6th Grade
English

(1) Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, discussion, and thinking--oral language. The student develops oral language through listening, speaking, and discussion. The student is expected to:
   (A) listen actively to interpret a message, ask clarifying questions, and respond appropriately;
   (B) follow and give oral instructions that include multiple action steps;
   (C) give an organized presentation with a specific stance and position, employing eye contact, speaking rate, volume, enunciation, natural gestures, and conventions of language to communicate ideas effectively; and
   (D) participate in student-led discussions by eliciting and considering suggestions from other group members, taking notes, and identifying points of agreement and disagreement. (2) Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--vocabulary. The student uses newly acquired vocabulary expressively. The student is expected to:
   (A) use print or digital resources to determine the meaning, syllabication, pronunciation, word origin, and part of speech;
   (B) use context such as definition, analogy, and examples to clarify the meaning of words; and
   (C) determine the meaning and usage of grade-level academic English words derived from Greek and Latin roots such as mis/mit, bene, man, vac, scrib/script, and jur/jus. (3) Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--fluency. The student reads grade-level text with fluency and comprehension. The student is expected to adjust fluency when reading grade-level text based on the reading purpose. (4) Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--self-sustained reading. The student reads grade-appropriate texts independently. The student is expected to self-select text and read independently for a sustained period of time. (5) Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts. The student is expected to:
   (A) establish purpose for reading assigned and self-selected text;
   (B) generate questions about text before, during, and after reading to deepen understanding and gain information;
   (C) make and correct or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures;
   (D) create mental images to deepen understanding;
   (E) make connections to personal experiences, ideas in other texts, and society;
   (F) make inferences and use evidence to support understanding;
   (G) evaluate details read to determine key ideas;
   (H) synthesize information to create new understanding; and
   (I) monitor comprehension and make adjustments such as re-reading, using background knowledge, asking questions, and annotating when understanding breaks down. (6) Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed. The student is expected to:
   (A) describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected texts;
   (B) write responses that demonstrate understanding of texts, including comparing sources within and across genres;
   (C) use text evidence to support an appropriate response;
   (D) paraphrase and summarize texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order;
   (E) interact with sources in meaningful ways such as notetaking, annotating, freewriting, or illustrating;
   (F) respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate;
   (G) discuss and write about the explicit or implicit meanings of text;
   (H) respond orally or in writing with appropriate register, vocabulary, tone, and voice; and
   (I) reflect on and adjust responses as new evidence is presented. (7) Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--literary elements. The student recognizes and analyzes literary elements within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts. The student is expected to:
   (A) infer multiple themes within and across texts using text evidence;
   (B) analyze how the characters' internal and external responses develop the plot;
   (C) analyze plot elements, including rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and non-linear elements such as flashback; and
   (D) analyze how the setting, including historical and cultural settings, influences character and plot development. (8) Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts. The student is expected to:
   (A) demonstrate knowledge of literary genres such as realistic fiction, adventure stories, historical fiction, mysteries, humor, and myths;
   (B) analyze the effect of meter and structural elements such as line breaks in poems across a variety of poetic forms;
   (C) analyze how playwrights develop characters through dialogue and staging;
   (D) analyze characteristics and structural elements of informational text, including:
   (I) the controlling idea or thesis with supporting evidence;
   (Ii) features such as introduction, foreword, preface, references, or acknowledgements to gain background information; and
   (Iii) organizational patterns such as definition, classification, advantage, and disadvantage;
   (E) analyze characteristics and structures of argumentative text by:
   (I) identifying the claim;
   (Ii) explaining how the author uses various types of evidence to support the argument; and
   (Iii) identifying the intended audience or reader; and
   (F) analyze characteristics of multimodal and digital texts. (9) Author's purpose and craft: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies author's craft purposefully in order to develop his or her own products and performances. The student is expected to:
   (A) explain the author's purpose and message within a text;
   (B) analyze how the use of text structure contributes to the author's purpose;
   (C) analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes;
   (D) describe how the author's use of figurative language such as metaphor and personification achieves specific purposes;
   (E) identify the use of literary devices, including omniscient and limited point of view, to achieve a specific purpose;
   (F) analyze how the author's use of language contributes to mood and voice; and
   (G) explain the differences between rhetorical devices and logical fallacies. (10) Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--writing process. The student uses the writing process recursively to compose multiple texts that are legible and uses appropriate conventions. The student is expected to:
   (A) plan a first draft by selecting a genre appropriate for a particular topic, purpose, and audience using a range of strategies such as discussion, background reading, and personal interests;
   (B) develop drafts into a focused, structured, and coherent piece of writing by:
   (I) organizing with purposeful structure, including an introduction, transitions, coherence within and across paragraphs, and a conclusion; and
   (Ii) developing an engaging idea reflecting depth of thought with specific facts and details;
   (C) revise drafts for clarity, development, organization, style, word choice, and sentence variety;
   (D) edit drafts using standard English conventions, including:
   (I) complete complex sentences with subject-verb agreement and avoidance of splices, run-ons, and fragments;
   (Ii) consistent, appropriate use of verb tenses;
   (Iii) conjunctive adverbs;
   (Iv) prepositions and prepositional phrases and their influence on subject-verb agreement;
(v) pronouns, including relative;
(vi) subordinating conjunctions to form complex sentences and correlative conjunctions such as either/or and neither/nor ;
(vii) capitalization of proper nouns, including abbreviations, initials, acronyms, and organizations;
(viii) punctuation marks, including commas in complex sentences, transitions, and introductory elements ; and
   (Ix) correct spelling, including commonly confused terms such as its/it's, affect/effect, there/their/they're, and to/two/too; and
   (E) publish written work for appropriate audiences. (11) Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student uses genre characteristics and craft to compose multiple texts that are meaningful. The student is expected to:
   (A) compose literary texts such as personal narratives, fiction, and poetry using genre characteristics and craft;
   (B) compose informational texts, including multi-paragraph essays that convey information about a topic, using a clear controlling idea or thesis statement and genre characteristics and craft;
   (C) compose multi-paragraph argumentative texts using genre characteristics and craft ; and
   (D) compose correspondence that reflects an opinion, registers a complaint, or requests information in a business or friendly structure. (12) Inquiry and research: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student engages in both short-term and sustained recursive inquiry processes for a variety of purposes. The student is expected to:
   (A) generate student-selected and teacher-guided questions for formal and informal inquiry;
   (B) develop and revise a plan;
   (C) refine the major research question, if necessary, guided by the answers to a secondary set of questions;
   (D) identify and gather relevant information from a variety of sources;
   (E) differentiate between primary and secondary sources;
   (F) synthesize information from a variety of sources;
   (G) differentiate between paraphrasing and plagiarism when using source materials;
   (H) examine sources for:
   (I) reliability, credibility, and bias; and
   (Ii) faulty reasoning such as hyperbole, emotional appeals, and stereotype;
   (I) display academic citations and use source materials ethically; and
   (J) use an appropriate mode of delivery, whether written, oral, or multimodal, to present results.