Fifth Grade LANGUAGE ARTS Reading and Writing Workshops The fifth grade language arts program is designed to allow students the opportunity to practice writing meaningful compositions daily and to read both for pleasure and academic purposes, while fostering a true love and appreciation for literary expression. MKA’s workshop approach is guided by our partnership with The Reading and Writing Project of Teachers College, Columbia University. Our Reading Workshop curriculum emphasizes student choice in book selection and allows students to select texts of high personal interest. Our Teachers College units of study include Interpretation Book Clubs, Fantasy, and Nonfiction. These units stress the skills of analyzing theme, identifying symbolism in literature, and developing comprehension strategies for the increasing challenges of nonfiction texts. Our curriculum is anchored in student choice, thus students have a wide selection of independent reading books that are self-selected to meet individual students’ interests and reading levels. Reading conferences with the teacher are designed to give students feedback in ‘real time’ as they are working and to provide student specific coaching and interventions that strengthen their development as individual readers. When reading, students make text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connection, and inferences. They also recognize character complexity, support theses, and search for theme-related clues. Readers learn that universal themes can be used as key concepts for understanding their personal lives and the world around them. Assigned literature includes Song of the Trees, Number the Stars, Seedfolks, Tuck Everlasting, and D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, which is a signature MKA Core unit. Students also continue to explore a variety of literary and develop independence and agency over their reading lives through book clubs. Literature serves as a launching point for writing assignments, which take the form of personal narrative, expository essay, and persuasive letter. In order to facilitate creative writing, the students will experience a new Teachers College unit, “Writing Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions.” In Writing Workshop, students learn a variety of strategies to generate ideas to develop into entries in their writers’ notebooks. Mentor texts and examples of student work are used to model good writing by providing examples of figurative language, effective dialogue, and appropriate use of grammar, syntax, and structure. Additionally, students have opportunities to develop writing stamina through daily practice and personal goal setting for their lives as writers. Fifth grade students complete their drafting process and are given frequent and specific instruction to improve their revising and editing skills through mini-lessons and feedback during individual conferences. Students continue to learn spelling rules and common patterns through practice, and they take responsibility for mastery in their own writing. Building on the foundation established in fourth grade, grammar study includes parts of speech, parts of a sentence, and punctuation rules. The students’ progress in reading and writing is broken down into smaller parts and is constantly evaluated. Students are formally assessed through continuums that are sent home once a year. In addition, a formal Writing Challenge assessment measures writing efforts in fifth grade (and again in seventh grade). The MKA Writing Challenge establishes criteria for qualities of good writing, and students assess their progress and set personal writing goals based on these standards.
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