Paper Writing Tools for Fifth Grade

According to The Common Core State Standards, fifth graders should be able to write opinion pieces and give reasons for their opinions, as well as develop ideas in their writing by supporting them with facts. For these reasons, students benefit from learning the three appeals: logos, pathos and ethos (even if you don't use those formal names). When they understand that facts, emotional investment along with ethics and morals are simple, effective tools they can use to support their ideas, they can begin to understand that writing is about using strategies to get their points across.

Fifth graders need to develop organizational skills when preparing their papers. Taking notes on index cards is a tool they will find helpful, and one that they won't outgrow. Writing a single idea on a clearly labeled note card allows students to easily keep track of their thoughts. Furthermore, when deciding how to organize their material for their writings, having individual note cards provides them with a visual media they can arrange and rearrange as they see fit.

Paper writing at all levels is about organizing your thoughts logically into written words on paper, so outlining should be a crucial element of any fifth grader's writing toolbox. Writing an outline creates a blueprint of the entire paper on one sheet of paper, which allows students to analyze their papers for clarity, logic and flow. This way, they can identify an organizational problem and fix it without having to write out an entire draft first.

Fifth graders need to understand the necessity of editing, revising and re-writing for successful paper writing, and peer review can help them to accept these aspects of the writing process. Furthermore, by reading their classmates' work they will become more adept at recognizing both successful and unsuccessful writing strategies, as they won't be as attached to those pieces and can remain objective. Peer review can also help students become more comfortable with -- and even value -- having others read their own work, because they can view their classmates as equals who can really help.