Sixth Grade Language Arts
Quarter 2
Welcome to Quarter Two!
Congratulations to you and your student for making it through the first quarter of middle school! I have seen tremendous growth in your students in academics, as well as in adjusting to what it means to be a middle school student. I am looking forward to seeing them continue to grow as we move into this new quarter.
What are we reading?
We will be finishing up the novel, Freak the Mighty. Students are studying themes such as friendship, overcoming obstacles, and accepting those who are different. We are working on reading comprehension, character analysis, and studying author's craft.
What are we writing?
Our biggest focus has been narrative writing, or writing a story. Students are applying what they observe in author's craft from our novel to their own writing. Specifically, we are working on figurative language and dialogue.
What else?
We are also currently studying nouns, pronouns, and Greek and Latin roots.
What to expect before Fall Break
We have two big assignments before Fall Break:
- We are currently working on a second narrative. This time students are rewriting a chapter from the novel from a different character's perspective.
- Next week, we will be having a Socratic Seminar. Students will be discussing important themes from our novel in a structured, graded format.
What's Next?
What will we read next?
After Fall Break, we will begin reading Call of the Klondike. This is a non-fiction novel. We will be learning how reading non-fiction is different than reading fiction.
What will we write next?
With this novel we will be doing a lot of expository writing. First, ensuring that students are confident in paragraph writing, moving forward to essay writing. We will continue to practice narratives in this unit as well.
What else?
We will continue to work on pronouns and Greek and Latin roots. We will also begin working with prepositions.
With that...
Thank you for sharing your wonderful students with me! They are so polite and eager to learn. I look forward to coming to work every day because of them. Please feel free to email me with any questions.