English Language Arts Grade 5
Educational Links

Reading: Literature Standard 10

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Continue to develop fluency when reading documents written in cursive.

• All Together Now: Collaborations in Poetry Writing
  This set of 3 lesson plans from EDSITEment makes poetry exciting for students as they listen to, write, and recite poems that are sure to please. By the end of these lessons, students should be able to create lines of poetry in response to poems read aloud, identify musical elements of literary language, and recite short poems or excerpts.
• Alliteration All Around
  In this lesson, students learn about alliteration from picture books by author / illustrator, Pamela Duncan Edwards. Using the books' illustrations for inspiration, students write original alliterative sentences and share them with the class. As the lesson continues, students practice using alliteration to create acrostic poems, alphabet books, number books, and tongue twisters.
• Balancing Three Branches at Once
  This page contains 4 EDSITEment lessons in which students use primary source documents to investigate of how the three branches of the American government can check each other.
• Bright Morning: Exploring Character Development
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students explore characters in their reading, identifying traits and pointing to textual support. This lesson uses "Sing Down the Moon" by Scott O'Dell; however, any fictional text can be adapted to the lesson.
• Can You Haiku?
  Haiku show us the world in a water drop, providing a tiny lens through which to glimpse the miracle and mystery of life. Combining close observation with a moment of reflection, this simple yet highly sophisticated form of poetry can help sharpen students' response to language and enhance their powers of self-expression. In this lesson, students learn the rules and conventions of haiku, study examples by Japanese masters, and create haiku of their own.
• Characters in Because of Winn-Dixie: Making Lists of Ten
  Students will discuss characters and characterization in a text; work in cooperative groups; use a bookmark to document their findings while reading; identify and analyze the listing technique presented in Because of Winn-Dixie; create a list of ten things about a character.
• Comprehension Strategies Using Graphic Organizers
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, collaborative strategic reading (CSR) is initially presented to students through modeling and whole-class instruction. To facilitate comprehension during and after reading, students apply four reading strategies: preview, click and clunk, get the gist, and wrap-up. Graphic organizers are used for scaffolding of these strategies while students work together in cooperative groups. NOTE: This is useful for struggling readers but does not tie directly to the CCSS.
• Critical Perspectives: Reading and Writing About Slavery
  In this lesson, students critically examine the perspectives of slaves and slave owners.
• Developing a Living Definition of Reading in the Elementary Classroom
  Students investigate the reading process and end up with a working definition of reading using different types of books. Each student brainstorms what it means to be a successful reader. Based upon shared findings and discussions, students then create a living definition of reading. This definition can be posted and revised as more is learned about reading during the year.
• Diamante Poems
  A diamante poem is a poem in the shape of a diamond. It doesn't have to rhyme but each line uses specific types of words like adjectives or -ing words. You and the computer can make a diamante poem together.
• Earth Verse: Using Science in Poetry
  This lesson is a great way to teach both scientific and English content to a class, although the teacher can easily choose another book and subject area. In this lesson, students listen to poems in the book Science Verse by Jon Scieszka.
• Fables and Trickster Tales Around the World
  This lesson plan from EDSITEment introduces students to folktales, such as fables and trickster tales, from around the world. Students become familiar with different folklore traditions and genres, as well as the process of the oral transmission of culture and history. This lesson plan comprises a series of activities that include reading, writing, and literary analysis. Also included is an internet research activity, as well as a list of links to related resources.
• History in Quilts
  Throughout history, women and sometimes men have used the art of quilting for many diverse purposes: to keep warm, to decorate their homes, to express their political views, to remember a loved one. Heighten your students' awareness of how quilts have reflected and continue to reflect the lives of the people who create them, and of how quilts record the cultural history of a particular place and time. This theme of History in Quilts contains two separate lessons that can stand alone or be taught in conjunction with one another.
• Into the Book: Teacher Area
  Into the Book is a rich resource for teaching and learning reading comprehension in grades K-4. Organized around eight key strategies, the website offers videos and interactive activities for students while providing short PD videos, lesson plans, and other resources for teachers.
• It Came From Greek Mythology
  This page contains 6 EDSITEment lessons based around teaching Greek mythology. Students will study basic plots of three Greek myths and discuss three types of themes in Greek myths. They will also explore contemporary uses of terms from Greek mythology and analyze artistic and literary works based on or inspired by Greek myths.
• Literature Circles: Getting Started
  This lesson from ReadWriteThink explores Literature Circles, a great way to supplement a reading program in a literature-based classroom. Students create and answer comprehension questions, discover new vocabulary, and examine elements of literature.
• Lonely as a Cloud: Using Poetry to Understand Similes
  Students will gain knowledge by defining the term simile; apply this knowledge by identifying examples of similes in literature and poetry; practice analysis by examining the purpose and effect of similes in poetry; synthesize their knowledge by using a graphic organizer to create their own similes and then incorporating these similes into their own writing.
• Magnetic Poetry
  This site has a collection of poems students try to unscramble. It also includes a blank "fridge" where students can create their own magnetic words to use in poems and sentences.
• Peace Poems and Picasso Doves
  This lesson, from ReadWriteThink, supports third-grade students as they apply think-aloud strategies to reading, as well as to the composition of artwork and poetry. Activities include collaborative as well as individual work. Technology tools are integrated as students research symbols of peace and as they prewrite, compose, and publish their poetry.
• Playing with Prepositions Through Poetry
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students have the opportunity to play with language, particularly prepositions, through the literature of Ruth Heller. Taking those experiences as a reader, they are asked to continue to play with the language in poetry.
• Poetry for Kids - The Funny Forty
  The collection of 40 poems by Kenn Nesbitt. The site also links to an interview with Mr. Nesbitt and additional poetry and resources. Lessons for writing funny poetry.
• Qualitative Elements of Text Complexity Rubric for Literary Texts
  This text complexity rubric provides descriptors of a continua of increasing complexity for literary texts.
• Reading and Writing About Pollution to Understand Cause and Effect
  In this lesson, students access prior knowledge about water pollution before exploring the topic further using read-alouds. They then complete a sequencing graphic organizer using a story of a fish and its journey from the mountains to a polluted waterway. Finally, students' understanding of cause and effect is reinforced using a hands-on experiment, art project, and graphic organizer.
• Shape Poems
  A shape poem is a poem about an object or thing. It is written in the shape of the object. Make a poem in the shape of a star, a leaf, heart, fish or other shape.
• Shape Poems: Writing Extraordinary Poems About Ordinary Objects
  Students will recognize the characteristics and format of a shape poem; compile a list of content area terms and sensory images (collaboratively as a class and also independently) that relate to a shape or object, as part of the process of brainstorming a word bank for their shape poem; apply spelling knowledge and strategies when brainstorming words for the word bank and writing and revising their shape poem.
• Small Group Guided Reading
  This Teaching Channel video demonstrates two small group guided reading lessons targeted to students' needs. (6 minutes)
• Teaching Point of View With Two Bad Ants
  This lesson provides students with the opportunity to use illustrations and text to develop an understanding of the point of view of the characters.
• The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad
  Analyzing archival material such as photos, documents, and posters, students can truly appreciate the phenomenon of the Transcontinental Railroad. They can begin to answer some important questions: Why was the Transcontinental Railroad built? How did it affect Native Americans? Other minorities? How was the environment affected? What were the advantages of railroad travel? Who used the railroads, and why? Who built the railroad?
• Using Historical Fiction to Learn About the Civil War
  This lesson uses the book Meet Addy by Connie Porter to teach the characteristics of historical fiction, the making of inferences, the use of visualization, and Civil War history.
• Using Picture Books to Teach Characterization
  This ReadWriteThink lesson invites students to examine the craft of developing characters through focused experiences with pictures books. Through the careful analysis of character portrayal using the text and illustrations as cues, and online tools such as the ReadWriteThink Story Map, students have the opportunity to build bridges from their own experiences as readers to those skills needed as writers.
• What Makes Poetry? Exploring Line Breaks
  This lesson, from ReadWriteThink, engages children in exploring various poems and hypothesizing about why lines are broken where they are in poetry. Students then experiment with line breaks and how they affect rhythm, sound, meaning, appearance, and can substitute for punctuation in poetry.
• Word Wizard
  An interactive version of making words. Students use clues to build words.

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