Grade 5

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Prewriting for Opinion Essays

Prewriting for Opinion Essays

Prewriting is your first step in writing an opinion essay. These prewriting activities will help you select a topic to write about, develop an opinion statement, and gather and organize your details before you begin a first draft.

Prewriting to Select a Topic

For your own opinion essay, you need to select a topic that is debatable and that you feel strongly about. A debatable topic is one that people have differing opinions about. There is no debate that young people need to exercise, but there is debate about extending the school year.

Brainstorm topics.

For each category, list at least two debatable opinions that you could write about.

School Classes

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Reading an Opinion Paragraph and Essay

Reading an Opinion Paragraph and Essay

Before you write your own essay, you can read an opinion paragraph and essay that others wrote. As you read, think about how the writers put ideas together and how you might support an opinion in your essay.

Reading an Opinion Paragraph

An opinion paragraph has three main parts. The topic sentence states the opinion. The body sentences support the opinion with reasons. The ending sentence restates or emphasizes the opinion.

Listen to “Keep Art.”

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Sample Paragraph

Keep Art

Topic Sentence:
Opinion Waterford schools must keep the art program. The School Board has said that art may be cut because of money issues. Before they decide, the board members need to understand certain things about art. First of all, art helps students learn. When students work on an art project, they plan, experiment, and make choices. Working like this will help them learn in all their classes. Body Sentences:
Reasons Second, art helps students express themselves. In art classes, students create their own projects rather than answer questions or read chapters. And finally, art helps students understand their world. Art is part of our culture, and students need to participate in this culture. Because of its value, the School Board should Ending Sentence:
Call to Action think of creative ways to keep art rather than just cutting it.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Warm-Up for Opinion Essays

Warm-Up for Opinion Essays

An opinion essay makes a case for a personal feeling you have about an important topic. This lesson will help you think about your opinions on different topics and your reasons for feeling the way you do.

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What Is an Opinion?

Writing Opinion Essays
(c) Thoughtful Learning 2016

An opinion essay explains a writer’s view about an important topic. Stating an opinion is easy: “I love that movie!” you might say, even though your friend might feel differently, or “I can’t wait for gym,” even though a classmate dreads it. Giving reasons for your opinion is not as easy. It requires you to think about why you feel the way you do.

Writing an opinion essay is all about careful thinking. Your opinion statement must be well thought out, and it must be supported by reliable reasons. As a result, opinion essays usually require some research. Once you have gathered your reasons, you can arrange them from most important to least important, or the other way around. In the end, your goal is to produce an essay that convinces your reader to agree with you.

Watch the video "What Is an Opinion Essay?"

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Thinking About Opinions

For an opinion to be strong, it must be believable and worthy of arguing for. It must also be based on a foundation of solid thinking. Here is a strong opinion statement.

  • Lincoln School should consider starting a chess club.

    (A phrase like should consider signals that an opinion is probably reasonable.)
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Reflecting on Summaries

Reflecting on Your Writing

Reflect on your writing.

Complete the following form to think about what you learned.

Reflection Sheet
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Paraphrasing and Quoting

Paraphrasing and Quoting

When you write, you can use ideas from sources, but you must avoid plagiarism—presenting others’ words as your own. Use one of these strategies:

  • Paraphrasing is using your own words to express the ideas from a text.
  • Quoting is using a text’s exact words in quotation marks and naming the source.

Listen to "Flying Fish, Ocean Acrobats"

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Flying Fish, Ocean Acrobats

Flying fish are called the dragonflies of the deep, but flying fish don’t have wings like dragonflies or birds. They use two sets of pectoral fins as wings to fly. Their front fins lift them out of the water, and their back fins help them soar over the surface.

  • Paraphrase: Flying fish use sets of fins to glide above water.

  • Quote: The article “Flying Fish, Ocean Acrobats” points out that “flying fish are called the dragonflies of the deep.”

Teaching Tip

Students may paraphrase well known ideas and established facts without giving credit to a specific source. When students quote a source, however, they must give credit. Students can cite sources by naming the author and title.

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Editing and Publishing Summaries

Editing Summaries

After revising your summary, you need to make little changes (editing) to correct any remaining errors. You'll look for problems with sentences, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and spelling. The following instructions will help you edit and publish your writing.

Editing in Action

When you edit, you check to make sure your paragraph is correct.

  • Paragraph Before Edits

    Editing

  • A proper noun was capitalized and a usage and agreement error was fixed.

    Editing

  • Paragraph After Edits

    Editing
By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Revising Summaries

Revising Summaries

Once you draft your summary, take a quick break and come back to it to see it freshly. When you revise, you make sure the source is cited and all the key ideas are in order. These activities will help you revise.

Revising to Cite Sources

In your topic sentence, you should add the title and author of the text you are summarizing. By doing so, you cite the source of the ideas. Try these strategies:

  • Add an introductory part:

According to “K-Pop Goes Global” by Frances Blake, Korean pop music is gaining a worldwide following through a mix of sound and technology.

  • Make the title the subject:

Frances Blake’s article “K-Pop Goes Global” describes how Korean pop music is gaining a worldwide following through a mix of sound and technology.

  • Add an introductory part and make the author the subject:

In the article “K-Pop Goes Global,” Frances Blake writes that Korean pop music is gaining a worldwide following through a mix of sound and technology.

Cite the source.

Use some of the strategies above to add the title and author to the following topic sentences. Then add the title and author of “The Modern Day Magellan” to the topic sentence of your summary.

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Writing a Summary

Writing a Summary

Once you finish prewriting, you are ready to create the first draft of your summary. These writing activities will help you create a strong beginning, middle, and ending for your summary.

Writing the Topic Sentence

The topic sentence is the first sentence of a summary. It states the focus (overall point or thought) of the text in your own words. To write an effective topic sentence, follow this formula.

Topic of the reading

+

Overall point about the topic

=

Topic sentence

Korean pop music

  

gaining worldwide popularity through a mix of sound and technology

  

Korean pop music is gaining a worldwide following through a mix of sound and technology.

Write your topic sentence.

Answer the questions below to help you form a topic sentence for your summary of the article.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Prewriting for Summaries

Prewriting for Summaries

Prewriting is your first step in writing a summary. These prewriting activities will help you read closely and pick out the important details for your summary.

Prewriting to Read Closely

Before you can write a great summary, you need to read closely. To do so, use a close-reading strategy called SQ3R—Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review.

Survey, question, and read.

Follow these instructions before you read the article below.

  1. Survey the article: Place a check mark by the title and author.
  2. Question the topic and purpose: Write notes on the document.
  3. Read the text: Underline the focus statement and topic sentences.

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By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Reading an Article and Summary

Reading Summaries

Before you write your own summary of an article, you'll want to see how others did so. In this lesson, you'll read a sample article and summary. As you read them, think about what parts of the original article are included in the summary.

Reading a Sample Article and Summary

A summary identifies the key information in a text, condenses it, and states it using the writer’s own words. Read this article about a popular type of music and think about the main idea and key information.

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Sample Article

Title

K-Pop Goes Global

Author

by Frances Blake

Korean pop music, or ‘K-pop’ as it’s more commonly called, has already taken over Asia’s music scene and is gaining more fans in the West all the time. Beginning But what is it about K-pop that is attracting so many listeners? It’s K-pop’s unique blend of sound and technology.

To begin with, the music of these young Korean pop stars is unique and captivating with its energetic mix of musical styles, including hip-hop, techno, R&B, and even dubstep. Middle

Where American or British pop groups rarely have more than four or five members, it’s common for K-pop groups like Girls' Generation to include nine or ten singers. Members of the groups are recruited at an early age by Korean record companies, and the young musicians must train for two years singing and dancing before they can join a group. “Every time they perform a song, it’s got to be perfect,” says record company owner Yi Yuen.

Ending

It’s not just the music that attracts fans to the genre. K-pop groups produce larger-than-life music videos complete with multicolored light shows, impressive choreography, and several outfit changes. Listeners keep track of their favorite K-pop groups on the Internet and follow group members on social media Web sites like Twitter. One music video by the group 2NE1 has over 100 million views on YouTube. K-pop’s international influence shows no signs of slowing down soon.

Grade 5