Lesson Plan: Fact or Opinion?

Teacher
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Grade:
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Topic:

Content:

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Objectives:

Materials:

Leora P. Ferry
Grade 5
Language Arts

Fact versus Opinion

* Cooperative Learning Structure
* Roundtable (Ch.10, Kagan) Often in small group work, one
person leads the group and ends up doing most of the work, or
providing most of the answers. With this cooperative learning
strategy, each person in the group is given an equal chance to
contribute. Each student is also given time to think of an answer
while the others are recording theirs.
* Big Questions
* What is a Fact? What is an Opinion? What strategies can you use
to identify an opinion when you read?
* Key Concept
* Facts are statements that cannot be disputed, while opinions are
statements that state someones personal view. Readers must be
able to distinguish between the two when reading to determine the
validity of the text being read.
* Vocabulary
* Fact, Opinion
Listening/speaking/reading facts and opinions
*Content
Students will be able to generate and identify words associated
with opinion statements as well as generating fact and opinion
statements of their own.
*Language
*Students will discuss and brainstorm in small groups synonyms
and antonyms for the five opinion words: like, good, pretty,
important and think. Through this discussion students will be able
to develop a larger list of vocabulary than if they were to work
solitarily. Students will also be able to hear the difference between
the opinion and fact statements of their peers.
*Opinion words chart

*Fact/Opinion statements and cards

*Newspapers

Introduction:

When do you know if youre reading a fact or an opinion?

Students will generate ideas about what a fact and what an opinion
is while the teacher records their ideas on a T-chart.
The teacher will ask the students how they think they can tell the
difference between the two types of statements while reading,
recording answers on the T-chart as well.

Development:

*Teacher will introduce the idea that opinions can be found by

looking for key words. Identify such key words from newspaper
articles and produce word wall entries.
*Students will work together in groups using the Roundtable
cooperative learning structure to complete the opinion word chart.

Practice:

Checking For
Understanding:

Closure:

Evaluation:

Date:

*Each group will be given a bag of statements. The group must

read through each one individually and determine if it is a fact or
opinion making two columns on their desks.
*When each group has finished the teacher will go through the
statements and have the groups raise a fact or opinion card.
*Students will be asked to generate two facts and two opinions
about an article that they received.
*The teacher will review the strategies for determining if a
statement is fact or opinion, such as looking for key words, and
remembering no such thing as fact words.
*Students will then volunteer a sentence from their responses to the
editorial for the class to determine if it is a fact or opinion
statement.
On the letter to the editor page students identify facts and
opinions and create a writing piece of their own where they
identify the opinion statements they made.

Lesson Plan

Grade 5
Ferry

Teacher: Leora P.

Fact versus opinion: Maintaining self-esteem

Learning outcomes
Students will distinguish between fact and opinion.
M ATE R I AL S / R E S O U R C E S
Handouts copied on construction paper, scissors, pencils, and creativity!
Pre-activities
1.

Define fact and opinion. Facts can be all or some of the following: can be proven, real for all
people and places, can be duplicated, can be observed, historical, or 100 percent true. Opinions refer
to a particular persons (or groups) feeling, thought, judgment, belief, estimate, and/or anything that is
not 100 percent true and cant be proven.

2.

Have students distinguish between facts and opinions:

All people must breathe to live.

All people love basketball.

Blue is the best color.

He is stupid.

I dont like bitter gourd.

Fire needs oxygen to burn.

Champorado tastes great.

Most people have two arms and legs.

3.

Ask students to identify books where facts can be found (encyclopedia, dictionary, almanac,
atlas, text books, Guinness Book of World Records, etc.).

4.

Ask students to identify books where opinions can be found. (Autobiographies, self-help books,
novels, journals, etc.)

5.

Students should distinguish which parts of a newspaper are factual and which are opinion. Ask
them to identify the following:

letters to the editor

restaurant reviews

sports scores

weather prediction

birth announcements

rainfall measurements

advice columns

astrology reports

obituaries

calendar of events

wedding announcements

movie reviews

6.

Cut out newspaper and magazine advertisements and separate facts and opinions.
Activities

1.

Make sure students understand that just because someone else says something, its not
necessarily a fact. Its most likely just his/her opinion. To simply agree with someone elses opinion is
to consider it a fact and thus make it real. For example, believing others who say You cant play
basketball very well can either convince you to agree with them and continue being poor at basketball

OR motivate you to believe Im better now than before and Ill improve with even more practice!
Ones attitude of others opinions can either 1) encourage and help us grow and improve or 2)
discourage and inhibit us from growing.
2.

Have students create the My Opinion Matters wheel using attachment 1 and attachment 2.
Students cut out the window that they will use to record in the five sections What I can say to myself
in response to When others say

3.

Write on the board different comments for them to choose from, including:

You cant read.

You cant spell.

You cant _____.

Youre stupid.

Youre ugly.

Youre mean.

Youre lazy.

4.

Have students choose five to record on their wheel with a positive self-talk statement they can
use to respond in a healthy way. For example, when someone might say, You cant read, a positive
self-talk statement might be Im reading a lot better now than before and Ill be an even better reader
by the end of this school year.

5.

After students have completed and assembled their wheels, have them share with a partner
and then select volunteers to share with the entire class.
Assessment
Collect the My Opinion Matters wheels to read and determine if responses demonstrate positive
messages that students can say to themselves.
Students who need additional clarification can be re-taught individually and/or in small groups.
Students who successfully completed four of the five positive self-talk responses correctly have
mastered this objective.

COMMENTS
Students commonly believe that what is printed, aired on TV, or found on the internet are all facts. Its
critical for them to distinguish between what people say is so and what is so.
Teachers are commonly aware of the Pygmalion Effect and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Both
emphasize that we tend to think and behave to prove ourselves right. If we believe something will be
positive, it turns out so. If we believe something will be negative, it turns out negative as well. Also, the
Garbage In-Garbage Out theory that if we have stinking thinking, we will produce poor behaviors.
Therefore, its vital for students to create and maintain positive self-talk statements that they can
use regularly to deflect others negative opinions. Otherwise, it will be easy for students to believe that
what others say is true (fact).