Lesson 7 — Fact or Opinion?

Summary

Learners learn to distinguish facts (claims that can be checked) from opinions (what someone thinks or feels). They meet two test questions — “Can I check it?” versus “Does someone believe it?” — sort sentences into the two columns, and write a fact and an opinion of their own, stating how the fact could be checked.

Objectives

• Distinguish fact from opinion. (D04.S2.05.02)

Connection

“This river floods every year” and “this river is the most beautiful in the world” are two very different sentences. The first you can check — ask people, look at records, watch through a season. The second is a matter of taste — someone’s feeling, and another person may feel differently. Both have their place, but they are not the same thing. Learning to tell them apart is how you keep from being fooled — in a market, in the news, in a family argument.

Materials

• Fact vs. opinion poster
• Fact-or-opinion sentence strips
• Two-column sorting page

Preparation

• Print or draw the fact vs. opinion poster (two columns with the two test questions).
• Copy a set of fact-or-opinion sentence strips for each pair.
• Copy the two-column sorting page.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The idea to land is that the difference between fact and opinion is how the claim behaves — a fact can be checked, an opinion is held. Avoid framing opinions as “bad”; they are how we feel and choose, and they matter. The skill is telling which is which and knowing what each is for. Be careful with close calls (a taste judgment dressed up as fact, or a value stated as a fact) — those are the interesting ones to discuss, not to rush past. This is a critical-thinking habit, not a one-day module (docs/philosophy.md §7). Keep sorting non-competitive and let learners justify their choices.

Procedure

1. Gather (5 min). Think of two things someone said today — one you could check, and one that was just how they felt. Today you learn to name that difference: fact and opinion.
2. Meet the two questions (10 min). Look at the poster. A fact is a claim you can check — “this river floods every year” can be checked by asking and observing. An opinion is what someone thinks or feels — “this river is the most beautiful in the world” is a feeling, not a check. Two questions sort them: Can I check it? (fact) and Does someone believe or feel it? (opinion).
3. Sort the strips (15 min). With a partner, read each sentence strip and place it in the “fact” or “opinion” column. For each one, say why: what could you check, or whose feeling is it? Take your time with the close ones.
4. Write your own (10 min). Write one fact and one opinion about the same thing — a food, a place, a game. Under the fact, write how you could check it.
5. Close (5 min). Facts tell us what is; opinions tell us what matters to someone. A thoughtful person keeps both — and never confuses the two.

Differentiation

• Support: Start with obvious pairs (“It rained yesterday” vs. “Rain is wonderful”) and provide a checking-words bank (ask, look, measure, count, record).
• Extension: Take a sentence that mixes both (“This cheap, delicious fruit grows here”) and separate its fact parts from its opinion parts.

Assessment

• Formative (peer/self): Can the learner sort sentences into fact and opinion and say how a fact could be checked?
• Self-check: The learner asks, “For each one, could I say exactly how to check it — or whose belief it is?”

Home connection

Listen for one fact and one opinion at home or in the street today, and tell someone which is which and why.

Resources

• Fact/opinion distinction is a foundational critical-literacy skill; for classroom framing see Duke & Pearson’s synthesis of comprehension strategy research and the IES practice guides. On critical thinking as a habit across subjects, see the framing in docs/philosophy.md.