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Grade 3 ELA Units

Unit Plan 30 (Grade 3 ELA): Reading and Analyzing Biographies

Grade 3 biography unit: 5-session CCSS-aligned lessons on chronology, character motivation & main idea—timelines, motivation charts, and text-visual evidence.

Dr. Michael Kester-Haynes

• 6 min read
Unit Plan 30 (Grade 3 ELA): Reading and Analyzing Biographies

Focus: Chronology, character motivation, main idea

Grade Level: 3

Subject Area: English Language Arts (Reading Informational)

Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 45–60 minutes per session

I. Introduction

This week, readers dive into biographies to understand a person’s life by tracking chronological events, analyzing character motivation (goals, obstacles, choices), and determining the main idea with supporting details. Students practice asking and answering questions that cite evidence (RI.3.1), naming the main idea of a whole text and sections (RI.3.2), and integrating visual information from timelines, photos, and captions (RI.3.7). By Friday, each learner will read a new short biography, build a 4-event timeline, explain the subject’s motivation with text evidence, state the main idea with key details, and integrate information from a visual.

II. Objectives and Standards

Learning Objectives — Students will be able to…

  1. Ask and answer questions about a biography and cite lines, captions, or headings as evidence (RI.3.1).
  2. Determine the main idea of a biography and explain how key details support it (RI.3.2).
  3. Create a chronological timeline of major life events, using time words and dates pulled from the text (supports RI.3.1).
  4. Explain character motivation (goal → obstacle → action → result) using evidence from the text.
  5. Integrate information from visuals (timelines, photos, sidebars, captions) with the text to answer questions (RI.3.7).

Standards Alignment — CCSS Grade 3

  • RI.3.1 (ask/answer questions; refer explicitly to the text for evidence)
  • RI.3.2 (determine main idea; recount key details and explain how they support)
  • RI.3.7 (use information from illustrations/visuals with the words in a text)

Success Criteria — student language

  • I can point to a sentence, heading, or caption that proves my answer.
  • I can tell the main idea of the person’s life and 3 key details that support it.
  • I can place 4+ important events in time order on a timeline.
  • I can explain why the person acted (motivation) and how a visual adds information I didn’t get from the paragraph alone.