5th Grade Language Arts (This I Believe)

Kerah Sandler, Fifth Grade Teacher

5th graders read the book Rules by Cynthia Lord, in which the main character creates rules for life for her little brother who has autism.  As they read, students wrote about their own personal rules for life, why these rules are important to follow, and examples of how they follow them.  They then created a thesis statement, in which they identified commonalities between their rules and used their writing as a script for an Adobe Spark video inspired by NPR’s “This I Believe” program. 

Teacher Reflection

We find that the end of 5th grade (prior to the transition to middle school) is an important time for students to start to articulate their values and how they act on them.  This project is a helpful window into their thinking.