1. Isaac School District No.5
ELAS Thematic Unit Overview Grade 5 – Unit 1
2012-2013
Unit 1: Playing with Words
DURATION: Four Weeks
This unit encourages students to experiment with language and to explore their personal writing style.
Reading both spoonerisms and classic poetry provides students a chance to explore and appreciate language. Students bring in a book
about an important figure, such as an artist or an inventor, as a catalyst for writing about their own interests and for researching famous
scientists. Students explore word origins, compare literal and figurative language, and present a poem they have written. Students
write an opinion essay in response to the essential question.
Essential Questions Vocabulary
Why (and how) do we play with language? biography
dialogue
How does writing reflect our identity? homonym
homophone
Essential Learning idiom/cliché
literal and figurative language
Creativity and imagination can be expressed poetic devices: rhyme scheme, meter, stanza, metaphors, similes, onomatopoeia
through writing. spoonerism
theme
Writing is a reflection of ourselves.
Distributed Resources Aligned to Unit 1:
The King Who Rained (Gwynne)
Who Was Albert Einstein (Brallier & Parker)
The World at His Fingertips: Louis Braille (O’Connor & Draper)
Underlined vocabulary indicates a Tier II word. 1

2. Underlined vocabulary indicates a Tier II word. 2