In this lesson, students begin in their triad routine discussing “My Sister Is Crazy.”

This lesson begins with students rereading the concrete poem “The Thank-You Letter” from Technically, It’s Not My Fault. After reading the poem, they listen to its audio version and compare the two experiences.

In this lesson, students complete the Mid-Unit 3 Assessment Parts 1 and 2 using the concrete poem “Skateboard” from Technically, It’s Not My Fault and the news article “Councilman: Ban Skateboarding in Downtown Columbia.”

Do folktales, myths, and fables all have nonhuman characters? Do they all express a lesson or moral for readers to take away? Students use a semantic feature analysis to find out in this lesson. A semantic feature analysis, a comprehension strategy that helps students identify characteristics associated with related words or concepts, is used to compare folktales, myths, and fables. Students begin with an introduction to the strategy and a teacher-directed lesson in how to use the strategy to analyze a folktale. In subsequent sessions, students continue to practice the strategy in small groups by analyzing myths and fables. After students have read and analyzed the texts, they reflect on how semantic feature analyses helped improve their understanding of their reading.

This resource includes nonfiction two texts, a link to a video, and 13 text-dependent questions (including one optional constructed-response prompt for students). Also includes explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

This lesson will use the "infinite variety" of resources on the Internet to let students find their own image of Othello. The lesson will take them on a WebQuest, first to textual references, and then to on-line searches for images of Othello in film, play productions, and art. Then, students will write an essay about the casting of Othello to conclude the lesson.

Students will explore images from the Klondike and read White Fang closely to learn how to define and differentiate these terms, ultimately presenting their findings as nature and culture detectives.

This poem, written in a voice of a child, addresses the fears a child faces when starting at a new school and/or being placed in a new classroom. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD) is a comprehension strategy that builds students' prior knowledge before they read a text. During the first stage, students listen as you present the content of their reading through a lecture, often paired with a graphic organizer. Next, students read the text and compare what they have learned during the lecture to their understanding of reading the text on their own. Finally, students discuss their understanding of the text with other students in their small/large group.

Students will practice implementing engineering design principles through a water-carrying challenge in which they program a Sphero robot (*could also be done with an Ozobot*) to carry water across a desert landscape that is also designed by students.

In teams, students will create and test a water-carrying prototype and program it to navigate the desert landscape model.

Driving Questions / Scenario (what are we trying to solve or improve?)
Why is access to water important for civilizations to thrive?
How has humanity improved access to water over the centuries?
In what areas of the globe is access to fresh water still an issue? Is it an issue in your community?
How does one program a robot to move over an obstacle course?

Class Novel A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

ELA - A Long Walk to Water and accompanying related poems and nonfiction passages related to the novel.
Science - the water cycle, ecosystems and biomes
Math - geometry (circumference, distance/time, and angles), scale (7th grade)
SS - Africa, ancient civilizations, human-environmental interactions and human conflict arising from resource scarcity.

In this lesson students examine how imagery is used to represent ideas, themes, periods of history, and make cultural connections to poem, "Still I Rise." Students will reflect through written expression how resiliency is in their lives, school, and community.

In this lesson, students will complete the mid unit assessment using the final stanza of the poem.

In this lesson, students will use the poem "Skateboard" from Technically It's Not my Fault and the article "Councilman: Ban Skateboarding in Downtown Columbia."

This lesson will be completed once students have read the script of the play The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and watched the film adaptation on The Twilight Zone. Students will complete a learning menu that includes an appetizer, entree, and dessert. All students will complete the same starter and main course but will then have a choice for their dessert.

In this lesson, students will compare the experience of listening to an audio version of the poem versus reading the poem in preparation for the mid unit assessment.

Many students read without questioning a text or analyzing the author's viewpoint. This lesson will introduce students to recognizing point of view of the author. By reading two versions of the same tale and completing an interactive Venn diagram, students recognize that there are not only different versions of a story, but also different viewpoints to consider when reading.

In this activity, students read a fairy tale that deals with the tradition of European royalty only letting their children marry people of similar high social class.

This lesson will be completed once students have read the script of the play A Raisin in the Sun and watched the film adaptation. Students will complete a learning menu that includes an appetizer, entree, and dessert. All students will complete the same appetizer and entree but will then have a choice for their dessert.   

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade English Language Arts. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade ELA.