English Language Arts Grade 5
Educational Links

Writing Standard 2

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

• Analyzing Texts: Putting Thoughts on Paper
  This Teaching Channel video shows students responding to a text by analyzing an author's viewpoint (5 minutes)
• 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.
• Can You Convince Me?: Persuasive Writing
  In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students are introduced to the basic concepts of lobbying for something that is important to them and making persuasive arguments. Through a classroom game and resource handouts, students become aware of the techniques used in persuasive oral arguments and apply them to independent persuasive writing activities.
• Dear Librarian: Writing a Persuasive Letter
  Students will develop and support a position on a particular book by writing a persuasive letter about their chosen title; use a guide to help them organize their persuasive ideas into written form; outline a persuasive piece that expresses points in a clear, logical sequence so the reader can follow their reasoning; publish their persuasive piece as a letter.
• Declare the Causes:The Declaration of Independence
  This unit from EDSITEment capitalizes on the propensity to complain to increase student awareness of the precedents behind the Declaration of Independence. By the completion of this unit, students will be able to describe and list the sections of the Declaration of Independence and explain the basic purpose of each. They will also be able to give an example of a document that served as a precedent for the Declaration, list and explain one or more of the colonists' complaints included in the Declaration, and demonstrate an awareness of the Declaration of Independence as a historical process developed in protest of unfair conditions.
• 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.
• Fifth Grade On-Demand Informative / Explanatory Writing Samples
  Sample informative / explanatory pieces written by fifth graders in response to a uniform text-based prompt.
• Fifth Grade Range of Writing Informative / Explanatory Writing Samples
  These pieces provide examples of informative / explanatory writing for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences, over both extended and shorter time frames.
• How Big Are Martin's Big Words? Thinking Big about the Future
  Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Caldecott Honor book, Coretta Scott King Honor book, and an Orbis Pictus Award winner, tells of King's childhood determination to use "big words" through biographical information and quotations. Using this book as well as other resources on Dr. King, students explore information on King's "big" words. They discuss both the literal and figurative meanings of the word "big" and how they apply to Dr. King's words. They read an excerpt from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech and note the "big" words. Students then choose one of two options: (1) they write about their own "big" words and dreams in stapled or stitched books, or (2) they construct found poems using an excerpt from one of King's speeches.
• 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.
• Student Interactives: Bio-Cube
  Students can use the Bio-Cube to summarize a person's life after reading or before writing a biography or autobiography. If students create these bio-cubes on the lives of famous Americans, it would welcome the comparison of historical figures.
• The Preamble to the Constitution: How Do You Make
  This page contains 5 EDSITEment lessons in which students investigate the purposes of the U.S. Constitution, as identified in the Preamble to the Constitution, and study fundamental values and principles as they are expressed in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

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http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Sara  Wiebke and see the Language Arts - Elementary website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - Jennifer  Throndsen.

These materials have been produced by and for the teachers of the State of Utah. Copies of these materials may be freely reproduced for teacher and classroom use. When distributing these materials, credit should be given to Utah State Board of Education. These materials may not be published, in whole or part, or in any other format, without the written permission of the Utah State Board of Education, 250 East 500 South, PO Box 144200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-4200.