Reminders
6th graders enter the school building through the school yard entrance.
6th Grade ELA Pacing Calendar
Unit 1: Government and Society
Novel: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Students will read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts with attention to government control, socioeconomic status, and conflict. Students will use the knowledge gained to complete several argumentative pieces in the forms of a propaganda poster and an essay that explores the effects of totalitarian governmental control on fictional societies.
Unit 2: The Holocaust
Novel: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Students will explore historical fiction and non-fiction pieces of literature about the Holocaust. They will focus on issues of identity and perspective, as well as the effect of a totalitarian government on a real society. Students will learn how their experiences influence their perspective of situations, and will also better understand why it is important to consider multiple perspectives before passing judgment or making rash decisions. As a culminating project, students will write an informative essay in which they explore the themes of friendship, tolerance, and the importance of eradicating ignorance.
Unit 3: Literary Analysis
Students will analyze and determine the meaning of words and phrases within the New York State 2014 6th Grade ELA Examination. In looking at multiple choice, short response, and extended response questions, students will learn strategies that will help them in their approach to answering said questions. Furthermore, students will analyze informational and literary texts in order to respond to the various skills asked within all of the questions.
Unit 4: Rules to Live By
Novel: Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Students will examine how people formulate and use “rules” to improve their lives and communicate these “rules” to others as they read a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts. Students will have the opportunity to analyze character development over the course of a text, the development of central themes over the course of a text, and also to consider how figurative language contributes to tone and meaning in a text. In an argument essay, students will establish a claim about how Bud uses his rules; to survive or to thrive. Finally, students will craft a piece of narrative writing in which they relate the story of how they created to their own “rule to live by” that helps them to thrive in their lives.
