California State Standards for Fifth Grade Writing

California Language Arts Standards

WRITING

Grade Five

1.0 Writing Strategies

Students write clear, coherent, and focused essays. The writing exhibits the students' awareness of the audience and purpose. Essays contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.

Organization and Focus

1.1 Create multiple-paragraph narrative compositions:

a. Establish and develop a situation or plot.

b. Describe the setting.

c. Present an ending.

a. Establish a topic, important ideas, or events in sequence or chronological order.

b. Provide details and transitional expressions that link one paragraph to another in a clear line of thought. c. Offer a concluding paragraph that summarizes important ideas and details.

Research and Technology

1.3 Use organizational features of printed text (e.g., citations, end notes, bibliographic references) to locate relevant information.

1.4 Create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features (e.g., passwords, entry and pull-down menus, word searches, the thesaurus, spell checks).

1.5 Use a thesaurus to identify alternative word choices and meanings.

Evaluation and Revision

1.6 Edit and revise manuscripts to improve the meaning and focus of writing by adding, deleting, consolidating, clarifying, and rearranging words and sentences.

2.0 Writing Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)

Students write narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive texts of at least 500 to 700 words in each genre. Student writing demonstrates a command of standard American English and the research, organizational, and drafting strategies outlined in Writing Standard 1.0. Using the writing strategies of grade five outlined in Writing Standard 1.0, students:

2.1 Write narratives:
a. Establish a plot, point of view, setting, and conflict.
b. Show, rather than tell, the events of the story.
2.2 Write responses to literature:
a. Demonstrate an understanding of a literary work.
b. Support judgments through references to the text and to prior knowledge.
c. Develop interpretations that exhibit careful reading and understanding.
2.3 Write research reports about important ideas, issues, or events by using the following guidelines:
a. Frame questions that direct the investigation.
b. Establish a controlling idea or topic.
c. Develop the topic with simple facts, details, examples, and explanations.
2.4 Write persuasive letters or compositions:
a. State a clear position in support of a proposal.
b. Support a position with relevant evidence.
c. Follow a simple organizational pattern.
d. Address reader concerns.

WRITTEN AND ORAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS

Grade Five

The standards for written and oral English language conventions have been placed between those for writing and for listening and speaking because these conventions are essential to both sets of skills.

1.0 Written and Oral English Language Conventions

Students write and speak with a command of standard English conventions appropriate to this grade level.

Sentence Structure

1.1 Identify and correctly use prepositional phrases, appositives, and independent and dependent clauses; use transitions and conjunctions to connect ideas.

Grammar

1.2 Identify and correctly use verbs that are often misused (e.g., lie/lay, sit/set, rise/raise), modifiers, and pronouns.

Punctuation

1.3 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, and so forth.

Capitalization

1.4. Use correct capitalization.

Spelling

1.5 Spell roots, suffixes, prefixes, contractions, and syllable constructions correctly.

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