This 20-day module gives students their first opportunity to explore decimal numbers via their relationship to decimal fractions, expressing a given quantity in both fraction and decimal forms.  Utilizing the understanding of fractions developed throughout Module 5, students apply the same reasoning to decimal numbers, building a solid foundation for Grade 5 work with decimal operations.

In this 20-day module, students build their competencies in measurement as they relate multiplication to the conversion of measurement units.  Throughout the module, students will explore multiple strategies for solving measurement problems involving unit conversion.

What are human rights, and how do real people and fictional characters respond when those rights are challenged? Students will develop their ability to read and understand complex text as they consider this question. Students will begin to build knowledge about human rights through a close read of the introduction and selected articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), paired with short firsthand accounts of people around the world who currently face human rights challenges. In Unit 2, students will do an extended study of Esperanza Rising (740L) by Pam Muñoz Ryan, applying their new learning about human rights as one lens through which to interpret the character and theme in this rich novel—a complex coming-of-age story set in Mexico and rural California during the early 1930s. Through close reading, interpretation, and analysis of fiction and nonfiction texts, students will synthesize their understanding of human rights. The specific literacy focus is on supporting understanding through quoting directly from text, inferring theme, and comparing and contrasting how different texts address the topics and themes of human rights. Students will write an analytical essay in which they describe how a character in the novel responds to challenges. In Unit 3, students will continue to revisit the text and themes of the UDHR and Esperanza Rising as they read, write, and ultimately perform Readers Theater. Students will compare novels and Readers Theater as two forms of narrative writing. They will then select specific articles of the UDHR that relate thematically to the novel and reread key passages of the novel with that theme in mind. They will write individual and small group scripts based on these key passages and on phrases from the UDHR. Students will revise, rehearse, and ultimately perform their group Readers Theater scripts for their class and/or school or community members.

This module—intended to be used in conjunction with a Social Studies unit about Latin America—features a close read of The Most Beautiful Roof in the World (1160L)* by Kathryn Lasky. This beautifully illustrated informational text describes the work of scientists documenting the biodiversity of rainforests. The specific literacy focus is on reading scientific and technical text as well as writing to inform and explain. In the first unit, students build basic background knowledge about the rainforest (particularly those of the Western Hemisphere), and begin to examine how scientists closely observe the natural world to then help them communicate their research through carefully organized and worded scientific text. Unit 2 focuses on a case study of Meg Lowman, the researcher featured in The Most Beautiful Roof in the World. Students then analyze the structure and function of scientific field guides and filed journals determining what quality field guides and journals look and sound like. Students research about a living thing that scientist Meg Lowman may encounter in the rainforest in her research and write with clear and effective word choice about their chosen insect of the rainforest. As the final performance task, students produce an informational report and then field journal–style pages intended for younger readers.

In this eight-week module, students learn about new or improved technologies that have been developed to meet societal needs and how those inventions have changed people’s lives. They conduct authentic research to build their own knowledge and teach others through writing. In Unit 1, students read the graphic novel Investigating the Scientific Method with Max Axiom, Super Scientist by Donald B. Lemke as well as several informational articles about inventions that have been developed to meet people’s needs. Students learn about and analyze structures and visual elements authors use to convey complex ideas. Then, they will write a short opinion paragraph about which of the inventions they learned about has been most important to people and why. In Unit 2, students will read The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull, focusing on how the television was invented to meet societal needs.

This module begins with a brief study of the importance of sports in American culture over time. The heart of this module is a whole class study of the short but challenging biography Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America (1030L) by his daughter, Sharon Robinson. (Students will read selected segments; some of these will be read aloud.) Students will analyze Jackie Robinson as a specific example of an athlete who served as a leader who broke barriers in society. They will also begin to study argumentative writing, analyzing how the author Sharon Robinson provides evidence to support her opinions. In Unit 3, students then choose to learn about one of three other respected sports figures (Roberto Clemente, Babe Didrikson, or Jim Thorpe). Students will develop their understanding of the cultural context in which these athletes competed and the barriers these athletes broke during the times in which they lived. Students will build their research skills by reading biographical articles and other informational texts and by participating in Webquests. They also will continue to build their skills to write arguments based on multiple sources, focusing on crafting clear opinions and providing sufficient reasons and evidence. For the final performance task, each student will write a letter to a publishing company explaining the need for a biography about their selected athlete, in which they discuss the athlete, evaluate the barriers that he/she broke during the era in which he/she lived, and give an opinion about the importance of that athlete’s impact on American society. They must support their opinions with evidence from their research.

In this module, students explore how native Inuit and other people of Canada have used the natural resources available to meet their needs. In Unit 1, students read The Inuit Thought of It: Amazing Arctic Innovations, by Alootook Ipellie with David MacDonald, to learn about how the native Inuit people of Canada used natural resources in the Arctic to adapt and meet the needs of their community hundreds of years ago. In Unit 2, students read and view a variety of informational texts and media, including graphs, charts, and maps, to examine how the resources available in Canada today are used to develop products that meet the needs and wants of people in Canada and throughout the Western Hemisphere.

This module engages students in a high-interest topic—natural disasters—with a literacy focus on point of view in literature, research, opinion writing, and public speaking. The module integrates science content (about extreme natural events) with a Social Studies focus on the Western Hemisphere and the role of multinational organizations.

Grade 5: Module 1 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of human rights. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 5: Module 2 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of biodiversity in the rainforest. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 5: Module 3 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of athlete leaders of social change. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 5: Module 4 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of the impact of natural disasters. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 5 Life Science Module. In this module, students learn about the cycle of matter and energy in healthy ecosystems. The Life Science Module represents three additional hours per week of instruction during the eight to nine weeks covered by Grade 5: Module 2 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. Although the Life Science Modules can stand alone, each one connects with and complements Module 2 of the grade-level language arts module lessons in Grades 3-5. To learn more about the Language Arts curriculum and how the Life Science Modules align with the language arts content, visit https://eleducation.org/resources/k-5-language-arts-guidance-document.

In Module 2 students apply patterns of the base ten system  to mental strategies and a sequential study of multiplication via area diagrams and the distributive property leading to fluency with the standard algorithm.  Students move from whole numbers to multiplication with decimals, again using place value as a guide to reason and make estimations about products. Multiplication is explored as a method for expressing equivalent measures in both whole number and decimal forms.  A similar sequence for division begins concretely with number disks as an introduction to division with multi-digit divisors and leads student to divide multi-digit whole number and decimal dividends by two-digit divisors using a vertical written method.  In addition, students evaluate and write expressions, recording their calculations using the associative property and parentheses.  Students apply the work of the module to solve multi-step word problems using multi-digit multiplication and division with unknowns representing either the group size or number of groups.  An emphasis on the reasonableness of both products and quotients, interpretation of remainders and reasoning about the placement of decimals draws on skills learned throughout the module, including refining knowledge of place value, rounding, and estimation.

In Module 3, students' understanding of addition and subtraction of fractions extends from earlier work with fraction equivalence and decimals. This module marks a significant shift away from the elementary grades' centrality of base ten units to the study and use of the full set of fractional units from Grade 5 forward, especially as applied to algebra.

Grade 5’s Module 4 extends student understanding of fraction operations to multiplication and division of both fractions and decimal fractions.  Work proceeds from interpretation of line plots which include fractional measurements to interpreting fractions as division and reasoning about finding fractions of sets through fraction by whole number multiplication.  The module proceeds to fraction by fraction multiplication in both fraction and decimal forms.  An understanding of multiplication as scaling and multiplication by n/n as multiplication by 1 allows students to reason about products and convert fractions to decimals and vice versa.  Students are introduced to the work of division with fractions and decimal fractions.  Division cases are limited to division of whole numbers by unit fractions and unit fractions by whole numbers.  Decimal fraction divisors are introduced and equivalent fraction and place value thinking allow student to reason about the size of quotients, calculate quotients and sensibly place decimals in quotients.  Throughout the module students are asked to reason about these important concepts by interpreting numerical expressions which include fraction and decimal operations and by persevering in solving real-world, multistep problems which include all fraction operations supported by the use of tape diagrams.

In this 25-day module, students work with two- and three-dimensional figures.  Volume is introduced to students through concrete exploration of cubic units and culminates with the development of the volume formula for right rectangular prisms.  The second half of the module turns to extending students’ understanding of two-dimensional figures.  Students combine prior knowledge of area with newly acquired knowledge of fraction multiplication to determine the area of rectangular figures with fractional side lengths.  They then engage in hands-on construction of two-dimensional shapes, developing a foundation for classifying the shapes by reasoning about their attributes.  This module fills a gap between Grade 4’s work with two-dimensional figures and Grade 6’s work with volume and area.

In this 40-day module, students develop a coordinate system for the first quadrant of the coordinate plane and use it to solve problems.  Students use the familiar number line as an introduction to the idea of a coordinate, and they construct two perpendicular number lines to create a coordinate system on the plane.  Students see that just as points on the line can be located by their distance from 0, the plane’s coordinate system can be used to locate and plot points using two coordinates.  They then use the coordinate system to explore relationships between points, ordered pairs, patterns, lines and, more abstractly, the rules that generate them.  This study culminates in an exploration of the coordinate plane in real world applications.

In this module, students are involved in a deep study of mythology, its purposes, and elements. Students will read Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief (780L), a high-interest novel about a sixth-grade boy on a hero’s journey. Some students may be familiar with this popular fantasy book; in this module, students will read with a focus on the archetypal journey and close reading of the many mythical allusions. As they begin the novel, students also will read a complex informational text that explains the archetypal storyline of the hero’s journey which has been repeated in literature throughout the centuries. Through the close reading of literary and informational texts, students will learn multiple strategies for acquiring and using academic vocabulary. Students will also build routines and expectations of discussion as they work in small groups. At the end of Unit 1, having read half of the novel, students will explain, with text-based evidence, how Percy is an archetypal hero. In Unit 2, students will continue reading The Lightning Thief (more independently): in class, they will focus on the novel’s many allusions to classic myths; those allusions will serve as an entry point into a deeper study of Greek mythology. They also will continue to build their informational reading skills through the close reading of texts about the close reading of texts about the elements of myths. This will create a conceptual framework to support students’ reading of mythology. As a whole class, students will closely read several complex Greek myths. They then will work in small groups to build expertise on one of those myths. In Unit 3, students shift their focus to narrative writing skills. This series of writing lessons will scaffold students to their final performance task in which they will apply their knowledge about the hero’s journey and the elements of mythology to create their own hero’s journey stories.

What are “rules to live by”? How do people formulate and use “rules” to improve their lives? How do people communicate these “rules” to others? In this module, students consider these questions as they read the novel Bud, Not Buddy, Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, President Barack Obama’s Back-to-School Speech, “If” by Rudyard Kipling, and informational research texts. At the start of Unit 1, students launch their study of Bud, Not Buddy, establishing a set of routines for thinking, writing, and talking about Bud’s rules to live by. They read the novel closely for its figurative language and word choice, analyzing how these affect the tone and meaning of the text. In the second half of the unit, students engage in a close reading of the Steve Jobs speech, focusing on how Jobs develops his ideas at the paragraph, sentence, and word level. Students use details from the speech to develop claims about a larger theme. During Unit 2, students continue to explore the theme of “rules to live by” in the novel as well as through close reading of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. Students analyze how the structure of a poem contributes to its meaning and theme. In a mid-unit assessment, students compare and contrast how Bud, Not Buddy and “If” address a similar theme. Unit 2 culminates with students writing a literary argument essay in which they establish a claim about how Bud uses his “rules”: to survive or to thrive. Students substantiate their claim using specific text-based evidence including relevant details and direct quotations from the novel. In Unit 3, students shift their focus to their own rules to live by and conduct a short research project. Students work in expert groups (research teams) to use multiple informational sources to research that topic. As a final performance task, students use their research to write an essay to inform about one important “rule to live by” supported with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, and examples.