Fifth Grade Writing Standards
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Fifth Grade Writing Standards
Writing standards for fifth grade define the knowledge and skills needed for writing proficiency at this grade level. By understanding 5th grade writing standards, parents can be more effective in helping their children meet grade level expectations.
What is 5th Grade Writing?
Fifth grade students refine and build upon previously learned knowledge and skills in increasingly complex, multiple-paragraph essays. Essays by fifth-graders contain formal introductions, ample supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students learn writing techniques and experiment with various types of essay leads (e.g., an astonishing fact, a dramatic scene). As they learn different techniques and write for different purposes, their writing takes on style and voice. Fifth grade students use every phase of the writing process and continue to build their knowledge of writing conventions. They discover how to evaluate writing and conduct research.
Grade 5: Writing Strategies
Fifth grade writing standards focus on the writing process as the primary tool to help children become independent writers. In Grade 5, students are taught to use each phase of the process as follows:
· Prewriting: In fifth grade, students generate ideas and organize information for writing by using such prewriting strategies as brainstorming, graphic organizers, notes, and logs. Students select a focus, an organizational structure, and a point of view based on purpose, genre expectations, audience, length, and format requirements.
· Drafting: Students develop drafts by categorizing ideas, organizing them into paragraphs, and blending paragraphs within larger units of text. The writing exhibits the students’ awareness of the audience and purpose.
· Revising: Students revise selected drafts by adding, elaborating, deleting, combining, and rearranging text. Goals for revision include improving the meaning, focus, coherence, progression, and logical support of ideas. Students also evaluate drafts for development of voice and point of view, and the vivid expression of ideas through language techniques (e.g., foreshadowing, imagery, simile, metaphor, sensory language, connotation, denotation).
· Editing: Students edit their writing based on their knowledge of grammar and usage, spelling, punctuation, and other features of polished writing, such as varied sentence structure and word choices appropriate to the selected tone and mood. Students also proofread using reference materials and other resources.
· Publishing: Students refine selected pieces frequently to “publish” for intended audiences. Fifth graders use correct document formatting and incorporate photos, illustrations, charts, and graphs.
Use of technology: Fifth grade students use available technology to support aspects of creating, revising, editing, and publishing texts. Students create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features (e.g., passwords, entry and pull-down menus, word searches, a thesaurus, spell checks).
Grade 5: Writing Purposes
In Grade 5, students write to express, discover, record, develop, reflect on ideas, and problem solve. Fifth grade students are able to select and use different forms of writing for specific purposes such as to inform, persuade, or entertain. Fifth grade writing standards stipulate that students write in the following forms:
· Narrative: Students establish a plot, point of view, setting, and conflict. A key goal is to show, rather than tell, the events of the story.
· Informational/Expository: Students write to inform, such as to explain, describe, and report. Writing tasks include research reports about important ideas, issues, or events, as well as summaries, instructions, how-to manuals, observations, notes, lists, charts, and directions. Students develop a controlling idea, supported by simple facts, details, examples, and explanations.
· Persuasive: Students write to influence, such as to persuade, argue, and request. In grade 5, persuasive letters and compositions should state a clear position, support the position with relevant evidence, address reader concerns, and include persuasive techniques (e.g., word choice, repetition, emotional appeal, hyperbole).
· Creative: Students write to entertain, using a variety of expressive forms (e.g., fiction, short story, autobiography, science fiction, haiku) that employ figurative language (e.g., simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, personification, hyperbole), rhythm, dialogue, characterization, plot, and/or appropriate format.
· Responses to Literature: Fifth grade students demonstrate an understanding of the literary work and support judgments by citing text references and their prior knowledge. Students develop interpretations that exhibit careful reading and understanding.
In addition, fifth graders work to exhibit an identifiable voice in personal narratives and in stories. They choose the appropriate form for their own purpose when writing – including journals, letters, reviews, poems, and narratives.
Grade 5: Writing Evaluation
Fifth grade students learn to respond constructively to others’ writing and determine if their own writing achieves its purposes. In Grade 5, students also apply criteria to evaluate writing and analyze published examples as models for writing. Writing standards recommend that each student keep and review a collection of his/her own written work to determine its strengths and weaknesses and to set goals as a writer.
Grade 5: Written English Language Conventions
Students in fifth grade are expected to write with more complex sentences, capitalization, and punctuation. In particular, fifth grade writing standards specify these key markers of proficiency:
Sentence Structure
—Write in complete sentences, varying the types, such as compound and complex to match meanings and purposes.
—Identify and correctly use prepositional phrases, appositives, and independent and dependent clauses; use transitions and conjunctions to connect ideas.
—Uses negatives in written compositions (e.g., avoids double negatives).
Grammar
—Correctly employ Standard English usage, including subject/verb and noun/pronoun agreement and the four basic parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).
—Identify and correctly use verbs that are often misused (e.g., lie/lay, sit/set, rise/raise), modifiers, and pronouns.
—Use regular and irregular plurals correctly.
—Use adjectives (comparative and superlative forms) and adverbs appropriately to make writing vivid or precise.
—Use prepositional phrases to elaborate written ideas.
—Use conjunctions to connect ideas meaningfully.
—Write with accuracy when using objective case pronouns such as “Can you ride with my mom and me?”
Punctuation
—Punctuate ends of sentences correctly. Use punctuation to clarify and enhance meaning, including using commas in a series, in direct address, and in clauses. Correct use of hyphens.
—Write with accuracy when using apostrophes in contractions such as it’s and possessives such as Jan’s.
—Use a colon to separate hours and minutes and to introduce a list.
—Use quotation marks around the exact words of a speaker and titles of poems, songs, short stories, etc.
Capitalization
—Capitalize correctly to clarify and enhance meaning.
—Fifth-graders pay particular attention to capitalization of literary titles, nationalities, ethnicities, languages, religions, geographic names and places.
Spelling
—Use spelling rules, orthographic patterns and generalizations correctly.
—Write with accurate spelling of roots words such as drink, speak, read, or happy, inflections such as those that change tense or number, suffixes such as -able or -less, and prefixes such as re- or un.
—Write with accurate spelling of contractions and syllable constructions, including closed, open, consonant before -le, and syllable boundary patterns.
—Use knowledge of Greek and Latin root words, prefixes, suffixes, and use dictionary, thesaurus, or other resources as necessary.
Penmanship
—Write fluidly and legibly in cursive or manuscript as appropriate.
Grade 5: Research and Inquiry
Fifth-graders select and use reference materials and resources as needed for writing, revising, and editing final drafts. Also in 5th grade, students do research projects on a variety of topics. Students learn how to gather information systematically and use writing as a tool for research and inquiry in the following ways:
· Frame questions for research. Evaluate own research and raise new questions for further investigation.
· Organize prior knowledge about a topic in a variety of ways such as by producing a graphic organizer.
· Select and use a variety of relevant and authoritative sources and reference materials (e.g., guest speakers, periodicals, online information, dictionary, encyclopedia, online information) to aid in writing.
· Take notes and evaluate the validity and reliability of information in text by examining several sources of information.
· Summarize and organize ideas gained from multiple sources in useful ways such as outlines, conceptual maps, learning logs, and timelines.
· Use organizational features of printed text (e.g., citations, end notes, bibliographic references) to locate relevant information.
· Record basic bibliographic data and present quotes using ethical practices (e.g., avoids plagiarism).
· Use a thesaurus to identify alternative word choices and meanings.
Fifth Grade Writing Tests
Fifth graders take standardized writing assessments. Students will be given questions about grammar and mechanics, as well as a timed writing exercise, in which they must write an essay in response to a writing prompt. Another type of question asks students to write a summary statement in response to a reading passage.
Writing Test Preparation
The best writing test preparation in fifth grade is simply encouraging your child to write, raising awareness of the written word, and offering guidance on writing homework. For example, you can talk about the different purposes of writing as you encounter them, such as those of letters, recipes, grocery lists, instructions, and menus. By becoming familiar with fifth grade writing standards, parents can offer more constructive homework support. Remember, the best writing help for kids is not to correct their essays, but offer positive feedback that prompts them use the strategies of writing process to revise their own work.