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Lesson plan Grade 5 English Language Arts

How Long Water Waits: A Grade 5 Quote-and-Explain Lesson

Students read a short text about how long water stays in the air and underground, then practice copying exact words into quotation marks and explaining them.

Objectives

  1. Students will copy an exact sentence from a text into quotation marks with correct punctuation.
  2. Students will explain in their own words what a quoted sentence shows about the water cycle.
  3. Students will draw one inference the text supports but does not state directly.

Vocabulary

Aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.

Also: quotation, evidence, atmosphere, cycle

Teacher overview

Grade 5 standards ask students to quote accurately, yet choosing which sentence is worth quoting is a separate skill that needs its own practice. This lesson pairs the two with a short informational text about how long water stays in one place before moving on, from a little over a week in the air to centuries deep underground. A misconception this lesson addresses directly is the idea that the water cycle is a fast loop in which every drop is always moving; a great deal of Earth's water sits still for a human lifetime or far longer, and the text gives students the exact sentences they need to say so with evidence.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Ask students to guess how long a single drop of water stays up in the air after it evaporates, and write three guesses on the board. Tell them the text will settle it, and leave the guesses posted.

First read (8 min): Distribute the Student Handout and read the text aloud while students follow along. Ask students to put a light pencil mark beside any sentence that surprised them, without stopping to discuss yet.

Model the quoting move (10 min): On the board, write one sentence from the text inside quotation marks, then add the phrase "This shows that" and finish the thought in your own words. Point out three things students should copy exactly: the words, the spelling, and the punctuation inside the quotation marks. Then show a weak example in which one word of the quotation has been changed, and ask the class to find the change.

Partner practice (12 min): Students complete handout questions 1 through 3 with a partner. Each partner reads the copied quote aloud while the other checks it word for word against the text before either writes the explanation.

Independent practice (7 min): Students complete handout questions 4 and 5 alone. Question 5 asks for an inference, so remind students that their quote must still come straight from the text even though their explanation goes beyond it.

Formative check and closure (3 min): On an index card, each student copies any sentence from the text into quotation marks and writes one sentence beginning "This shows that." Sort the cards into accurate and inaccurate copies as students pack up. If more than five cards contain a changed word, open the next session with a two-minute copy-check drill.

How Long Water Waits: A Grade 5 Quote-and-Explain Lesson — Grade 5 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

How long water waits

Water moves around Earth in a cycle. It rises into the air, falls as rain or snow, runs into rivers, and soaks into the ground. Pictures of this cycle often show arrows going around in a circle. The arrows can make the cycle look fast, as though every drop keeps moving all the time. It does not work that way.

Water spends on average about nine days in the atmosphere. That is the time between rising into the air and falling back down as rain or snow. Nine days is short compared with the rest of the cycle. Water that soaks deep underground can stay there for centuries or even for thousands of years. It rests in the spaces between grains of sand and gravel in an aquifer. It moves, but it moves slowly.

Most of Earth's water is not fresh at all. About 97 percent of it sits in the oceans and is salty. Roughly 2 percent is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. That leaves less than 1 percent as fresh water people can reach and use.

So the water in a deep well may have fallen as rain long before anyone in your town was born. When a town pumps that water out faster than rain can refill it, the aquifer drops. Refilling it is not a matter of waiting for one rainy season.

Questions

  1. Copy the exact sentence that tells how long water spends in the atmosphere. Put it in quotation marks. Then write one sentence beginning "This shows that."
  2. Copy the exact sentence that tells how much of Earth's water sits in the oceans. Put it in quotation marks. Then explain what that leaves for people to use.
  3. Copy the exact sentence that describes where water rests underground. Put it in quotation marks. Then explain in your own words what an aquifer is.
  4. Copy the exact sentence that says the water cycle does not work the way the arrow pictures suggest. Explain what the pictures get wrong.
  5. The text never says that a town should be careful with well water. Copy one sentence that makes you think so anyway, and explain your reasoning.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: "Water spends on average about nine days in the atmosphere."
    The explanation should say that water stays in the air for only a short time compared with other parts of the cycle.
  2. Answer: "About 97 percent of it sits in the oceans and is salty."
    The explanation should state that ocean water is salty, so it leaves less than 1 percent as fresh water people can reach and use.
  3. Answer: "It rests in the spaces between grains of sand and gravel in an aquifer."
    The explanation should describe an aquifer as underground sand and gravel with water held in the spaces between the grains.
  4. Answer: "The arrows can make the cycle look fast, as though every drop keeps moving all the time."
    The explanation should say that the pictures make every drop look like it is always moving, when some water sits underground for centuries or thousands of years. Accept also "It does not work that way." when the explanation says what the pictures get wrong.
  5. Answer: answers will vary.
    Accept any exact quote that supports the inference, most often the sentence about an aquifer dropping when a town pumps water out faster than rain can refill it, or the sentence about deep water staying underground for centuries. The explanation should connect slow refilling to a reason for care.

Differentiation

Support

Number the sentences of the text lightly in the margin so students can find and check a quote quickly, and provide a two-part frame on every line: "The text says, '___.' This shows that ___." Allow students to complete questions 1 through 3 only, with question 4 as an oral answer.

Extension

Ask students to find two sentences that work together, copy both accurately, and write a short paragraph explaining what the pair shows that neither sentence shows alone.

ELL supports

Preteach "atmosphere," "aquifer," and "cycle" with a simple cross-section sketch showing air above, ground below, and water held between grains of sand. Provide a printed model of a correctly punctuated quotation for students to keep on the desk, and allow explanations to be spoken to a partner before being written.

Extensions

Have students draw two versions of the water cycle side by side, one with equal arrows all the way around and one where each arrow's length shows how long water waits in that place, then write two sentences explaining which drawing matches the text and quoting the sentence that proves it.