ALEX Learning Activity

Students will decipher between a fact and an opinion. They will do a warm-up activity to help them brainstorm things they like or dislike.  The teacher will highlight keywords to use when discussing opinions.

This resource was created in partnership with Dothan City Schools.

Students will be able to clearly state an opinion by using specific vocabulary. 

Students will be able to accurately express an opinion statement both in oral and written format.

Give the students a few statements such as, "The grass is green."  "Green is the best color." "The sky is clear and blue on a spring day."  "Blue makes everyone feel happy." Ask them which of these statements we can prove. They should answer, "The grass is green and the sky is clear and blue on a spring day." Tell them these are called facts because there is evidence you can use to prove the statement. Then tell them the opposite would be an opinion.  Opinions will be our topic for the lesson.

Next, write the words best and feel. Tell them these words help prove the statements are opinions because it tells what someone thinks about a topic.

Tell the students they are going to play a game. The game is called "What Is Your Opinion?"  Open the Google Slides presentation. The second slide has the directions. Determine with your class where the front and back of the room will be. Go through each slide and let them decide if they like or dislike the item pictured. At the end of the slides, have the students go back through each one giving an oral opinion statement. Help them focus on words in their statements that show feeling about the topic. Display opinion words and phrases on the interactive whiteboard to help them with sentence starters.

Finally, have the students write an opinion sentence about one of the pictures with at least one reason why they feel this way. For example, "The best food ever is pizza. Pizza is the best because it is cheesy, warm, and delicious when I bite into it." Have some volunteers share their written statements and all students turn them into the teacher for review and editing.

The written opinion statement will be turned in to the teacher to evaluate the student's ability to use opinion words/phrases to write an opinion effectively. Appropriate written feedback should be provided by the teacher on the student's paper.

The teacher will listen to the students' oral responses during the activity to evaluate their ability to express their opinion in a logical sequence clearly, accurately, and precisely, using appropriate volume, clear pronunciation, and standard English grammar.

The teacher will need to have the Google Slides presentation and the opinion words and phrases link pulled up to show the class.

Intervention: The opinion words and phrases document can be printed and given to the students to put in a page protector in a binder or to cut out and glued into a notebook as an interactive resource to be used for later work.

Extension: Your advanced students could try and add to the list of opinion words and phrases. Instead of writing two sentences, you could challenge them to provide you with three reasons for their opinion instead of one, therefore, they would have a total of four sentences.

The teacher could search for other pictures to print and laminate. Two of these pictures could be displayed on the board and the students could do a quick write about which one they like more and why as a morning work activity to reiterate the skills that were learned. The teacher should post a copy of the opinion words and phrases next to the pictures as a helpful resource as the students write.

Links to related activities:

During Activity - Opinions, Opinions, Opinions, Oh My!

After Activity - Weak or Strong Statements: That is the Question