English Curriculum Guide

Description

The Grade 5 English Language Arts curriculum at Montague Township School is organized around 12 student-centered units that develop skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The first ten units progress through focused genres and topics—from inventors and natural disasters to exploration and animal behavior—building comprehension and writing skills systematically. Each unit runs approximately three weeks and integrates foundational skills, vocabulary development, and strategic reading practices. The final two units review and consolidate skills through genre studies in nonfiction and fiction. The curriculum uses mentor texts from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Into Reading program alongside supplemental materials to support differentiated instruction and independent reading.

Big Ideas

• Strategic readers use multiple comprehension strategies to understand explicit and inferred meanings across literary and informational texts.
• Writers develop and strengthen their ideas through planning, revising, editing, and using feedback to achieve their communicative purpose.
• Understanding word structure, phonics, and vocabulary deepens reading fluency and writing precision.
• Texts can be analyzed across multiple dimensions—theme, structure, author's craft, point of view—to deepen interpretation.
• Genre conventions and text structures provide frameworks that writers and readers use to organize and understand information.

Essential Questions

• How do readers actively construct meaning from texts across different genres?
• How do writers develop ideas and communicate effectively for different audiences and purposes?
• What role do foundational skills and vocabulary play in reading comprehension and written expression?
• How do we use text evidence to support our thinking and reasoning?
• How do various text structures and genres shape how information and ideas are presented?