5th Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 5 meet the criteria that materials contain sets of coherently sequenced questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts.

Throughout the lessons, students work independently and collaboratively to complete questions and tasks requiring analysis of individual texts. Lessons in ELA and Shared Reading include close reads with sequenced and scaffolded questions. Key ideas are targeted through specific questions and are designed to guide the thinking process toward precise, accurate details to help students identify main ideas, settings, characters, and chronological events. Students are also required to use inferencing skills, determine the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary in the text, and complete writing tasks with analysis of the message or lesson in a story. Students are supported with graphic organizers during Shared Reading lessons, for both vocabulary and written responses.

Examples include:

• In Week 3, ELA Lesson Plan, Day 1, students read Keep On! The Story of Matthew Henson by Deborah Hopkinson and are asked a series of questions to support language analysis including, “What does the author mean when she says Matthew was ‘keen as an arctic fox’? What did Matthew mean when he said he was ‘an able-bodied seaman’? Talk it over with your partner. What does the author mean when she says ‘she seemed like a star gliding on water’? What is she referring to?”
• In Week 7, Shared Reading, Day 4, after reading Animal Cells by Barbara A. Somervill, students are asked questions to support understanding of important information including, “Why does the author compare a single-celled organism to an elephant? How is euglena different from an amoeba? Contrast the two organelles. Why does a paramecium need to live in a pond?”
• In Week 10, Shared Reading, Days 1-5, after multiple reads of Volcano by Patricia Lauber, students are asked a series of questions to support comprehension including, “What did the author mean when she described the volcano as sleeping and walking? Is that literal language? What was the difference between the stone wind and the avalanche? What does it mean to say that each kind of life makes some other kind possible?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 5 meet the criteria that materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.

Evidence of a year-long plan for vocabulary starts in the Teacher Manual. Shared Reading lessons include a Word Study segment, designed to bring attention to the spelling and word meaning of vocabulary words. Students also engage in explicit vocabulary instruction during Shared Reading, through word meaning, multiple meanings, and super sentences. Words selected for this part of the lesson come from the day’s text, and are displayed and introduced prior to reading. Most of the words selected have multiple meanings, and the Shared Reading lesson builds awareness of “how context constraints these meanings.” Following explicit instruction, students read the words in context and write sentences using the words. Students use semantic webs to plan compound or complex super sentences. ELA Lesson plans incorporate vocabulary instruction primarily in the Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading segments of the lesson. Appendix D in the Teacher Manual includes an overview of vocabulary words chosen for each week. Although the vocabulary routines are explicit and consistent throughout the year, the routines do not vary or increase in the rigor of application required by the student.

• Shared Reading daily vocabulary routine includes “Teach Meaning Vocabulary,” which is direct instruction for vocabulary words, and “Assign Written Response,” which requires students to create a super sentence for the words. The super sentence often includes an additional task of incorporating a reading comprehension strategy. For example:
• Week 10 Shared Reading, while reading Volcano by Patricia Lauber, during Teach Meaning Vocabulary, students use a diagram from the text to determine the meanings of the words magma, layers, lava, and eruption. During the Assign Written Response, students write Super Sentences with the words.
• ELA lesson incorporates vocabulary instruction into Interactive Reading during the “Model a Comprehension Strategy” and “Ask Questions During Reading” segments. The words are pulled for their relevance to teaching the text. For example:
• Week 5, ELA Lesson, Day 2, students read Rats Around Us by Rachel Eagen. During “Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading,” the teacher shows the students an animal classification table. The teacher uses think aloud and models using the dictionary to find the phylum to which rats belong because the information was needed to complete the table. The teacher explains the word Chordata, meaning having a spinal cord. Students then explain the terms in the table in a written response.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 5 meet the criteria that materials support students’ increasing writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the school year.

Students are supported through the writing process, and various activities are placed throughout lessons to ensure students’ writing skills are increasing throughout the year. Students are encouraged to develop writing stamina by writing frequently and for various purposes. Students engage in reading and discussion of texts similar to those they are planning to write, and they examine and identify a range of text structures. They are guided to assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing. Students are instructed on the nuances of the different types of writing during the ELA Lessons, using checklists and rubrics. During Shared Reading, students write in response to reading with question prompts in opinion, narrative, and informative genres. The “Writing” Appendix in the Teacher Manual explains the design of writing instruction, stating it is intentionally “structurally repetitive”. Students engage in the same sequence with different content throughout the year as follows:

• Learn the characteristics of the genre
• Evaluate good and poor examples of the genre
• Learn to plan the genre
• Learn to draft the genre
• Learn to revise, both with peers and independently

For example:
Opinion Writing

• In Week 2, ELA Lesson, students are introduced to their initial opinion writing instruction for the year. After reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, the teacher models using a checklist and a graphic organizer, and students respond to the prompt, “If you were going to dinner with a friend, would you rather eat at Sal’s grandparents’ house or Phoebe’s parents’ house? Why? Support your opinion with details.”
• In Weeks 23-25, ELA Lesson, students use the opinion writing checklist and graphic organizer to build an argument about whether or not it’s ever acceptable to tell a lie. Students use the writing to participate in a debate.

Narrative Writing

• In Week 1, ELA Lesson, students are introduced to narrative writing and write their own personal narrative with minimal guidance and support from the teacher. After writing, students work in groups to write narrative pieces and learn the writing process. The learn to use the graphic organizer and narrative checklist.
• In Week 6, ELA Lesson, students learn that all different types of fiction can be narrative texts, such as mysteries, survival stories, humorous stories, and adventure stories. Then students write a realistic or fantasy adventure story.  This lesson builds from instruction in Week 1.

Informative

• In Week 9, ELA Lesson, Days 4-5 students learn about the point-by-point structure, transition and linking words for a compare and contrast essay. Students then work through the stages of the writing process to write a draft explaining how plant and animal cells are the same and how they are different.
• In Weeks 13-15, ELA Lesson, students research in order to write a newspaper article in response to the prompt, “What was it like to live in the Civil Rights Movement?” Students are expected to meet several criteria, including the use of three sources.
• In Weeks 29-30, ELA Lesson, students conduct a research project on the Trail of Tears. Students use the informative writing graphic organizer and checklist, and respond to the questions, “Why were the Native Americans forced to leave their land? What dangers or struggles did the Native Americans face on their journey? What impact did the relocation have on the Native Americans after they arrived on their new land? How were the experiences of the various tribes on the Trail of Tears similar and different?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 5 meet the criteria that materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class. Independent reading within the daily lessons is most often represented by re-reading text from instruction during Shared Reading. During the Differentiated Instruction block, self-selected reading is a task students can choose to complete after they have finished other tasks such as word work, text-based responses, and work with the teacher.

In the Teacher Manual, in Differentiated Instruction, there is a section titled “Self-Selected Reading.” This section explains that Bookworms was designed to maximize authentic, connected reading and writing every day and states, “For teachers who want to hold students accountable for their choices, we recommend a Book Recommendation Board.” The Teacher’s Manual also explains that Bookworms does not recommend restricting students’ book choices based on level and that students should be able to self-select books of interest from classroom libraries. This basic guidance does partially meet the expectations.

The Differentiated Instruction portion of the ELA block does not have specific daily lessons for the teachers to use. The Teacher Manual provides a reference to books used for curriculum development and brief overviews of parts of differentiated instruction.