piece about an ocean animal.
- Five informational texts
- 5-6 weeks instruction
- Explanation writing
What is this unit about?
The goal of this unit is for each student to successfully study the oceans and ocean animal life, conduct independent research, and produce a criteria-meeting informational text by engaging in authentic, coherent, and rigorous instruction that includes:
- Building a body of knowledge about the purpose and structure of informational texts and how to use them as readers to study a topic in order to develop personal knowledge;
- Building a body of knowledge about the features of informational texts and how to use them as authors to write an effective informational piece about a topic;
- Building a body of content knowledge about a science topic, in this case the topic of oceans and ocean life; and
- Using categories that address common aspects of all living things (schema), as a way to guide their reading and organize their writing about a topic of study.
What content will students learn?
Students will expand their knowledge base about:
- what various authors teach about oceans and ocean animal life;
- categories of knowledge that describe how an ocean animal is adapted to its habitat, such as respiration, physical features, protection, locomotion, food web, life cycle, and how a particular ocean animal interacts with other animals and humans;
- characteristics of informational text such as introductions, conclusions, paragraphs relating specific
- categories of information, and organizational choices such as subtitles, graphics, bold print, and other text features;
- how authors choose and use methods such as purposeful placement of text features, sequencing of information, linking words and phrases to connect ideas, and domain-specific terms in order to communicate information about a topic;
- text structures of expository text such as chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution, and description; and
- how to compare and contrast information about ocean animal life within and across sources.


