Sixth Grade Language Arts Syllabus 2013 - Lake Harriet Community ...

Sixth Grade Language Arts Syllabus 2014-­‐2015 Peg Eiden Room 208 Peggy.Eiden@mpls.k12.mn.us (Email is the best way to reach me.) Class website: http://lakeharriet.mpls.k12.mn.us/ms_eiden_-­‐_spanish The sixth grade language arts curriculum focuses on reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking. It is aligned with our Minnesota Language Arts Standards. This year’s theme is “How do I fit into society?” It encompasses community involvement, justice, and discovering oneself. Language Arts Units: The process of shared inquiry In September, we will use shared inquiry to analyze and discuss texts. In this “mini-­‐unit,” we will read three Junior Great Books selections and participate in shared inquiry discussions with these rich stories. These shared inquiry discussions will provide practice and a framework for future discussions during our extended units. How people impact their community Next we will study how people impact their community by reading the novel Seedfolks. In this unit we will also read the story, “What do fish have to do with anything?” by Avi, and the poems, “Alone” by Maya Angelou and “No Man Is An Island” by John Donne. The culminating assignment will be a first-­‐person narrative about a time when you made a connection with a person, group, or place. How our choice impact others Starting in January, we will talk about the choices me make every day in how we treat those around us. Together we will read Wonder, by r.j. palacio. Students will have class discussions on how choices impact others whether we mean for it to happen or not. We will also have conversations about what bullying is, and how ways we deal with it. Other school social worker will come in and facilitate meaningful conversations about our actions. Journeys and discoveries In February and March, we will read the novel, Walk Two Moons while we address the theme of discovering who we are. In this unit, we will also read myths about Prometheus and Pandora, and the poems, “the little horse is newlY” by e.e. Cummings and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The unit will finish with a five-­‐paragraph essay analyzing a message and three characters from Walk Two Moons. Ideas of justice In April and May, we will investigate fairness from multiple points-­‐of-­‐view while reading the novel Touching Spirit Bear. The companion texts for this unit include the folk tale “The Quality of Mercy,” the poem “justice” by w.r. rodriguez, and “Portia’s Speech” (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest). The culminating assignments will be a persuasive speech from the point-­‐of-­‐view of a character from Touching Spirit Bear, and students will create a personal totem pole to represent themselves. Creating your own children’s book In November and December, students will also be analyzing children’s books and creating their own children’s book. Every student will be able to create and publish his or her own 14-­‐page hardcover book (the first copy is free; additional copies cost $20). The stories will be shared with the class when we receive them from the publisher.