Writing

Literary Essay: Opening Texts and Seeing More is our fourth writing unit this school year. Students studied argumentive essays in the last unit and will draw upon everything they learned in the previous unit to develop claims across a variety of texts, both fiction and nonfiction. Fifth graders will recognize many skills and strategies taught during our first reading unit, Interpretation Book Clubs: Analyzing Themes, to read analytically and develop deeper ideas about the lessons and themes they discovered in their texts. And then use writing strategies to craft well-structured, evidence-based opinion pieces about the myriad books they read this school year and in years to come.

In bend 1, students create a literary essay around a shared video, "The Panyee Football Club." They draw on their repertoire of tools and strategies as well as each day's mini lesson to strengthen their skills in close reading, developing thesis statements, identifying evidence that fits a claim, and crafting angled mini stories. Students will end this bend drafting a literary essay to support a claim about a character or theme.

In bend 2, students will write a new literary essay. This time selected from one of our shared texts, using different ways writers support their claims; for example, including an analysis of the author's craft. Students will also try-on new strategies to strengthen their introductions and conclusions.

In bend 3, students write a third essay, however, their essays in this bend will focus on various types of opinion texts such as editorials, speeches, and persuasive writing. They will lift the level of their writing using checklists to create goals that targeting areas they identify for more focused work.