5th Grade · Grammar · RL.5.2

Reading Response Lesson Plan for 5th Grade

A ready-to-teach reading response lesson for 5th Grade, built around writing about reading with text evidence: theme, characters, setting, point of view, summaries, an author's reasons and literary essays. Print the plan, print the practice pages, and you are set.

Approximately 45 minutes

Learning objective

Support a claim about a text with quotes
Compare characters, settings and texts in a chart
Write an objective summary and a literary essay

Materials

Theme Claim and Quotes Reading Response
Compare Two Characters With a Chart Reading Response
How the Setting Shapes the Story Reading Response
The Narrator and Point of View Reading Response
Summarize a Story Reading Response
Two Texts on One Topic Reading Response
Pencils, and whiteboard space for the modeled examples

Lesson steps

1. Notice it first (5 min)
Put two sentences on the board, one that uses reading response correctly and one that does not. Ask students which sounds right before you name any rule. Noticing comes before naming.
2. Name the rule (I do) (8 min)
Now name reading response and state the rule in one sentence. Write it where it can stay all week. Model correcting the broken sentence from the warm-up.
3. Fix them together (we do) (12 min)
Work through four or five sentences as a class. Mix in one that is already correct, because students who are pattern-matching rather than thinking will "fix" it anyway and reveal themselves.
4. Independent practice (you do) (15 min)
Hand out "Theme Claim and Quotes Reading Response". Students work independently. Circulate and watch for the students who can do the exercise but cannot explain the rule, since that gap shows up later in their writing.
5. Apply it to real writing (5 min)
Students find one place in their own writing folder where reading response applies, and fix it. This is the step that moves the rule from worksheet to writing.

Check for understanding

Read the last two sentences of each student's independent work. Applying reading response correctly in their own sentence matters more than getting the exercise items right.

Differentiation

Extra support. Students who stall: pull them into a small group and rebuild reading response with concrete materials or a simpler text before asking for the written work again. Do not send the page home as homework, it will just rehearse the misunderstanding.

Extension. Students who finish early: ask them to write their own reading response problem for a partner to solve, then check the partner's work. Creating a problem is harder than solving one and it surfaces whether they really understand reading response.

Skills covered in this lesson

Reading response organizers

Questions teachers ask about teaching reading response

Can my child use any book with these sheets?

Yes. Every sheet works with a story, novel or nonfiction text your child has already read, such as a class novel or a library book. Two sheets need a nonfiction text, and Two Texts on One Topic needs two texts about the same subject.

What is text evidence?

Text evidence is a detail or an exact quote from the text that proves a point. On these sheets students copy a quote with its page number, then explain how it supports their idea, which is what W.5.9 asks for.

What makes a summary objective?

An objective summary tells only what happened, in order, without the reader's opinion. The Summarize a Story sheet asks for four key events and the theme in six sentences, then has students reread and cross out any opinion.

Why is there no answer key?

Each response depends on the book your child chose and the ideas they bring, so no single answer is right. Check that the draft follows the plan on page one and that every claim has evidence from the text.