The English Language Arts program seeks to develop students who think clearly, critically, and creatively. The students connect with the human experience through an array of text types, allowing them to respond in authentic ways. English Language Arts offers a variety of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing experiences. Reading, in particular, is crucial in developing a student’s language capacity, significantly improving oral and written. communication skills. Students are viewed as readers even before they can decode words; they comprehend and make meaning of a variety of texts from a young age.
The purpose of English 6 is to provide the time, instruction, and opportunity for students to develop into enthusiastic and skilled communicators. The year begins with the unit Our Reading Lives, which is an inquiry into students’ identities as readers and how it shapes and informs their perspectives on texts and the world around them. Next, students will evaluate and consider multiple points of view during the unit Perspective. Students will read a class novel as a model of how to evaluate the perspective of the narrator through free verse. Following the class novel, students will have a choice of novels in verse to read independently with an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of perspective through verse. In the following unit, Choice and Voice, students will explore how we communicate experiences through a short story narrative. Students will examine the main elements of fiction and how writers can develop these to present an engaging narrative story. Culminating the unit, students will craft their own narrative story reflecting their understanding of how the elements enhance fictional narratives. In the next unit, It’s OK to Argue, students begin to build skills in argumentative speaking, listening, and writing. Our final unit, Legends, will allow students to explore traits and major characteristics found in myths and legends from around the world. Students will demonstrate a deeper understanding of mythology by incorporating the characteristics of myths into fan-fiction style narratives.
Units of Study:
- Unit 1: Our Reading Lives
- Unit 2: Perspective
- Unit 3: Choice and Voice
- Unit 4: It's Okay to Argue
- Unit 5: Legends