English Class Content
English Course Description: 6th Grade ELA covers vocabulary and grammar development, fiction reading and writing strategies, personal essay writing, nonfiction reading, and informational and literary essay writing. Class novels include Freak the Mighty, Dragonwings, and The Biography of Temple Grandin. Students will also participate in book clubs as well as independent reading. Speaking and listening skills will be emphasized by way of oral presentations.
Click here for the course syllabus.
Our English year at a glance:
Reading
Class Novels:
Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
Dragonwings by Lawrence Yep
Book Club Choices:
Restart by Gordon Korman
Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
The Truth as Told By Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor
The Insignificant Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling
Non- fiction Reading:
The Biography Of Temple Grandin by Sy Montgomery
- Newsela (Current Event News) Articles
- Amplify, an online English- Language Arts curriculum
Listening and Speaking
Listening and speaking are part of the English- Language Arts standards. Throuout the year we will have different activities that will help improve a student's skills in those areas.
Writing
Our class will use a combination of Writer's Workshop as well as the color-coded Jane Schaffer approach to writing. Additionally, students will be versed in the 6 traits of writing as well: Idea Development, Organization, Sentence Fluency, Voice, Word Choice and Conventions.
We will focus on proper sentence construction paragraph construction and essay construction.
Graphic organizer and editing checklists will be used to aid students in organozing and revising written work.
Spelling/Vocabulary and Grammar
Our class will use a daily editing/grammar program called Daily Language Instruction (DLI) by Hogback Press as well as our vocabulary program, Wordly Wise by Educator's Publishing Service. Each Wordly Wise lesson will be a student's spelling words as well as vocabulary words. We will also stress the importance of proper writing mechanics, grammar and spelling throughout our writing units.
Grading Information
Grade Weights:
Writing 30%
Reading 30%
Grammar 15%
Spelling and Vocabulary 20%
Listening and Speaking 5%
Revisions and Retakes:
- Revisions on writing assignments can be made to improve a score to a 75%
- Retakes on quizzes and tests can be done to raise a score to a 75%