English 6

Reading
Our main goal in 6th Grade Reading is to help each student develop and foster a love of reading. Students choose their own reading materials, share their insights and observations with classmates through book talks, and confer regularly with their teacher.  Students are encouraged to push themselves to explore new genres and styles of writing, and to share what they find with their classmates.  Our classroom and hallways are abuzz with students making book recommendations, sharing details of surprising plot twists, and challenging each other to meet their reading goals.   

This course emphasizes the joy and power of reading as a gateway to understanding ourselves and the world around us. Students will develop both analytical reading skills and a personal connection to literature that will serve them throughout their lives.

Communication and Connection
The bedrock objectives of our class are to inspire in students a love of reading, writing, listening, speaking, language, and learning that extends beyond the classroom, and to instill confidence in finely developed close reading and in effective writing and communication skills.  These skills and studies are nurtured through rich, robust texts that share diverse perspectives and stories that underpin shared experiences as a community while also developing each student’s individual voice.  Within the class, there are many opportunities for students to create and explore within a variety of areas of study.  Writings, readings, and projects are designed to support different learning and readiness styles and interests.  Differentiation, to support all learners, is woven into the fabric and spirit of the class.

The tools and terminology of literary analysis are taught so that students can write knowledgeably, accurately, and confidently about literature and their studies, and participate in class discussions of challenging and diverse texts and genres. The archetypes and milestones of the Hero’s Journey are also studied and applied, helping students see broader global themes and connections among stories, cultures, languages, and texts. We also explore the journeys of the characters we read about, our own, and those of important figures in our lives. With an emphasis on empathy and nurturing student agency and voice, students learn to defend their informed opinions, support their ideas, and listen carefully to consider and converse with other points of view in a respectful and safe atmosphere. Vocabulary is drawn from the literature and studies at hand, as well as from class discussion, and we focus a great deal on the application and precision of language. Grammar is taught traditionally, through both direct instruction and contextual learning, in Sixth Grade, beginning with the parts of speech and moving on to sentence construction, as well as in the context of the literature we read and our world. 

Students engage in thoughtful, evidence-based research, and the foundational practices of Writing Workshop support our class's writing philosophies. Writing assignments offer a wide range of opportunities, including creative and expository writing; journals; personal narratives; letters; paragraphs and essays; and poetry. Artwork and multimedia genres will often augment written work and study. Students also gain important skills in public speaking and presentations.

Students experiment with a wide variety of writing forms: personal narrative, letter, short story, character description, essay, journal, and poetry. Some assignments are specifically designed to enhance and assess reading comprehension; at other times, students choose topics and styles of interest to them.

Pre-AP English 1: The Reading and Writing of Literature

This course is built on the belief that every student deserves meaningful opportunities to learn, grow, and succeed as a reader and writer. Grounded in the College Board's Pre-AP English 1 framework and back-mapped to AP course expectations, our class develops the foundational critical-thinking, reading, and writing skills students will carry into high school, college, and beyond.

Reading Literature 
The aim of the reading portion of this course is to cultivate a classroom of engaged, habitual readers who not only enjoy the texts they encounter but also develop the skills to observe carefully and think deeply. The course trains readers to observe small details in a text in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of the whole. Students will learn to sift through textual evidence, draw conclusions from textual details, and synthesize those details to identify evidence that supports a position or analysis.

The goals for the Reading of Literature portion of this course are: 1) to increase the volume of habitual student reading; 2) to increase the complexity of students' critical written responses in preparation for AP-style analysis; and 3) to help students develop and articulate personal criteria for what types of books, stories, and poems appeal to them — and explain why.

Writing Literature 
Our approach to writing can be summarized as: "When we study the genres we write, we WRITE to READ and READ to WRITE." Writing informs our ability to analyze authorial choices and techniques; by applying rhetorical strategies ourselves, and by studying mentor texts, students more effectively identify literary techniques in context. 

Students have frequent opportunities to engage deeply with texts and compelling higher-order questions, and throughout this course, they experience shared instructional practices and routines that help them develop and strengthen the critical thinking skills they will need in high school, college, and life.