This resource accompanies our Rethink 6th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 6th grade English Language Arts content.

This teacher's guide for Addie on the Inside by James Howe contains discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

The Adventurers of Sojourner presents a third-person narrative account of the Mars Pathfinder mission, which included the deployment of a small science rover named Sojourner. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In Ray Bradbury's “All Summer in A Day” takes place on the planet Venus in a future world where people have come to set up a civilization. In this CCSS lesson students will explore this fiction story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students will read for gist and analyze the text, focusing on how a passage contributes to the theme in Dragonwings.

In this lesson, students will work in pairs to find the gist and then analyze an excerpt of Dragonwings for point of view, figurative language, tone, and meaning.

In this lesson, students build on skills of citing in order to analyze what is being expressed and make inferences from two texts, Blue Lipstick and Technically, It's Not my Fault.

Mini-Lesson for use during guided instruction group to assist students in learning the reading strategy.
Standards:
RL.6.5 Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot.

After reading haikus and examining the haiku format in this lesson, students write their own haikus that they then animate using Animoto.

The purpose of this project is two-fold: first, to encourage students to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to help students appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals. Those devices that are about the imagery of a poem (metaphor, simile, personification, description) can be thought of as magnifying glasses: we see most clearly that upon which the poet focuses our gaze. Similarly, those poetic devices that are about the sound of the poem (alliteration, consonance, enjambment, onomatopoeia, and repetition) can be thought of as volume buttons or amplifiers: we hear most clearly what the poet makes us listen to most attentively.

What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.

The short story, titled “Becky and the Wheel-and-Brake Boys,” is about how Becky desperately wants to own a bike despite the resistance she is met with from her mother and Granny-Liz. In this CCSS lesson students will explore this short story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This story, set in 1820s Austria, is a series of letters written between a young boy, Christoph, who lives in Vienna and his uncle, a music student who lives in Salzburg. In the letters, Christoph tells his uncle of the strange gentleman, Ludwig van Beethoven, who has rented a room in the boy’s home. In this CCSS lesson students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

A teachers guide for Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange, including chapter-specific questions for increased comprehension, questions for class discussion, and suggestions for further study.

For this lesson, students are invited to attend a 19th Century party as a character from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. To play this role, students must understand the values and customs Dickens' characters represented in Victorian society. This lesson is divided into three stages: Group Investigative Roles, Individual Characterizations, and Individual Presentations. Students collaboratively research the life and times of Charles Dickens as it relates to a character, and write and present a first-person character analysis.

In this secondary source lesson on ancient Greek civilization, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students work in groups to read and discuss a book, keeping track of their feelings and opinions about the book, as well as facts and quotations, as they read. Students then decide which parts of their review they wish to annotate, with each student in the group responsible for one topic. Each student writes about his or her topic, including bibliographic information.

This teacher's guide for The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson with Marilyn J. Harran and Elisabeth B. Leyson contains discussion questions and activities for reading comprehension, learning about craft and structure, integrating information, and writing practice.

In this short story, Jose learns a valuable lesson about himself when he tries to impress Estella by challenging her to a game of racquetball. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.