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.

In this 14 day unit plan students read, research, draw conclusions, and write beginning level argumentative essays comparing/contrasting major world religions.

In this 28 day unit, students will gain background information on historic wars, compare different genres, presentations of events, recognize different points of view, research an essential question, compile evidence, create warrants that lead to a claim which answers the essential question, and write an argumentative essay.

The lesson includes an exploration of the genre of letters to the editor, a review of persuasive writing structure and letter format, and an emphasis on multi-draft writing. The lesson focuses on the character Roy Eberhardt from Carl Hiaasen’s Newbery Honor Book Hoot for its examples. Students can complete the activity for any book that they have read.

Students become novice lexicographers as they explore recent new entries to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), learn the process of writing entries for the OED, and write a new entry themselves. Students will follow up their entry with a persuasive essay and a competition in which the strongest contender for the title of New Word is chosen. Extensions will offer students a chance to evaluate old lists of "new words" and discuss the power dynamics of dictionaries.

Students examine books, selected from the American Library Association Challenged/Banned Books list, and write persuasive pieces expressing their views about what should be done with the books at their school.

Students are introduced to concepts of social justice, such as diversity, tolerance, equity, and equality, through a literary text, class discussions, and guided research. Students plan a service-learning project, then work in small groups using Photo Story software to produce a multimedia presentation designed to foster community support for the project. Students also use the ReadWriteThink.org Printing Press to create informational fliers about the project. The lesson concludes—and the service-learning project begins—with a showing of the Photo Story productions for parents and other community members.

Students will be taught the "drill skill and kill" method to be used on grammar concepts within an argumentative paper.

In this lesson the students will be using a variety of skills to analyze fiction and expository texts. This combines the reading of detective fiction with written expository analysis in the form of a Detective’s Handbook. Each student reads a detective mystery, and the class watches and analyzes Murder She Purred to establish a collective example.

Suggestions on how to guide students through the writing process when writing editorials "” from brainstorming a topic to publishing their work "” and all the steps in between.

In this lesson students draft an analytical mini-essay using partner talk and graphic organizers to guide their thinking.

In this lesson students learn to write an introduction and conclusion for their literary analysis.

In this lesson students begin their end of unit assessment by drafting their literary analysis of The Lightning Thief.

This lesson introduces students to a model mini-essay with two body paragraphs: one in which the author describes elements of mythology in the myth of Cronus, and a second in which the author describes a significant theme in that same myth.

In this lesson students determine the theme of the myth of Prometheus and connect details from the text to allusions and themes in The Lightning Thief.

In this lesson, students draft the introductory and concluding paragraphs of their End of Unit 2 Assessment: "How Does Bud Use His Rules—to Survive or to Thrive?” literary argument essay.

In this lesson, students draft the introductory and concluding paragraphs of their End of Unit 2 Assessment.

This reading and writing lesson is designed to help students learn about writing opinions based on textual evidence.

This lesson examines the characteristics of Greek heroes and leads students to recognize references to Greek mythological heroes found in literature and culture today. Students will present analyses of heroes by defending their favorites in a slideshow presentation nominatting them for selection to a Heroes' Hall of Fame.