School Improvement in Maryland

Using the State Curriculum: Reading/ELA, Grade 5

Print:

Writing:

Reading/ELA:

Writing

Standard 4.0 Writing

Students will compose in a variety of modes by developing content, employing specific forms, and selecting language appropriate for a particular audience and purpose.

Indicator

  • 1. Compose texts using the prewriting and drafting strategies of effective writers and speakers
Objectives
  1. Generate, select, and narrow topics, collectively and independently, using graphic organizers, prior writing, and/or prior experiences
  2. Select and use appropriate organizational structures such as narrative, chronological or sequential order, description, main idea and detail, problem/solution, question/answer, comparison and contrast, cause and effect
    • Complete an idea by providing topic, support, and concluding sentences

Indicator

  • 2. Compose oral, written, and visual presentations that express personal ideas, inform, and persuade
Objectives
  1. Compose to express personal ideas by experimenting with a variety of forms and techniques suited to topic, audience, and purpose
  2. Describe in prose and/or poetic forms to clarify, extend, or elaborate on ideas by using vivid language such as imagery and figurative language
  3. Compose to inform using relevant support and a variety of appropriate organizational structures and signal words within a paragraph
  4. Compose to persuade using significant reasons and relevant support to agree or disagree with an idea
    • Take a position and generate convincing reasons to support it
    • Consider the effectiveness of form, diction, audience appeal, and organization
  5. Use writing-to-learn strategies such as learning logs, dialogue journals, and quickwrites to connect ideas and thinking about lesson content
  6. Manage time and process when writing for a given purpose

Indicator

  • 3. Compose texts using the revising and editing strategies of effective writers and speakers
Objectives
  1. Revise texts for clarity, completeness, and effectiveness
    • Eliminate words and ideas that do not support the main idea
    • Clarify meaning by adding modifiers and sensory words within a sentence
    • Clarify meaning by rearranging sentences within a text
    • Provide sentence variety and length by combining sentences and correcting rambling sentences
  2. Use suitable traditional and electronic resources to refine presentations and edit texts for effective and appropriate use of language and conventions such as capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and pronunciation
    • Self edit
    • Peer edit
    • Dictionary
    • Thesaurus
    • Spell checker
    • Language handbook
    • Grammar checker
  3. Prepare the final product for presentation to an audience

Indicator

  • 4. Identify how language choices in writing and speaking affect thoughts and feelings
Objectives
  1. Select words appropriate for audience, situation, or purpose
  2. Describe how listeners might respond differently to similar words such as nightmare/dream, loud/deafening, cute/gorgeous
  3. Consider how word choices affect the audience

Indicator

  • 5. Assess the effectiveness of choice of details, organizational pattern, word choice, syntax, use of figurative language, and rhetorical devices in the student's own composing
Objectives
  1. Assess the effectiveness of word choice that reveals a student's purpose for writing
    • Language appropriate for a particular audience
    • Language suitable for a given purpose
    • Words/phrases/sentences that extend meaning in a given context
  2. Explain how specific words/phrases/sentences affect reader/listener response
  3. Examine and use transitions showing importance and relation such as "because," "additionally," "unless," "although," and "so"

Indicator

  • 6. Explain how textual changes in a work enhance tone, clarify meaning, address a particular audience, or fulfill a purpose
Objectives
  1. Identify the tone of one's own writing, and revise word choice to modify tone in order to address a given purpose and/or audience
  2. Explain how revisions in word choice and syntax affect meaning

Indicator

  • 7. Locate, retrieve, and use information from various sources to accomplish a purpose
Objectives
  1. Identify, evaluate, and use sources of information on a self-selected and/or given topic
  2. Use various information retrieval sources (traditional and/or electronic) to obtain information on a self-selected and/or given topic
  3. Select appropriate information for note taking and organizing information
    • Practice appropriate strategies for organizing information and/or taking notes
  4. Use information from two or more sources to fulfill a given purpose
  5. Credit sources when paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting to avoid plagiarism

Indicators/objectives that include assessment limits are assessed on MSA *New Standards identifies the need for students to process 1 million words per year to maintain academic progress.

11/15/07