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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.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 5.2.7.2; 5.2.8.1; 5.1.9.2 · research, judging sources, and citing them

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 Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic 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: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

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 question helps you judge a source?

    • Who wrote this, and what do they know about it?
    • Is the font pretty?
    • Does it have a cartoon?
    • Is it long?

  2. Question 2

    A website about healthy snacks is run by a candy company. What should you think?

    • it is a fairy tale
    • it might be one-sided
    • it is always fair
    • it must be a science site

  3. Question 3

    How do you know a website might be out of date?

    • it has a search box
    • it has a title
    • it has pictures
    • the last update was many years ago

  4. Question 4

    Which source is most reliable for facts about earthquakes?

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

  5. Question 5

    Which is the best search for facts about the water cycle?

    • my homework please
    • stuff about water
    • water cycle evaporation condensation
    • I need an answer

  6. Question 6

    Why is a source written by a group that sells a product less reliable about that product?

    • it has fewer pages
    • it is always newer
    • the group may want to make it look good
    • groups cannot write

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