Lang/Literature 3rd Period

Fifth-grade students read a wide range materials, including literature from different times and cultures and informational text on grade-level topics in all subject areas. They practice the foundational reading skills learned in previous grades to read accurately and fluently, but the emphasis in fifth grade is on students’ comprehension of complex narrative and informational texts. Students read two or more texts on a topic and use a variety of comprehension strategies to compare, contrast, and integrate information from the texts. They analyze how structure, point of view, visual elements, and figurative language contribute to the meaning or tone of texts. As their text-analysis skills deepen, students are able to determine the main themes or points of text, understand how the author’s evidence and reasons support the theme or argument of the text, and draw inferences or conclusions supported by details from the text. They learn academic language and domain-specific vocabulary through their reading and use it in their writing and speaking.

 

In their writing, students learn to group related information logically; use words, phrases, and clauses to link opinions to reasons and to connect ideas to related ideas; and use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, description, and pacing, to develop the story line or characters. They revise, edit, and rewrite their compositions and learn to try new approaches to improve their writing. Students conduct research projects that provide them with practice in gathering information, using print and digital sources, and summarizing information in notes.

 

Students engage effectively in collaborative discussions on fifth-grade topics and texts, identify and analyze logical fallacies in speakers’ presentations or from media sources, and learn to deliver speeches in which they state an opinion and support it with a logical sequence of evidence. They also learn to use gestures and expressions to convey meaning when they recite a section of a speech or poem or read from a historical or scientific document. To support their writing and speaking, they learn the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, capitalization, spelling, and punctuation, such as commas and quotations to set off dialogue and correctly indicating titles of different kinds of documents and sources. Students learn to use print and digital reference materials to determine the correct pronunciation and meaning of words and to identify alternate word choices in all fifth-grade content areas.