The Common Core Companion: Booster Lessons, Grades 3-5. Leslie Blauman

notes of how you might tweak it to fit other standards. If you want, build out a unit of study on evaluating arguments and claims and writing opinion pieces. Units work best when they are oriented on an essential question (e.g., How do events affect history? Why are tropical rain forests worth preserving? Is technology making youth less social?). Visit www.corwin.com/thecommoncorecompanion to see unit plans.

      Core Connections

       Focus Writing Standard 1

       Writing Standards 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10

       Reading Standards 1, 6, 8, 9, and 10

       Speaking and Listening Standards 2, 3, 4, and 6

       Language Standards

      What Teachers Guide Across the Week

      

      What Students Do Across the Week

      Students in the intermediate grades need lots of exposure to exemplary opinion essays, editorials, speeches—and class discussion that teases apart how the writer accomplished it. Opinion and persuasion, in just about every aspect of our lives, sways us today, and they helped shape (and continue to shape) the world and essentially the country in which we live. Well-written opinions can change our thinking. And if students are truly thinking, they need to recognize the opinion or bias or propaganda in what they read, view, or hear. They need to become critical