Take the fifth grade California Content Standards for language arts as an example.


2.0 Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials)

Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose. The selections in Recommended Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition, by grade eight, students read one million words annually on their own, including a good representation of grade-level-appropriate narrative and expository text (e.g., classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, online information). In grade five, students make progress toward this goal.

Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
2.3 Discern main ideas and concepts presented in texts, identifying and assessing evidence that supports those ideas.
2.4 Draw inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and support them with textual evidence and prior knowledge.

Expository Critique
2.5 Distinguish facts, supported inferences, and opinions in text.

3.0 Literary Response and Analysis

Students read and respond to historically or culturally significant works of literature. They begin to find ways to clarify the ideas and make connections between literary works. The selections in Recommended Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students.


Narrative Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
3.2 Identify the main problem or conflict of the plot and explain how it is resolved.
3.3 Contrast the actions, motives (e.g., loyalty, selfishness, conscientiousness), and appearances of characters in a work of fiction and discuss the importance of the contrasts to the plot or theme.
3.4 Understand that theme refers to the meaning or moral of a selection and recognize themes (whether implied or stated directly) in sample works.
3.5 Describe the function and effect of common literary devices (e.g., imagery, metaphor, symbolism).

Literary Criticism
3.6 Evaluate the meaning of archetypal patterns and symbols that are found in myth and tradition by using literature from different eras and cultures.
3.7 Evaluate the author's use of various techniques (e.g., appeal of characters in a picture book, logic and credibility of plots and settings, use of figurative language) to influence readers' perspectives.


1.0 Writing Strategies

Students write clear, coherent, and focused essays. The writing exhibits the students' awareness of the audience and purpose. Essays contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.



In order to address reading, wiring, and comprehension objectives, a teacher may assign a chapter book to the class. Each week, the students would be responsible for writing about the story in their classroom blog. On some weeks the teacher may ask the students to post a response to specific questions about the story and on other weeks the students can write a readers response entry about their readings. Finally, the teacher can ask the students to write an essay summarizing and incorporating the students feelings about the story.

Besides meeting Reading, writing and comprehension state standards, blogs also meet Research and Technology standards.

Research and Technology
1.3 Use organizational features of printed text (e.g., citations, end notes, bibliographic references) to locate relevant information.
1.4 Create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features (e.g., passwords, entry and pull-down menus, word searches, a thesaurus, spell checks).

Students love to use technology because they are familiar with it. The use of a blog is especially appealing to students because they are able to customize the look and style of their blog as they see fit. Blogs also make it easier for teachers to detect plagiarism in the students writing. A teacher simply needs to copy and paste a sentence from a blog into Google Search to determine if the sentence was taken from another source.



Links: California State Content Standards. Grade 5: Language Arts