Building a Description Using Facts

Tuning In

• Review the content of the unit so far. Ask the students:
  • What is a fact?
  • What is an opinion?
  • Which of these would you find in an informational text?

Teacher Instruction

• Provide each student with a descriptive phrase card from the Informative Writing - Fact Sorting Activity. Depending on your class size, some students may have more than one card. Attach the three topic posters to the board - sharks, doctors, and smartphones.
• Allow the students to take turns reading their descriptive phrases out loud. As a class, decide which topic each phrase belongs to, e.g., a type of fish belongs to the topic, sharks. Attach each descriptive card to the board underneath the corresponding topic poster, building a fact file for each topic.
• Focus on the topic of sharks. Using a piece of poster paper, create an anchor chart with four subheadings: classification, size and appearance, habitat and lifestyle, diet and eating habits. As a class, sort and write the descriptive phrases under the correct subheadings on the anchor chart. Explain to the students that these categories will become paragraphs when it is time to write a complete informative text.

Guided/Independent Learning

• Allow the students to choose one of the two remaining topics that were not covered in the previous activity. Have the students create their own anchor chart for the topic they have chosen using the following subheadings:
  • Astronauts – classification, what they do, what equipment they use, what skills they have.
  • Smartphones – classification, what they look like, what they are used for, how valuable they are.
• Allow the students to work in small groups, in pairs or individually to sort the descriptive phrases for their chosen topic and write them into the correct section of their anchor chart. Encourage the students to add any additional facts if they can.

Wrapping Up

• Have students share how they sorted the descriptive phrases for the remaining topics.