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Course Overview
Grade 6 English Language Arts supports students through the important transition to middle school while building confidence, independence, and a strong foundation in literacy. Through engaging literature, nonfiction, independent reading, writing, research, and discussion, students learn to navigate increasingly complex texts, develop and support ideas with evidence, communicate clearly for different purposes and audiences, and consider multiple perspectives. Purposeful modeling, guided practice, collaboration, and feedback provide support as students take increasing ownership of their learning, while opportunities for choice, creativity, and meaningful exploration help sustain curiosity and engagement as readers, writers, and thinkers.
About Our Curriculum
The curriculum for each English course is continually reviewed and revised to ensure every student receives an engaging, rigorous learning experience aligned with the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy.
Course teams meet regularly to review student learning and make informed adjustments to curriculum and instruction to meet their students' unique needs and strengths. While teachers collaborate to establish shared learning experiences with core content, essential skills, and common outcomes within each course, we also intentionally preserve flexibility for teachers to tailor select texts, assignments, and learning experiences and to adjust unit sequencing or instructional approaches as appropriate.
For this reason, the unit overviews on this site represent the course's shared learning goals and experiences; specific texts, assignments, and sequencing may vary by teacher and class section. Please check your teacher's Schoology page regularly for the most current information about your student's class, including upcoming novel and media selections.
Thank you!
Ms. Crystal Laliberte, MA, CAGS
English Curriculum Coordinator, Grades 6–12
The Next Chapter: Growing as a Reader & Writer
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Select independent reading books based on interest, purpose, and appropriate challenge.
Establish routines for sustained, independent reading and thoughtful response.
Describe their interests, experiences, strengths, and goals as readers and writers.
Demonstrate comprehension by discussing and responding to independently read texts.
Express ideas clearly in organized, multi-paragraph writing.
Participate effectively in collaborative discussions by listening, contributing relevant ideas, and building on others' thinking.
Apply foundational middle school routines for planning, completing, and reflecting on literacy work.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
Who am I as a reader and writer?
How do readers choose books that interest and challenge them?
What habits help readers understand, enjoy, and persist with increasingly complex texts?
How can reflection help us recognize our strengths, challenges, and goals?
How can a community of readers and writers help each member grow?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Explore a range of texts and learning strategies for selecting independent reading books.
Establish routines and expectations for independent reading, writing, discussion, and reflection.
Read independently and sharing thinking about books with teachers and peers.
Reflect on previous reading and writing experiences and setting goals for Grade 6.
Complete baseline writing to demonstrate current strengths and areas for growth.
Participate in beginning-of-year reading assessments to help teachers plan responsive instruction.
Failing Forward: Reading to Understand
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Independently read and comprehend grade-appropriate informational texts.
Determine one or more central ideas and explain how important details help develop them.
Cite relevant textual evidence when explaining explicit ideas and drawing inferences.
Distinguish essential information from supporting details through purposeful annotation and note-taking.
Determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases using context and other strategies.
Write an accurate, objective summary that communicates central ideas without personal opinion.
Use metacognitive strategies to monitor comprehension, recognize confusion, and adjust reading strategies.
Develop clear, organized analytical paragraphs using relevant evidence and explanation.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
What can failure teach us about learning, growth, and success?
How do effective readers determine what is most important in an informational text?
How can readers use details to make reasonable inferences and deepen understanding?
How do readers distinguish central ideas from supporting information?
How can we communicate the most important ideas of a text clearly and objectively?
How does thinking about our own thinking help us become stronger readers?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Read a range of nonfiction texts exploring failure, perseverance, learning, and success.
Practice strategies for identifying central ideas, important details, and reasonable inferences.
Annotate and take purposeful notes to track understanding.
Develop concise gist statements to capture the meaning of sections of text.
Use organizational strategies to plan evidence-based responses.
Move through gradual release from collaboratively written to independently written summaries.
Independently read, analyze, and summarize a selected informational text.
Fun with Fantasy: Characters, Choices & Meaning
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Analyze how plot unfolds across a narrative and how characters respond and change as events move toward a resolution.
Determine a theme or central idea and explain how specific details help communicate it.
Cite relevant textual evidence to support both explicit understanding and reasonable inferences.
Analyze how authors develop characters through characterization, including their words, thoughts, actions, interactions, and appearance.
Analyze how specific words, figurative language, and other author choices contribute to meaning, tone, or mood.
Recognize patterns and important details and use them to develop thoughtful claims about a text.
Develop analytical paragraphs with a clear claim, well-chosen evidence, and reasoning that explains the connection between them.
Strengthen analytical writing through planning, drafting, feedback, revision, and editing.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
What makes fantasy different from—and similar to—other forms of storytelling?
How do authors develop characters through their actions, thoughts, words, relationships, and choices?
How and why do characters change in response to challenges?
How do authors use patterns, details, and literary elements to communicate deeper meaning?
How do readers move from noticing details to developing evidence-based interpretations?
How does an author's choice of language affect meaning, tone, and mood?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Read and analyze a fantasy novel and related literary texts.
Study characteristics and patterns of the fantasy genre while reviewing narrative structure.
Annotate and using “thought jots” to record questions, observations, patterns, and emerging interpretations.
Read like writers by examining purposeful choices authors make about characters, plot, language, and structure.
Trace character traits, motivations, relationships, and changes across a text.
Move from literal understanding toward analysis of theme and deeper meaning.
Practice strategies for developing claims, select strong evidence, and explain reasoning.
Write and revise an independent literary analysis of character development and change.
DeTEXTives at Work: Mystery, Evidence & Interpretation
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Independently apply close-reading and annotation strategies to increasingly complex literary texts.
Cite textual evidence to support explicit understanding, inferences, and literary analysis.
Analyze how particular scenes, chapters, and details contribute to plot, character development, setting, and theme.
Explain how an author's structural choices and use of point of view shape a reader's understanding and experience.
Determine theme and explain how it emerges through patterns, characters, events, and details.
Consider alternative interpretations and revise claims when new evidence changes or complicates understanding.
Develop a logical line of reasoning across multiple paragraphs, connecting a thesis, supporting claims, evidence, and analysis.
Engage effectively in evidence-based collaborative discussions by preparing ideas, asking questions, and responding thoughtfully to others.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How do readers use clues and evidence to develop and revise interpretations?
How do authors structure mysteries to create suspense, uncertainty, and surprise?
How do seemingly small details contribute to larger ideas and themes?
How can considering alternative possibilities deepen our interpretation of a text?
How do readers determine a theme and trace how details throughout a text communicate it?
How do writers connect multiple claims and pieces of evidence to develop a larger interpretation?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Read a mystery novel and independently applying previously learned comprehension and analysis strategies.
Track clues, patterns, character motivations, and significant details as a mystery develops.
Examine how authors control information, point of view, pacing, and structure to influence readers.
Use alternative possibilities and “what if” thinking to test and deepen interpretations.
Participate in structured, evidence-based discussions and introductory Socratic seminars.
Move from single-paragraph analysis toward a sustained, multi-paragraph line of reasoning.
Collaboratively develop portions of an analysis before independently completing and refining the argument.
Experiment with poetry and other creative responses that require careful attention to language and meaning.
Novel in Verse: The Power of Language & Form
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Analyze how particular poems, stanzas, scenes, or sections contribute to the structure, meaning, and themes of a larger work.
Analyze how word choice, figurative language, imagery, sound, and rhythm contribute to meaning, tone, and mood.
Distinguish between a poem's speaker and an author or narrative voice and explain how point of view is developed.
Determine the denotative, connotative, and figurative meanings of words and phrases in context.
Compare how prose and poetry use structure and language differently to develop characters, experiences, and ideas.
Cite relevant evidence to develop increasingly independent interpretations of character and theme.
Develop a coherent multi-paragraph literary analysis with an introduction, focused body paragraphs, transitions, and conclusion.
Create original poetry that applies purposeful choices about language, imagery, figurative language, and form.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How does the form of a text influence the way we experience its story and ideas?
Why might an author choose poetry rather than prose to tell a story?
How do poets use imagery, figurative language, sound, and structure to create meaning?
How do denotation and connotation influence the way readers understand words and ideas?
How does a speaker's perspective shape a poem or narrative?
How can readers use patterns across a text to develop interpretations about character and theme?
How can writers organize multiple paragraphs into a coherent literary analysis?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Read and analyze a novel in verse and selected poetry.
Closely examine imagery, figurative language, connotation, sound, stanza structure, and other poetic choices.
Compare poetic and prose forms and considering how structure affects the reader's experience.
Analyze the distinction among author, narrator, and speaker.
Study model poems and experimenting with similar techniques in original writing.
Develop literary analysis with increasingly independent selection and explanation of textual evidence.
Expand paragraph-level analysis into organized multi-paragraph essays.
Plan, draft, revise, and edit independent analytical and creative writing.
Climate Change: Literature, Research & Argument
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Analyze connections between literary texts and real-world environmental issues.
Explain how an author's point of view, purpose, language, and evidence shape an informational or argumentative text.
Identify and evaluate claims and distinguish claims supported by reasons and evidence from those that are not.
Gather relevant information from multiple credible print and digital sources to investigate a focused question.
Quote or paraphrase information accurately, provide basic source information, and avoid plagiarism.
Develop a clear argument supported by logical reasoning and relevant evidence from texts and research.
Recognize and respond to differing or opposing perspectives when developing an argument.
Present claims and findings logically, using relevant evidence, clear language, and appropriate multimedia when useful.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How can literature help us understand complex real-world problems?
How do authors use imagined worlds to explore issues that affect our own?
How do authors shape texts to inform, persuade, or influence an audience?
How can readers distinguish among claims, evidence, reasoning, and perspective?
What makes an argument convincing and well supported?
How can research deepen or challenge what we learn through literature?
How can individuals use evidence and communication to advocate for ideas and change?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Read fiction that connects environmental challenges to questions about society, choices, and the future.
Connect fictional scenarios to scientific, informational, and argumentative texts about real-world environmental issues.
Examine how authors use purpose, perspective, rhetoric, evidence, and reasoning to influence audiences.
Conduct focused research using multiple print and digital sources.
Evaluate sources for credibility and relevance and taking purposeful research notes.
Develop arguments that include claims, reasons, evidence, and consideration of alternative perspectives.
Use discussion, writing, and creative or multimedia presentations to communicate research and advocate for informed ideas.
Apply reading, writing, research, speaking, and listening skills developed throughout the year.
Looking Back & Moving Forward: A Year of Growth
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Independently read and respond to a self-selected text appropriate to their interests and reading development.
Synthesize ideas about character, theme, genre, author's craft, and real-world connections.
Select relevant textual evidence to support interpretations and reflections.
Make meaningful connections among texts, genres, ideas, and learning experiences from across the year.
Communicate ideas clearly through writing, speaking, creative work, and/or multimedia.
Reflect on evidence of growth and identify specific strengths, strategies, challenges, and future goals.
Demonstrate increasing independence and stamina as a middle school reader, writer, and learner.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How have I grown as a reader, writer, thinker, and communicator?
What texts, ideas, and experiences have shaped me this year?
How has my ability to analyze and support ideas with evidence changed?
What strategies help me when reading or writing becomes challenging?
How can I communicate what I have learned to an audience?
What goals will help me continue growing as a reader and writer?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Select and independently read a book of personal interest.
Synthesize learning through a culminating independent reading project.
Connect a chosen book to elements such as genre, author's craft, theme, poetry, and relevant real-world issues.
Revisit earlier writing and reading work to identify evidence of growth.
Complete end-of-year reading and writing benchmarks to demonstrate progress.
Reflect on strategies and habits that have helped them become more independent learners.
Create a message or product for future Grade 6 students that communicates insights from their first year of middle school.
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