Education Domain I Social Harmony
Step Up 2021
Step Up for Brockton ran a pilot online 8-week after-school study program from October 19 through December 17, 2020 to boost academic performance and English language proficiency of participating grade 4 through 7 Sheltered English Immersion SEI students. While the program’s direct and explicit goal is academic development, the program integrates both teaching and mentoring to achieve positive academic as well as social-emotional/behavioral development.
In Spring 2021, Step Up is going to open an intensive academic after-school program from February 22 to June 10. Students whose ACCESS levels fall on 3 and 4 and former English Learners among grades 4 through 7 can register to the program. EDR provides full scholarship for all students participated. The ACCESS is a test adapted in most of the states in the U.S to measure English proficiency level of students categorized as English Language Learners.
Course Description
Grade 4
This class is designed to help 4th grade ELL students to develop intermediate – low-level reading skills through analysis of assigned narratives and informative texts. Throughout the courses, students will use strategies (like context cues and knowledge of text genres) to understand how coherent contexts are created; determine the main idea and key details; describe key attributes and qualities of characteristics; explain how authors use evidence and reasons to support particular points.
Key Units
- Cite text evidence
- Identify character, settings, and major events
- Retell stories in sequencing order
- Identity topic and main ideas
- Summarize main ideas with corresponding supporting details
Key Units
- Narrate a single event with details
- Recount two events in sequencing order
- Sketch people and their main features
- Display people and personality traits through dialogues
- Introduce culture with related details
This class is designed to help students to persevere in solving problems whether in the form of mathematical equations or word problems through creative problem solving strategies. The students will learn to use the four mathematical operations with whole numbers to solve problems, and use place value understanding to perform multi-digit arithmetic. Fraction equivalence, ordering and decomposing fractions according to its denominators, solve word problems in relation to converting larger units to smaller units, draw and identify lines and angles. Students will also be prompted to evaluate the different strategies used in problem solving and give appropriate reasonings using relative terminologies.
Key Units
- Operations & Algebraic thinking
- Numbers & Operations in Base 10- multi-digit whole numbers
- Fractions- equivalence, denominator, decimals
- Measurement & Data- conversion of units
- Geometry- shapes, angles, perimeters
This class is designed in a student interactive model, where students are encouraged to describe their observations from a scientific stance and communicate results with appropriate evidence. The course would be taught around these three main topics: (1) Earth and Space Sciences, (2) Life Science, (3) Physical Science. Under these topics, students will learn about the role of erosion in the formation of landscape, compare renewable vs. nonrenewable resources, construct an argument on the internal and external structures of animals and plants, and use evidence to create an explanation on the speed and energy of an object.
Key Units
- Earth’s Place in the Universe/ Earth’s Systems
- Collisions & Energy Transfer
- Renewable vs. Nonrenewable resources
- Weathering and Erosion- natural disasters
- Wave Properties
Grade 5
This class is designed to help 5th grade ELL students to develop intermediate level reading skills through participation in grade-appropriate informative texts. Throughout the courses, students will identify central ideas and key supporting details; understand how coherent texts are constructed through generic organizational patterns; determine textual information and make logical inferences; assess how point of view shapes the styles of texts.
Key Units
- Summarize key ideas with explicit textual evidence
- Explain and draw inferences from the text
- Identify relationship between main ideas and generic patterns
- Use contextual information to understand new concepts
- Interpret writers’ positions with textual evidence
This class is designed to help 5th grade ELL students to develop writing skills through intensive practice. Throughout the course, students will write opinion pieces that state their opinions with reasonings and evidence. Students will write narratives that describe real or imagined experiences with supporting details and clean event sequences. Students will write informative texts to examine a topic and elaborate ideas with a variety of complex grammatical structures and some academic vocabulary.
Key Units
- Recount a real or imagined event with details
- Write two events in a sequencing order with details
- Compose short articles about information gathered in interviews with family members
- Construct opinion pieces that state their opinions with reasons
- Write short informative articles using transition words, and conjunctions and compound sentences
This class is designed in a student interactive model, where students are encouraged to exert their creativity in solving math problems and use oral discourse to explain and reason mathematical concepts to each other. Students will be instructed in the areas of writing and interpreting numerical expressions, understanding the place value system and decimals to hundredths, adding and subtracting fractions. Solving the basic-level of multiplying and dividing fractions with whole numbers, calculating volumes of a cube, and plotting points on a coordinate plane.
Key Units
- Operations and Algebraic thinking
- Numbers & Operations in Base 10
- Fractions- add, subtract fractions, basic multiplication and division of fractions
- Measurement & Data- line plot, measuring units (volume)
- Geometry- coordinate plane, 2D figures
This class will give opportunities for students to enhance their abilities in observing, investigating, obtaining evidence, and analyzing data in the area of science. Students will have a chance to communicate their opinions based on evidence and question hypotheses and findings using proper scientific language. Students will also be instructed in the topics of water cycle under earth’s systems, the industrial and agricultural influence on the world, food and energy dynamics within the ecosystem, exploration on the particle model of matter, and the gravitational force exerted by earth on objects.
Key Units
- Gravitational Forces of earth
- Conservation of Matter
- Food Webs
- Moon and its phases; Earth’s orbit and rotation
- Particle Nature of Matter (model & properties)
- Water Cycle
Grade 6
This class is designed to help 6th grade ELL students to develop reading skills through intensive participation in informative texts and narratives. Throughout the course, students will identify themes, main ideas and summarize their relationships to supporting details. Students will analyze observations and descriptions in textual evidence for key attributes. Students will also evaluate the impact of authors’ key word choices over the course of texts.
Key Units
- Describe character and objects using figure of speeches
- Identify and describe relationship among themes, ideas and information
- Interpret multiple sources of information with textual evidence
- Summarize key attributes and draw inferences
- Examine authors’ point of view with the key word choices
This class is designed to help 6th grade ELL students to develop writing skills through intensive participation in argumentative, informative and narrative texts. Throughout the course, students will write arguments in which the claims are clearly stated with supporting evidence and reasons and the counterclaims are acknowledged. Students will construct informational texts to examine topics, and convey ideas. Students will also write narratives that develop stories and describe characters and their relationships.
Key Units
- Introduce and define concept with examples
- Compare and contrast traits of characters and objects
- Construct opinions with supporting evidence
- Apply comparative reasoning to respond to different opinions
- Elaborate real or imagined experiences in a coherent and cohesive manner
This class is designed to help students become active learners who seek to develop creative strategies, construct viable arguments, and critique the reasoning of others. Students will be instructed to understand the ratio concepts, multiply and divide fractions by fractions, reason about and solve one-variable equations and inequalities, solve real-world mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume, and develop an understanding of statistical variability. Students will also have the opportunity to learn the appropriate mathematical terms and phrases to describe the process and concepts of problem-solving approaches.
Key Units
- Ratios and Proportional Relationships
- The Number System- common factors & multiples
- Expressions & Equation- one variable equations, inequalities
- Geometry- area, surface area, volume
- Statistics & Probability
This class is designed to help students analyze data, interpret results, construct explanations on findings, and design creative solutions. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to become active learners through student interactives such as class discussions, experiments, and debates using scientific reasonings, passive voice, and declarative statements, Students will be instructed to develop an understanding of the Earth-Sun-Moon system, provide evidence that all organisms (unicellular and multicellular) are made of cells, plan and conduct an experiment involving exothermic and endothermic chemical reactions, and research on the relationship between gravitational forces and mass.
Key Units
- Solar & Lunar Eclipses
- Solar System
- Plant & Animal cells- Multicellular organisms
- Comparative Anatomy (fossil record)
- Gravitational Forces- relationship with mass of objects
- Wave Reflection, Absorption, & Transmittance
Grade 7
This class is designed to help 6th grade ELL students to develop reading skills through intensive use of reading strategies in literature and informational texts understanding such as using context clues, connecting ideas, visualizing comprehension, recognizing story structure, etc. Throughout the course, students will read and comprehend grade level literature independently and proficiently. Students will understand how texts are constructed, ideas are connected and elaborated. Students will also understand how meanings are extended or enhanced through use of compound sentences and well-chosen words.
Key Units
- Identify the theme that develops over the course of a text
- Analyze character attributes development through actions and events
- Evaluate impact of word choices about meaning and tone
- Determine the theme of a text as well as the author’s purpose
- Analyze elements and style of different genres of literature
This class is designed to help 6th grade ELL students to develop writing skills through intensive participation in argumentative, informative and narrative texts. Throughout the course, students will construct argumentative pieces that contain topics, reasoning, and evidence. Students will compose informative texts that examine and convey complex ideas through the effective selection, organization and analysis of the content. Students will also write narrative texts that develop real or imagined experiences with well-structured event sequences and precise details.
Key Units
- Write fictional or autobiographical narratives that develop a standard plot line
- Compose narratives include themes with complication and resolution
- Articulate claims with supporting reasons and evidence
- Write persuasive passages with stance, opinions supported by evidence
- Write argumentative passages to compare and contrast different objects to orient audience
This class is designed to help students become active learners in Math and learn to be creative in analyzing possible ways to represent and solve problems. The class will also expose students to form their own reasonings and interpretations both abstractly and quantitatively in order to explain how they have solved the problem. Students will be instructed and given practice in the areas of analyzing proportional relationships to solve real-world problems, solving mathematical operations with rational numbers, constructing and describing geometrical figures, and evaluating probability models and applying its use in real-life situations.
Key Units
- Ratios and Proportional Relationships
- The Number System- add, subtract, multiply, divide rational numbers
- Expressions and Equations- algebraic expressions and equations
- Geometry- angle measure, area, surface area, volume
- Statistics & Probability- random sampling, probability models
This class will give opportunities for students to enhance their abilities in observing, investigating, obtaining evidence, and analyzing data in the area of science. Students will have a chance to communicate their opinions based on evidence and question hypotheses and findings using proper scientific language. Students will also be instructed in the topics of water cycle under earth’s systems, the industrial and agricultural influence on the world, food and energy dynamics within the ecosystem, exploration on the particle model of matter, and the gravitational force exerted by earth on objects.
Key Units
- Gravitational Forces of earth
- Conservation of Matter
- Food Webs
- Moon and its phases; Earth’s orbit and rotation
- Particle Nature of Matter (model & properties)
- Water Cycle