Standard 5: Language

Students will apply knowledge of grammar and rhetorical style to reading and writing.

For additional guidance, there is a Grammar Companion Guide on page 8 of the Support Documents.

3.5.W.1 Students will capitalize and appropriately punctuate:

• titles of respect

• appropriate words in titles

• geographical names

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will use correct capitalization and punctuation for titles of respect.

• Students will use correct capitalization and punctuation for appropriate words in titles (e.g. Beauty and the Beast).

• Students will use correct capitalization and punctuation for geographical names. 

• Teachers explain that titles of respect need correct capitalization and punctuation.

• Teachers show examples of and model correct capitalization and punctuation of titles of respect.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to use correct capitalization and punctuation for titles of respect.

• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback regarding capitalization and punctuation for titles of respect.

• Teachers explain that appropriate words in titles need correct capitalization.

• Teachers show examples of and model correct capitalization and punctuation for appropriate words in titles.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to use correct capitalization and punctuation for appropriate words in titles.

• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback regarding capitalization and punctuation for appropriate words in titles.

• Teachers explain that geographical names need correct capitalization and punctuation.

• Teachers show examples of and model correct capitalization and punctuation for geographical names.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to use correct capitalization and punctuation for geographical names.

• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback regarding capitalization and punctuation for geographical names.

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

• Capitalizing Titles from Grammar Girl (webpage) 
• Using Capital Letters from OWL Purdue (webpage) 
• Capitalization from Grammarly (webpage) 

• When writing, students should follow the capitalization rules below:

• Titles of respect used with, or in place of, people’s names are capitalized.

• Ex: Mr., Ms., Mrs., President, Prime Minister, Dr., Capt., etc.

• Capitalization Rules for Titles

• The Modern Language Association (MLA) explains that headline style mandates capitalizing all words except prepositions and the common coordinating conjunctions (unless they are the first word of the title). In addition, article adjectives (a, an, the) are not capitalized unless they are the first word.

• Other style guides like Chicago and the Associated Press have different rules for capitalizing certain words in titles. Be consistent in whatever style is used. 

• Ex: The Boxcar Children, Beezus and Ramona, Night of the Twisters

• Geographical names

• Names and abbreviations of cities, towns, counties, states, countries, nations, and continents

• Names of avenues, streets, roads, highways, routes, and PO boxes.

• Names of lakes, rivers, oceans, other bodies of water, mountain ranges, deserts, and parks

• North, South, East, and West when they refer to geographical regions of the country.

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.