6th Grade Literature

Fourth Quarter March Madness Tournament of Books!

Book/Author list:

Book Tournament authors/books:National books in bold

Katherine Applegate:  The One and Only Ivan, Crenshaw, The Wishing Tree

Sharon Creech:  Walk Two Moons, Love That Dog

Kate DiCamillo: Because of Winn Dixie, Tale of Despereaux etc...

Alan Gratz: Prisoner B3087, Refugee

Gordon Korman:  Swindle series, Schooled, Restart

Jennifer Nielsen: A Night Divided, The False Prince

Barbara O'Connor:  Wish, How to Steal a Dog

Jason Reynolds:  Ghost

Jerry Spinelli: Maniac Magee

6th Grade Literature

6th Grade Literature is split into two main parts.  The first focus is on independent reading.  Students will be given time each class to read independently.  We will keep track of this reading on reading logs in our Reader’s notebook.  Some homework will follow with these books.  I will be tracking progress and reading levels with these books.

The second part of 6th grade literature will be a combination of reading selections from the reading series and young adult novels.

We will focus on vocabulary, theme, story parts, and comprehension.

We will use workbook pages, journaling, group discussion, and final evaluations.

Some work will be done with paper/pencil in the Reader’s notebook, much of it will be done with Chrome books.

Quarter one

1.  I will be reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by AVI out loud in class.  We will use this book to go over literary elements and review how to evaluate literature and discuss it. I will introduce blogging to the students about the book, which they will then use all year for books they are reading.

2.  Literature set:  There will be 4 novels of realistic fiction.  Each is an award winning novel.  Students will choose the book they would like to read.  About 5 students per class will read each book.

We will use activities we began last year as we read these books.  Each student will have a copy of the book to use.  Besides journaling, vocabulary, discussions and quizzes, each group will develop a project to explain their book to the entire class.  It will be a group project, but each student will be assigned an individual part.

This will be the book report for first quarter.

Second Quarter

1.  As a class we will read the Newberry Award winning novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. There will be vocabulary, journals, discussions and evaluation but not a group project.

2.  We will complete an Author study this quarter as well.  Students will choose an Author they have read at least one book from, and read several books by that author.  We will dive deep into Author’s Craft in this unit.  Students will be grouped with other students reading that same author.

Third Quarter

1.  This quarter we will focus on Historical fiction and read selections from the reading series.

2.  The novel for this quarter is Newberry winning novel Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry.

The entire class will read the book and complete the activities.  This is a well known book.  Please do not have your child read it ahead of time (it is ok if they have, but will need to re-read it with the class).

3.  Each student will complete an individual book report this quarter. This is the only book report for this year. They will be able to read any book other than our class selections.  Project choices and directions will be given in January.

Fourth Quarter

1.  We will spend time this quarter looking at Myths, Legends, Tall Tales.  There is a nice selection of these stories in our textbook.

2.  Literature sets:  We will return to the model we used first quarter.  There will be 5-6 literature books available for the class to read.  Each student will choose 1.  About 5 students in each class will read a book.  They will complete all the activities and discussions.

They will complete a group project with each student having an individual part.