Publisher's Synopsis
By the time children enter fifth grade, they will have been introduced to most if not all of the new skills expected of fifth-graders. The sequence of fifth grade units consolidates those skills and introduces the learning objectives called for in the sixth-grade standards: how to conduct research using primary sources, how to write narratives that are reflective and theme-based, and how to write argument essays that use counterargument to clarify a position.
Unit 1, Narrative Craft, helps students deliberately use their knowledge of narrative craft to make their stories more thematic.
In Unit 2, The Lens of History: Research Reports, students draw inspiration and understanding from mentor texts, historical accounts, primary source documents, maps, and timelines to write focused research reports that engage and teach readers.
Building on these new skills, Unit 3, Shaping Texts: From Essay and Narrative to Memoir helps students grasp that form follows content, learning to take insights about their lives and decide whether these are best expressed in narratives, in essays, or in a hybrid genre created especially to convey the writer's content. In the concluding unit of this series, The Research-Based Argument Essay, fifth-graders learn to build powerful arguments that convincingly balance evidence and analysis to persuade readers to action.
The Grade 5 Trade Pack includes three age-appropriate trade books that are used in the units to model effective writing techniques, encourage students to read as writers, and provide background knowledge.
- When I Was Your Age: Original Stories About Growing Up, Vol. 1 by Amy Ehrlich, ed.
- Who Settled the West? (Life in the Old West series) by Bobbie Kalman
- Eleven and Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark by Sandra Cisneros
