Middle School Curriculum Posts

The Grade 6 English course is designed to further develop the critical thinking and reasoning skills needed to construct and comprehend increasingly more complex fiction and nonfiction texts as students transition into middle school.  

Reading units are designed to teach students skills and strategies to develop complex textual inferences and interpretations. Units of study focus on characterization, setting, theme, social issues, central ideas, and synthesizing across texts. Students apply these skills and strategies to class novels, books shared in book clubs, and their independent reading. Habitual reading is reinforced by giving students grade-level appropriate choices in independent reading and encouraging growth by setting and monitoring goals.  

The writing units in Grade 6 are developed around various writing genres and encourage students to articulate their increasingly complex ideas. The personal narrative unit teaches students to use specific narrative techniques to tell their unique stories about important moments in their lives. Students also further develop their skills as expository writers by authoring literary essays, personal essays, and reviews. In each unit, qualities of skillful writing are emphasized including ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. Grammar and vocabulary acquisition are addressed both through direct instruction and integration into reading and writing instruction.  

Texts read will include Esperanza Rising, Ryan; Ghost, Reynolds; and various short stories, other novels, and non-fiction texts.