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articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Should Libraries Charge Late Fees?

Have you ever been fined for returning a book to the library after its due date? It might seem reasonable for libraries to charge late fees. How else would they get anyone to return their books? But the practice could…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Imagine 2123

TIME magazine has been around, well, a long time. Its first issue was published 100 years ago, on March 3, 1923. Life was different back then. The Ford Model T was the most popular car in America. Meanwhile, kids were…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Should All Cars Be Electric?

The race is on to get more electric cars on the road. President Joe Biden has made electric vehicles (EVs) a priority. By 2030, he’d like half of all new vehicles sold to be zero-emission. It’s a response to the…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Do Kids Need Homework?

We knew this question would spark lively debate among readers. School is a big part of life, not just for kids but for their families and for educators, too. Everyone has an opinion about what’s best for students. And they…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Should Kids Have Smartphones?

Take a look at this photo. Remind you of anyone? Chances are, it does. According to Common Sense Media, 43% of kids 8 to 12 now own a smartphone. Is that a good thing? Many young people tell TIME for…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Do We Still Need to Send People into Space?

Did you know that humans haven’t walked on the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 mission, in 1972? With NASA’s Artemis missions, astronauts could soon be on the moon again—and eventually on Mars. Artemis I will take an Orion spacecraft…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Should Schools Have Mental Health Days?

In December, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy put out an urgent health advisory. He warned that children’s mental health was in crisis. He asked for help from many different sources, including schools. Schools help protect kids’ mental health in…

IN THE ZONE Video games are a popular form of entertainment. But some people think kids spend too much time staring at screens.

Should Governments Regulate Screen Time?

In fall 2021, the United States Senate held a hearing about Facebook. Senators discussed whether the platform is harmful for younger users. Senator Dan Sullivan, of Alaska, suggested that national screen-time limits could protect kids. He referenced something that took…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Should Zoos Still Exist?

Happy, an Asian elephant, lives at the Bronx Zoo, in New York City. But the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) says the zoo doesn’t provide the space and socialization that Happy needs. The NhRP is taking the Bronx Zoo to court.…

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

The Kid Report: Inside the Crew Dragon

The story “Inside the Crew Dragon”—about the Inspiration4 mission—appears in this week’s issue of TIME for Kids. Neela Sembroski, 9, is the daughter of Inspiration4 astronaut Chris Sembroski. Below, she shares her perspective with TFK readers. Let me start at…

Teacher's Notepad

55 Opinion Writing Prompts For 5th Graders

I believe that libraries should be open twenty-four hours a day. Keeping libraries open would give people who work odd hours the opportunity to use the services offered. It also gives unhoused individuals somewhere to go when the weather is bad at night. In addition…

Learning to form an opinion and supporting it is an important part of your education.

It makes you a stronger writer  and  it teaches you how to properly research things that are important to you.

Check out our list of prompts below, and get ready to write!

Using This Guide

There is no right or wrong way to use this guide. As long as you’re practicing the skills you’ve learned in school, you’re already on the right track. But if you need some ideas to help you get started, try one of these ideas:

  • Scroll through the list and pick the first prompt that jumps out at you.
  • Add today’s month and date, and use that number.
  • Ask your teacher which topic they think you would be most interested in.

Pick a Prompt and Go!

  • Which subject is the most important for students to learn? Why?
  • Is it better to take risks or to be careful?
  • Do you think sports should be segregated by gender? Why or why not?
  • Is it important for kids to know about current events?
  • Do you think school lunches should be healthier?
  • Should students be allowed at parent-teacher conferences?
  • Do you think students should be required to learn cursive? Why or why not?
  • Should students be allowed to choose their teacher?
  • Why do you think your favorite professional sports is team the best?
  • Should Black history be taught more than just one month out of the year?
  • Do you think 5th graders need cell phones?
  • Would you rather wear a uniform to school, or casual clothes? Why?
  • Should students have several short breaks throughout the day, or one long break?
  • Are cell phones the biggest distraction in class? If not, what is?
  • Do you think homework should be mandatory?
  • Write a persuasive essay to your principal asking for a later start time.
  • Would it be better to start and end school one hour earlier, or one hour later?
  • Should students be required to read classic literature?
  • Which type of pet is the best?
  • Should students be allowed to pick where they sit in class?
  • Should schools grade on a pass/fail basis or keep the A-F scale?
  • Would you rather be the very best at one thing, or “just okay” at a bunch of things?
  • You just caught your best friend cheating on a test. Do you tell the teacher? Why or why not?
  • Should competitive gaming be considered a sport?
  • Should students be paid for going to school? If so, what should they be paid for, and how much?
  • Should schools teach more LGBT+ history?
  • Do schools do enough to prevent bullying?
  • What is the best video game ever made? Why?
  • Should kids get to choose their own bedtime?
  • In your opinion, is virtual school more or less beneficial than in-person learning?
  • Is it important to try new things?
  • Should students be required to take PE?
  • Are mental health days important for students?
  • Does your city do enough to help the environment?
  • Do you prefer sweet or salty treats?
  • Would you rather be too hot or too cold?
  • Do you think aliens are real?
  • Should students be required to take an art or music class? Why?
  • What is the best board game ever made? Why?
  • Is it important for everyone to learn at least one foreign language?
  • Is cold pizza a tasty breakfast?
  • Who is the better hero: Harry Potter or Percy Jackson?
  • Are 5th graders responsible enough to babysit?
  • What is the best book ever, and why?
  • Should etiquette be taught in schools?
  • Is your city a good place to live?
  • Should students be allowed to be more involved in school politics?
  • Do grades really matter? Why or why not?
  • What do you think is the hardest job in the world?
  • Should kids be allowed more screen time?
  • Are schools inclusive and accessible enough? What more could they do?
  • Who is the best Marvel hero? Why?
  • Should the voting age be lowered? If so, to what age?
  • Is social media harmful to preteens and teens?
  • Which season is the best? Why?

Looking For More?

If you’re looking for more prompts, activities, and homework resources, we’ve got you covered.

And if you’re looking for something specific but can’t find it, let us know! We’d love to hear from you.

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

Literacy Ideas

The Ultimate Guide to Opinion Writing for Students and Teachers

articles for opinion writing 5th grade

The Importance of Opinion Writing

Encouraging our students to express their personal opinions is an important part of the learning process; healthy even. To do this effectively, it is equally important that we help them acquire the necessary skills to express these opinions in a reasoned and coherent manner when teaching opinion writing.

Writing is one of the best possible vehicles for our students not only to express their opinions but to explore the strength and validity of those opinions.

CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE WRITING AN OPINION ESSAY

For our students to competently express their opinions in writing, they must first understand the specific requirements of the type of question they are answering. Of course, there are many types of questions and fun opinion writing prompts that are geared towards coaxing personal opinions from a student and each will require its own specific tailored response.

It’s clear that personal opinions permeate a wide range of genres and media. We find opinions everywhere from hotel reviews and infomercials to political commentary and newspaper editorials. But, despite the diversity of forms opinion writing can take, we can helpfully identify some general criteria that will assist our students in navigating the challenge of most opinion writing prompts and questions.

Let’s take a look at some of these criteria in more detail.

A COMPLETE UNIT FOR TEACHING OPINION WRITING

opinion writing | opinion writing unit 1 | The Ultimate Guide to Opinion Writing for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

Teach your students to write EXCELLENT PERSUASIVE ESSAYS and master INFLUENTIAL WRITING SKILLS using PROVEN TEACHING STRATEGIES with this 140-PAGE UNIT.

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OPINION WRITING CRITERIA TO ADDRESS

1. identify the audience: speak clearly.

Writing is about language and language is about communication; students should understand that we do not write in a vacuum. The purpose of an essay, letter, or any other form of writing we care to name, is ultimately to be read.

This means that it is essential that consideration be given to the character of the intended audience. Also, remind students that when they are writing, the reader is not privy to the inner workings of the writer’s mind. They must make their thoughts explicit in their writing and ensure that these thoughts are expressed in a coherent manner.

The student writer should always avoid making the assumption that the reader knows things that are not expressed explicitly in the writing.

2. Take a Stance: Stand Firm

From the very outset, the student should state their position boldly. More than that, they must stand firm in that opinion throughout the entirety of the piece.

Opinion writing is not about communicating a series of pros and cons or discussing at length the various related advantages and disadvantages, the place for that is not here. The opinion piece should open with a bold statement of opinion that is clearly expressed, and that opinion should be held unwaveringly and reinforced constantly throughout the text.

As with many other writing genres , employing a hook to grab the reader’s attention is good practice too. This hook can take the form of a quotation, an anecdote, a statistic, or even a joke. Whatever form the hook takes, it should reveal the writer’s take on things too.

To summarize, whatever the topic and however the student opens their opinion piece, they should ensure they express their opinion immediately and coherently. There should be no doubt in the reader’s mind as to where the student-writer stands on the issue.

3. Choose Appropriate Evidence: Back It Up

There is no doubt that subjectivity is an important aspect of opinion writing in general. That does not mean, however, that opinions do not need to be substantiated.

Your students will need to recognize that each and every statement of opinion will need to be supported by appropriate evidence. This will also help students to develop their critical reading skills as they will be able to better recognize when unsubstantiated claims are made by other writers. Opinions backed up with evidence help lead the reader along the writer’s pathways of thought; making the writing more convincing as a whole.

This evidence can take a wide variety of forms, ranging from personal anecdotes and quotations to statistics and references to scientific studies. Students should also always be encouraged to choose evidence that is broadly suited to the subject they are writing about.

4. Draw Conclusions: Wrap It Up

In the well-organized piece of opinion writing, as with many other types of extended writing, the writing should be structured in paragraphs. Paragraphs are essential elements of good writing organization.

Generally speaking, an opening paragraph gives way to body paragraphs. These body paragraphs, or development paragraphs, describe in more detail the ideas laid out in the initial opening paragraph by further exploring, explaining, and providing supporting evidence for each point.

The final concluding paragraph serves to close the circle by restating the central points in a closing endeavor to drive home the writer’s opinion.

5. A Word on Words

Writing is an art form. Attention to detail is important. But, it isn’t only important to look at the big picture things like structure, students should be encouraged to shift their focus from the text level down to the word and sentence levels too. In an opinion piece, strong, forceful verbs should be the order of the day. There is little space for passive forms when engaged in the construction of convincing arguments.

Things should be kept interesting too. Students should vary their sentence structures grammatically and in length. Variety is key.

 As always in writing, editing should be emphasized. The editing process polishes the well-wrought opinion piece by putting the final gloss on the student’s work.

The OREO Opinion Writing Process Explained

As with all genres, there’s a lot to remember here and acronyms are a helpful way to commit these important things to memory. Luckily, few things can be easier to commit to memory than the name of a delicious cookie:

O – Opinion

R – Reasons

E – Evidence or Examples

O – Opinion (restated)

This memorable acronym will help students remember some of the main elements of opinion writing as outlined above. But, sometimes the hardest thing for students to do is to get the writing ball rolling.

opinion writing | 4 opinion writing28129 | The Ultimate Guide to Opinion Writing for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

Opinionated Sentence Starters

Sentence starters provide students with great ways to kick-start their writing. Reminding students of simple ways of introducing opinion sentences can be helpful. Here are a few for ‘starters’ for starters:

●     In my opinion…

●     I think that…

●     It seems to me that…

●     It appears to me…

●     I feel that…

opinion writing | 1 0001 sentence structure guide for teachers and students | The Ultimate Guide to Opinion Writing for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

Once the student-writer has effectively expressed their opinion on a matter, they then will need to provide the reader with the reasons for why they think what they think. In an essay, these reasons will usually be found in the body paragraphs or development paragraphs. Normally, these paragraphs will explore a single reason each.

Some helpful sentence starters for introducing these reasons include:

●     One reason I feel this way is…

●     Evidence to support this can be found in…

●     I believe this to evident in…

Opinion Writing Activities for Students

Students will certainly need practice completing sustained pieces of opinion writing, but some of the most valuable activities to help students evolve their opinion writing abilities barely require a pen to be put to paper.

While the following two activities do not require students to engage in extended pieces of writing, the activities below will assist students in grasping some essential concepts. These activities demonstrate good practice through modelling and also encourage dialogue, discussion, and debate as a means to strengthen opinion writing.

Activity 1: Opinion Writing – What Is It?

This exercise is a good follow-up to introductory work outlining the criteria of opinion writing as described above.

●     Start by passing out copies of a piece of opinion writing you have selected to read with the class. Read the text aloud as the students follow along with their copy. The opinion text chosen can come from a wide range of genres, including advertisements, letters, editorials, essays, articles, or reviews.

●     Assign students a talking partner and instruct students to take five minutes to identify the various criteria employed in the text. Encourage students to mark and annotate their copies of the text accordingly. You may even wish to supply students with a checklist compiled from the criteria mentioned previously in this article.

●     As a whole class, discuss how successfully the text fulfills the criteria. What did the writer do well? What could they have done better? You can record their responses on the whiteboard.

The aim of this exercise is for students to hone their critical faculties while internalizing the criteria. This will reap rewards when the students later engage in their own extended opinion writing.

Activity 2: The Collaborative Case

This activity employs collaboration to help students build a stronger case for their opinion on a divisive issue.

●     First, define the parameters of the exercise by presenting an either/or conundrum to the class. This doesn’t have to be overly controversial in nature, just stated in such a way that it forces the students to take one side or another. This could be stated simply as a choice, e.g. Dogs or cats? City or countryside? Beach or Mountains? Sweet or savory?

●     Students then divide into two groups according to their stated preferences. In their groups, they then discuss and compile as many supporting reasons for their choice as they can come up with. As a group, they will discuss the relative merits of each reason, before agreeing on their top five.

●     The groups then share their reasons in a debate format, using arguments and counter-arguments, leading into an open, free-ranging discussion.

The value of this exercise lies in the collaborative and ‘combative’ natures of the exercises. Just as our physical muscles can grow through resistance, so too can the strength and resilience of our opinions and arguments.

This activity can also be used as a lead-in to opinion writing as it works well as a prewriting preparation exercise. The complexity of the issue to be discussed and debated can easily be modified to suit the abilities of the students too.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

opinion writing | figurative language Unit 1 | The Ultimate Guide to Opinion Writing for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

❤️The use of  FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE  is like  “SPECIAL EFFECTS FOR AUTHORS.”  It is a powerful tool to create  VIVID IMAGERY  through words. This  HUGE 110 PAGE UNIT  guides you through a complete understanding of  FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE  as both a  READER  and  WRITER covering.

OPINION WRITING VIDEO TUTORIALS

These videos from teaching without frills are an excellent starting point for opinion writing. You can view the entire collection here.

opinion writing | 4 opinion writing28229 | The Ultimate Guide to Opinion Writing for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

  The Wrap Up

Opinion writing is a higher-level skill that makes many demands on our students. It will challenge them to move beyond parroting the facts and figures they have acquired in their learning to formulate their own thoughts on topics they have learned about in class, or in the wider world beyond the school gates.

It will make demands on their skill as writers too. Our students must learn to mold and mechanically manipulate the language on the page to express their beliefs persuasively and effectively. To do this successfully, they will need ample opportunities to practice their writing craft. Once a firm understanding of the structures involved has been established, the student can become more fluid in their expression. They will add art and flair to their craft. But first, they must build on these firm foundations.

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO OPINION WRITING

opinion writing | PersuasiveWritingSkills | Top 5 Persuasive Writing Techniques for Students | literacyideas.com

Top 5 Persuasive Writing Techniques for Students

opinion writing | persuasiveWriting | 5 Top Persuasive Writing Lesson Plans for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

5 Top Persuasive Writing Lesson Plans for Students and Teachers

opinion writing | LEarn how to write a perfect persuasive essay | How to Write Perfect Persuasive Essays in 5 Simple Steps | literacyideas.com

How to Write Perfect Persuasive Essays in 5 Simple Steps

opinion writing | persuasive writing prompts | 23 Persuasive writing Topics for High School students | literacyideas.com

23 Persuasive writing Topics for High School students

opinion writing | how to write a winning speech | How to Write a Winning Debate Speech | literacyideas.com

How to Write a Winning Debate Speech

The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh.  A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane’s latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing , can be found here.  Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

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Scaffolding opinion writing essays using sentence starters, paragraph frames, and templates in upper elementary

Scaffolding an Opinion Writing Essay With Frames and Templates

Scaffolding opinion writing essays using sentence starters, paragraph frames, and templates in upper elementary

Teaching opinion writing to your 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade students soon?  Use the sentence starters and paragraph frames below in your lessons to help students structure their writing, use transitional words, stay on topic, and support their opinions.

Templates like the examples below are a great way to introduce opinion writing.  The hope is that eventually, students will go on to write without a provided outline and add a little of their own personality to their writing, but starting off with a clear structure helps students learn to become better writers.

Start Small - With Opinion Writing Sentence Starters or Frames

3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students love giving their opinions, so help them structure their opinions with sentence starters and frames. This is a great way to introduce opinion writing and doesn't frustrate students.

Providing structure is especially beneficial for your ELL and low language students, but ALL students can improve their writing with this scaffolding.

Some example sentence starters are below.  Depending on the topic being discussed and the opinion being shared, not all sentence frames will work in all situations.  Adapt them for your particular scenario!

Example Sentence Starters

  • In my opinion, _____ is better than _____ because _____.
  • The best thing about _____ is _____.
  • I am strongly against _____ because _____.
  • Although some people believe _____, I believe _____.
  • Ever since _____, I have believed _____.

Using a Paragraph Template or Frame

Example paragraph frames.

In my opinion, __________ is better than __________ because __________.  For example, _______________.  Furthermore, _______________.  Clearly, _______________ is the worse option.

I prefer __________ because __________.  For instance, _______________.  Also, _______________.  Finally, _______________.

Opinion Writing Essay Template / Structure / Outline

Going from writing paragraphs to writing an entire essay can be overwhelming for upper elementary students - and middle school students as well!

Modeling how to write an opinion essay is an essential first step.  (My Scaffolded Opinion Writing Resource includes a teacher model to make this easy for you.)

After modeling an opinion essay, provide students with an opinion writing template/outline to help them structure their own writing.  This will help students stay on topic, use transitional words, and provide support for their opinions.  And, most importantly, it will keep students from feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

Scaffolded Opinion Writing Essay Template for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students

If you know your students would benefit from this type of scaffolding but don’t have the time to create it yourself, check out my Scaffolded Opinion Writing Resource.

It walks students through the writing process with support each step of the way. This resource also provides a model essay so that you can model expectations for your students. Plus, it can be used over and over again with different topics.

If you found these opinion writing tips to be useful, then you will probably like these tips for teaching students how to write a compare and contrast essay. 

Want a Compare and Contrast Freebie?

Free reading comprehension practice for third, fourth, and fifth graders - paired passages about Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin

Download these reading passages with a compare and contrast activity for free and use it to today!

5th grade writing

by: Jessica Kelmon | Updated: August 4, 2022

Print article

Your fifth grader’s writing under Common Core Standards

By now, your child knows that writing is a process that requires research, feedback, and revision. This year, kids are expected to respond to others’ prompts for improvement and learn how to evaluate their own work, too.

Super study skills

In fifth grade, taking notes becomes an essential academic skill. Fifth graders use books, periodicals, websites, and other sources to do short research projects. Kids learn to use several sources to investigate a topic from different angles — both on their own and as part of group work with peers. Your child should keep track of all the sources they use and note what they learn, the name of the source, and the page number or url so they can find it again to create a source list or bibliography later. A big step in your child’s research process this year: taking the time to review, categorize, and summarize or paraphrase the information they’ve learned. What did your child find out about the animal’s habitat from each source? Sorting evidence into categories and summarizing information will help your fifth grader with the planning, writing, and revising stages of their writing project.

Can your 5th grader get organized to write an essay?

YouTube video

Revise, rewrite

By now, your child should understand that writing is a process requiring several steps: planning, first draft, revisions, editing, and publishing or sharing work. Your child’s planning work should include reading and rereading, taking notes, finding additional sources, discussing how new knowledge fits into what your child knew before, visually organizing the information they plan to include, and determining the best way to clearly present their evidence as a cohesive set of points. After the first draft is written, the teacher and other students will offer feedback: asking questions to elicit new details, suggesting ways to clarify an argument, or pressing for new sources of information. Don’t be surprised if there are a few rounds of revisions this year: it’s how your child’s writing gets stronger. If revisions aren’t enough to improve your child’s writing, then this year your child may be required to rewrite the piece or try a new approach . Once the structure and contents are set, final edits are the time to perfect spelling and grammar. All this work on one writing assignment is meant to help your child think of writing as a multistep process so they can evaluate their work and see that — if it’s not up to snuff — they should keep trying until it is.

Fifth grade writing: opinion pieces

Your child’s opinion pieces should start by clearly stating an opinion about a topic. Then, kids should set up and follow a logically ordered structure to introduce each reason they’ll offer in support of their opinion. Their reasons should be supported by facts and details (a.k.a. evidence), and your child should use linking words, such as additionally, consequently , and specifically to connect evidence-backed reasons to their opinion. Finally, kids should close their argument with a well-articulated conclusion that supports their original opinion.

Fifth grade writing: informative writing

Logic reigns when evaluating your fifth grader’s informative writing. The purpose of this type of writing is to convey facts and ideas clearly. So a logically ordered presentation of supporting points is, well… quite logical. Your child should clearly introduce the topic and present related information in the form of a few clear, well-thought-out paragraphs. Kids should draw on facts, definitions, concrete details, quotes, and examples from their research to thoroughly develop their topic. To clearly connect their research, fifth graders should use advanced linking words (e.g. in contrast, especially ) to form compound and complex sentences that convey their points. Remember that your child’s presentation matters: making use of subject headings, illustrations, and even multimedia to illustrate points is encouraged whenever they make your child’s work more logical and clear. Then, to wrap it up, your child should have a well-reasoned conclusion.

Check out these three real examples of good 5th grade informational writing: •” How to save water ” •” Saving a Resource ” •” Water Saveing ”

Can your 5th grader write an informational essay?

YouTube video

5th grade writing: narrative writing

A narrative is a story. Whether inspired by a book, real events, or your child’s imagination, your child’s story should start by introducing a narrator, characters, or a situational conflict. Fifth graders will be asked to use classic narrative devices like dialogue, descriptive words, and character development. Your child should be able to show how characters feel and how they react to what’s happening. Finally, the events should unfold naturally, plausibly bringing the story to a close.

Grammatically correct

By now, your fifth grader should have a solid understanding of the parts of speech. This year, your child should learn to use and explain the function of conjunctions (e.g. because, yet ), prepositions (e.g. above, without ), and interjections (e.g. Hi, well, dear ). Kids should also start using correlative conjunctions (e.g. either/or, neither/nor ). What’s more, students learn to form and use the past, present, and future perfect tenses ( I had walked; I have walked; I will have walked. ). With this tense mastered, fifth graders will be expected to use various verb tenses to convey a sequence of events and to recognize and correct any inappropriate shifts in tense.

Check out this related worksheet: •  Active and passive sentences

More sophisticated language

This year your child will: • Regularly refer to print and online dictionaries, thesauruses, and glossaries to spell challenging words correctly. • Use academic vocabulary words in writing. • Use more nuanced descriptions (think advanced synonyms and antonyms). • Master homographs (e.g. understand that bear means the animal and to support or carry). • Employ common idioms, adages, and proverbs (e.g. “born yesterday”; “the early bird gets the worm”; “failure teaches success” ) • Interpret figurative language like similes (e.g. “light as a feather” ) and metaphors ( “it’s a dream come true” ).

This year, your child will learn to use commas after a sentence’s introductory segment (e.g. Earlier this morning, we ate breakfast .), to set off the words yes and no in writing (e.g. Y es, we will ; and no, thank you ), to set off a question from the rest of a sentence (e.g. It’s true, isn’t it? ), and to show direct address. (e.g. Is that you, Mike? ) Your child will also use commas to separate items in a series. (e.g. I want eggs, pancakes, and juice .)

Your child should also be taught how to consistently use quotation marks, italics, or underlining to indicate titles when citing sources in reports and papers.

Check out these related worksheets: •  Punctuating a paragraph • Simile or cliche? •  Homophones and homographs

And it’s live!

The final step in writing this year? Publishing! Once all the hard work (the research, planning, writing, revisions, edits, and rewrites) are finished, your fifth grader’s ready to publish. Many classes will experiment with printing work or publishing it on a blog, website, or app. While teachers should be there for support, your child should be doing the work. The point is to learn keyboarding skills (2 full pages is the goal for fifth graders) and to interact and collaborate with peers. This could mean, for example, that your child reads a classmate’s published work online and either comments on it or references it when answering a question in class.

Updated August 2022

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teach2tell

How to teach Opinion Writing to 3rd, 4th and 5th Graders

Opinion writing, also known as Persuasive writing, is by far an easy enough genre to teach 3 rd , 4 th, and 5th graders. Unlike narrative writing where creativity and flair come into play, the elements of opinion writing are more structured, almost formulaic, and thus easier to assimilate.

How to teach opinion writing to 3rd, 4th, 5th grades

Teaching The Structural Components of Opinion Writing

Students are known to turn out better writing pieces if they have direction. Hence explicitly teaching the structural components of a persuasive/opinion essay is essential.

If students are taught the form and structure of opinion writing, the job is half done. The success of the other half pretty much depends upon the writer’s content knowledge of the subject.

Teaching the structure of an opinion essay can thus be broken down into three major sections: The Introduction, The Body, and The Conclusion.

How to teach kids opinion writing

✏ The Introduction of Opinion Writing

How many times have we reminded our students that the beginning of an essay is so very important – that it has to arrest the reader’s attention so they are hooked to continue reading.

For the introduction to be effective, it must have a hook , the writer’s opinion, and a thesis statement . This is the structure of the introduction.

If students just practice writing an introduction on several given writing prompts for a week, adhering to structure for this section, will be second nature.

The Hook In the Introduction

Teaching students just one way to hook the reader in an opinion essay is not enough as different types of hooks would create different effects – besides we need to give our little writers lots of choices when it comes to writing. This flexibility goes a long way in getting their creative juices going when writing supporting details that support their opinion.

5 Popular Hooks to Support the Opinion

So you can teach your 3 rd , 4 th, and 5 th graders to begin their opinion essay with any one of the five different hooks. Interestingly, they are also called sizzling starts. And rightly so.

Students may begin with any one of the below hooks:

  • Strong Statement
  • Rhetorical Question

The first two starters are popular starters and I often encourage my 5 th graders to use either of them in their introduction.

How to teach persuasive writing to 3rd, 4th, 5th grades

Writing the Opinion of an Opinion Essay

Right after the hook, students write their opinion on the issue after weighing the pros and cons.

Now for the lower grades (grades 1-3), students could simply begin their opinion with any of the phrases:

  • ‘In my opinion..’
  • ‘I firmly believe…’
  • ‘I am of the opinion…’

However, 3 rd , 4 th, and 5 th graders need to show more sophistication in their writing, so beginning with these opinion starters would not do justice to the writing skill they are actually capable of implementing.

Instead, students need to convey their opinion subtly by reflecting on the issue. This will consequently lead to the thesis statement that follows next and sums up the introduction.

Do you need to teach your 3rd, 4th or 5th grade students how to write an opinon or a persuasive essay? This resource will help scaffold the techniques and the structural elements.

✏ Writing The Body of an Opinion Essay

We can teach our 3 rd , 4 th, and 5 th graders to adhere to structure when they write the body paragraphs of their opinion essay too.

Each body paragraph needs to have a reason introduced by a topic sentence , supporting details that support the reason, and a concluding sentence that sums up that body paragraph. If students are explicitly taught this structure, then they are more likely to stay on task and won’t get carried away in their writing.

So, how many body paragraphs should there be?

The best number, I tell my 5th-grade students is – three. Each reason is given its very own paragraph, with the last paragraph reserved for the most important reason.

The least strong reason should be sandwiched between the first strong reason and the last. This is in keeping with the notion that the beginning and end of any piece of writing are the most important.

How to teach opinion writing to 3rd, 4th, 5th grades

✏ Writing The Conclusion of an Opinion Essay

Some students are known to get so carried away with their reasoning in the body paragraphs that they often skip this last important section or don’t have the time to write it – if sitting a timed writing examination.

It is in this section, that students need to be reminded to re-visit their opinion, provide a summary statement of their reasons, and the most important of all – give a call to action that causes the reader to reflect on the issue.  In a real-life context, this call of action would induce the reader to take action on the basis of the arguments put forth.

how to teach opinion writing to grade 6

The Effective Approach to Teaching Opinion Writing

Now that all the structural elements of an opinion essay have been dissected, how does one go about teaching them explicitly to students – that is the question.

Based on my personal experience and in my opinion, the best approach would be to teach each structural component separately . This would entail providing ample practice and modeling on the elements involved.

Once students have a good understanding and practice of the structural components of each section, then they can write out the entire opinion essay, given a prompt. Prior to doing so, brainstorming ideas for each section on a graphic organizer would help structure students’ writing further and provide direction.

My Summary of How to Teach Opinion Writing to 3 rd , 4 th and 5 th Graders

So just a few take-away points for you when you next teach your 3 rd , 4 th, or 5 th graders how to write an opinion essay.

1. Teach students each structural component separately prior to having students write out the entire opinion essay based on a prompt.

2. Teach students how to write the introduction first in an opinion essay. This should include the different types of hooks, the opinion, and the thesis statement.

3. Teach students how to write the body of an opinion essay. This should also include each reason introduced by a topic sentence, 2-3 supporting details to support the reason, and a concluding sentence to conclude the paragraph and link back to the first reason in the topic sentence. This explicit teaching should be done for all body paragraphs.

4. Teach students how to write the conclusion which restates the writer’s opinion, provides a brief overview of the reasons, and gives a call to action.

5. And above all, remind students to edit their draft prior to publishing.

All this explicit teaching needs to be adequately supported by teacher modeling and ample student practice for each structural component of the opinion essay.

To conclude this post, structure provides focus and clarity of thought. Both of which we desire our students to have in order for them to turn out writing pieces that they are proud of and that we enjoy reading and – yes marking.

How to teach persuasive writing to 5th grade

Need a collection of self-written mentor texts ( no need to spend on books ), print-n-go sheets, interactive notebook activities, Scavenger Hunts, flipbooks, anchor charts, posters, checklists, and  marking rubrics  to teach your students a step-by-step approach to writing an opinion essay effectively? Then access the Opinion (Persuasive) Writing Growing Bundle.

Teaching Opinion Writing digitally? Learn more here.

And if you’d like a set of free Opinion Writing Signal Words posters to display in your classroom, access the link in the image below.

Opinion Writing Posters

Until Next Time…

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Opinion Writing: Using NewsELA to Write Opinion Pieces

I love Google Docs. I use them to create assignments to share with my students. It’s quick and easy for them to access these docs (I e-mail them a link, or use a link shortener and write the link on the board). For this lesson, I shared a simple Pro/Con table like this one .

Don’t have devices for each student? Make this a center activity, or print an article from NewsELA for free!

We’ve been writing opinion paragraphs during our Reading block to get us ready for the formal opinion essay we have coming up during our Writing block. Because I’m teaching RI.8, which addresses how authors provide evidence and reasons to support their claims in informational text, this was a perfect opportunity to practice multiple standards in one shot.

The Process

We all logged into NewsELA, so an awesome section I found where you can bring up every PRO/CON article . 

A screenshot of examples of free pro/con articles you can get when using NewsELA

I chose one of the articles and modeled what I wanted students to do, while they did the same on their computers. One of the great things about NewsELA is that you can highlight the text. First we identified the question, which was easy because it was at the top of the article.

Next, we read through the text and highlighted all of the good reasons and evidence for Yes (Pro) green and No (Con) red. We then copy & pasted the information into the correct column of our Google Doc. We added quotes around this text and a sentence starter so that we were correctly quoting the text instead of just copying ( plagiarizing ).

A screenshot of how you can highlight text in different colors when using NewsELA

Lastly, we used the information we gathered to formulate an opinion. We wrote a claim that answered the question and gave our opinion, explained in our own words, and used 2-3 pieces of text-based evidence from the article to support our claim. The following samples are from 5th grade students:

A screenshot of a student work sample of opinion writing using NewsELA

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Featured resources in this article.

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About the Author

April smith.

April began her career as a 5th grade teacher in 2008 and quickly developed a passion for creating engaging educational materials to share with fellow teachers. She now works with districts around the country, training their teachers and leaders on how to implement research-based strategies and differentiation techniques that meet the needs of diverse learners.

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