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5th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 10 of 11

Research Ready

Questions, sources, notes and credit

What your child practices

Children practice narrowing a research question, searching with keywords, judging sources, telling sponsored content from information, taking notes, paraphrasing and citing sources instead of copying.

Alaska content standards learning standard: W.5.7; W.5.8 · research questions, judging sources, taking notes and listing sources

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Narrow your question and search with keywords.
  2. Judge a source: who wrote it, what do they know, is it an ad?
  3. Take notes in your own words. Use quotation marks for exact words, and cite your sources. Copying is plagiarism.

Example: When should you use quotation marks in a report? Your own words don’t need them. Someone else’s exact words do. Answer: when you use a source’s exact words

Research Ready in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 10 of 11 in 5th grade English Language Arts, after Create With Words, Pictures and Sound and before Spelling Smarts.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which source is most reliable for facts about earthquakes?

    • an ad for an earthquake kit
    • a comment on a video
    • a geological survey website run by scientists
    • a movie about a disaster

  2. Question 2

    Which statement from a website is an opinion?

    • Recycling is the most important thing anyone can do.
    • Aluminum cans can be recycled.
    • Many cities collect recycling each week.
    • Paper is made from wood fibers.

  3. Question 3

    Which research question is focused enough for a short report?

    • Why is the world interesting?
    • How do sea otters use tools to eat?
    • Everything about the ocean
    • Animals

  4. Question 4

    You use a photo from a website in your slideshow. What should you do?

    • say you took it
    • change the colors and keep it
    • hide where it came from
    • give credit to who made it

  5. Question 5

    You find two sources that disagree. What should you do?

    • use the one with more pictures
    • use neither and guess
    • check a third reliable source
    • pick the shorter one

  6. Question 6

    A chatbot gives you a fact for your report. What should you do?

    • copy it without checking
    • check it in a reliable source
    • share it right away
    • trust it because a computer said it

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