Homeschool Reading · Biography & History

Who Was Joan of Arc?

by Pam Pollack · a homeschool reading guide

Best for
Grades 4–5 (a life inside a war)
Reading level
600L Lexile® measure
Subject
Biography (medieval history)
On Chalky
12 modules with personalized comprehension questions

Use this book for

The book

A farm girl in medieval France says heaven has told her to save the kingdom — and somehow convinces a desperate prince to give her an army, breaks the siege of Orléans, and pays for all of it at the stake before she turns twenty.

This Who Was…? biography does the series' best trick — a life in strict order, short chapters, real detail — with an unusually demanding subject: Joan's story cannot be told without the war around it, the politics that used her, and the trial that condemned her. Pollack keeps all three visible at a grade 4 level, which makes the book quietly ambitious: motive, consequence, and historical distance, taught through one unforgettable teenager.

Why homeschoolers reach for it

Reading skills it builds

On Chalky, every module ends with comprehension questions written from the book's own text, each exercising a specific skill aligned to the Common Core reading standards for grade 4.

If your state asks you to document reading instruction, this is the record: which book, which skills, which standard each aligns with, kept automatically as your child reads.

Running it as a unit

In Chalky's grade 4 reading plan, Who Was Joan of Arc? runs twelve modules — about a week and a half at 20 minutes a day, open-and-go: the modules are already sequenced, so there is nothing to plan the night before. A rhythm, not a rulebook:

  1. Week 1 — read and timeline. A module or two a day; grow a timeline with Joan's age at each event. Seventeen at Orléans, nineteen at Rouen — the ages are the gut-punch.
  2. Days 8–10 — the two-sides exercise. Write Joan's story twice in three sentences: once as a French chronicler, once as an English one. Same facts, different heroes — that's perspective in history.
  3. Close — the conviction question. Joan never recanted what she heard. What your family makes of that is precisely, and rightly, yours.

Pairs well with

Start your reading comprehension curriculum on Chalky

Standards references describe alignment with the Common Core State Standards for Reading, grade 4; homeschool requirements vary by state, and this page is a record of instruction, not legal advice.