"This is a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."
~Maya Angelou~
Language Arts includes both reading comprehension and writing. Students will think about their experience as readers and writers as we explore elements and themes in a variety of texts and ask ourselves, "What makes a particular piece of writing interesting and engaging? And how can we capture that in our own writing?"
Writing: "Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out." -Farnam Street
The primary guide we will follow is, "Step Up to Writing." Over the course of the year, we will explore foundational writing skills (including grammar and sentence structure), review the basics of how to develop interesting paragraphs, then compile paragraphs into essays, stories, and reports.
We will focus on narrative writing (personal memoir and fictional stories); informative essays (how to take multiple documents, synthesize the information, and summarize in paragraph form); followed by argumentative writing.
In all cases, we will work to strengthen our prewriting skills: collect & brainstorm ideas, outline a plan, compose a rough draft, edit and rework. Once students are comfortable with their work, they will compose a final (or "best") draft, and share/publish.
I plan to allow students to rework their pieces as often as needed to get them right.
We will also write literary analysis responses, poetry, journal entries, short stories, and more.
(If you are wondering, "Why bother writing when we have AI for that," click to read this piece from Farnam Street: https://fs.blog/why-write/.)
Reading Comprehension:
Cambrian Unified recently adopted a new ELA curriculum by Houghton Mifflin (HMH) that we will explore. Through the HMH Collections curriculum, students will have access to online texts- short stories, articles, videos, poetry, and other prose- and will be tasked with synthesizing information within a theme and expanding on ideas through discussions and written responses to the literature.
Students will develop their close reading skills using a variety of passages. We will start the year with close readings of short stories, and will also examine non-fiction articles and essays, as well as poetry, plays, and podcasts.
Students may take part in literature circles, in which they will read a book of choice (from a selection provided) and meet with a smaller group to analyze and discuss the text.
We will also build in time for novels the whole class will read and respond to together. Students will also read independent choice books daily and share reflections weekly. Here' a link to the novels and podcasts we may read/listen to this year as a whole class: Reading & Listening List
As often as possible, I will invite the students to share their work either in small groups or with the whole class.
In the spring we may hold a "poetry slam"- either with personal poems or published favorites.
Click the link below to learn more about 6th grade ELA Common Core Standards:
https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf