This resource accompanies our Rethink 2nd Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning.  

This unit was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 2nd Grade ELA in Writing.

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 2nd Grade English Language Arts content.

The central idea of this unit is how sharing artifacts is a fundamental characteristic of humans that connects them to each other and culture.

Students will create a personal narrative by generating ideas for writing from their personal experiences, write details of their experience in an organized manner, and revise their draft to add details.

In this lesson, students create a personal narrative by generating ideas for writing from their personal experiences, write details of their experience in an organized manner, and revise their draft to add details.

 Students will compare and contrast the Wolf’s actions from both the Three Little Pigs and the True Story of The Three Little Pigs by creating a StoryboardThat visual.  An extension activity would include the use of the Dash Robot to code and verbalize their understanding of the Wolf’s actions and how they differ in each book.  

"Reading like writers," students will explore the ways that stories are structured; then, "writing like writers," students explore organizational structures in their own writing. Students listen to a reading of Long Night Moon, a circular story. Nexzt, they develop their own examples of circular stories which they share out with their peers.

On or near Earth Day, the AIG students will read the selected advanced text, then collaborate to plan and execute a conservation practice to benefit the community, and write personal narratives recounting their work. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

After discussing how people have different perspectives on the same topic/event/movement in a fun way by using a familiar fairy tale, higher level students will be asked to read portions of a book or articles from the internet to find out at least 2 differing perspectives of a historical event/movement. Students will get a R.A.F.T. so they may write with different ROLES in mind to different AUDIENCES in a particular FORMAT and on a TOPIC.  Next students will share their writings with other students in the class. I am giving examples of how to use this activity with the attacks of 9/11, but other historical events/movements could be used (Civil War, prohibition, American Revolution, Civil Rights Movement, etc.). This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will retell and summarize a story by using math vocabulary, equations, and pictures.

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

Using the Zimbabwean folktale "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters" by John Steptoe, students will learn strategies and methods on how to describe the overall structure of a story. Students will also be shown how to show respect for other cultures through the use of this book, world maps, graphic organizers and other African folktales.This lesson was developed by Lisa Bruet as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures. The students will be able to understand how the cultures differ in food, language and arts through the two stories that are being compared and contrasted. Then, the students will use these tools that they know to help broaden and expand their cultural views by intergrating the folktales into the math, language arts and social studies curriculum.This lesson was developed by Lisa Bruet as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

In second grade students will learn to compare different versions of the Gingerbread story. They focus on how the story elements change with each story, but the basic theme stays the same. Then  in writing students are tasked with creating their own gingerbread rendition. In doing so, students often get lost in the middle of the story where the gingerbread character passes other characters and repeats the refrain. This project will help students use temporal words to provide sequence to their story as they define the places and people that are passed. Students must clearly describe 3 -4 places in a sequence (first, next, then, finally), as well as, provide an ending to their story. Once they have completed their story students are allowed to take a previously made gingerbread character and tape it to a small Dixie cup. Then the cup is placed over a mini-sphero. Students use premade landmarks that say first, next, then, finally  to navigate their character through their own sequence of events! This is a highly motivational and fun way to celebrate their hard work in creating a story and making it come to life!

In this unit, students will read and explore a folktale from Vietnam, while utilizing interdisciplinary connections in language arts, geography, science and social studies. Opportunities are provided for differentiated instruction as well as the development of story vocabulary. Terms include: narrator, point
of view, main character, dialogue, setting, title and quotation marks.

The remote learning lesson plan is based on Steven M. Constantino's five principles of family engagement. Parents work as co-teachers to help second-grade ESL students complete the how-to writing lesson. Students will practice listening, reading, speaking, writing, and interacting to create and explain different projects. They will make and fly paper airplanes while measuring the flight distances, explain where to find hidden treasure, and share how to create a favorite dish in the kitchen. During the lesson, students interact with family members, teachers, and classmates.

In this activity, students read or listen to Dr. Martin Luther's King's historic I Have a Dream speech. They will then write and illustrate an acrostic poem using the word DREAM, relating the lines of the poem to Dr. King's speech or his impact on the American civil rights movement.

 Students will review April Rain Song and Rain Poem and then use the Seasonal Poetry template to create an original poem to be recorded using Flipgrid.  

In this activity, students will read Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers, and then take another look at one dramatic moment in the story. After revisiting the moment, they will create a new scene that is not in the book, based on the character of Abraham Lincoln.