Grade 6 English Language Arts
10 units matched to the Manitoba Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Learning focus
- A1 Oral Language Communication: Learners will apply listening and speaking skills to receive, exchange and develop ideas for various purposes and audiences.
- A2 Language as the Foundation for Reading and Writing: Learners will develop and apply the understanding of the system of language (knowledge and skills) and language comprehension for reading and writing.
- B1 Acquire New Information: Learners will activate, acquire and build background knowledge through inquiry of diverse topics and engagement with multimodal forms of text (e.g., visual, oral, print, digital, experts, Elders).
- B2 Construct Meaning: Learners will understand and apply a variety of comprehension strategies to construct the meaning of text and consolidate new information.
- B3 Think Critically about Multimodal Text and Respond: Learners will recognize, analyze, and respond critically to inequities, bias, and viewpoints in texts and ideas.
- C1 Generate Ideas, Create Plan and Draft/Prototype: Learners will generate ideas, conduct research, evaluate sources, and design a plan to compose multimodal texts (visual, multimedia, oral, written) for a range of purposes and audiences.
- C2 Enhance the Clarity and Artistry of Multimodal Texts: Learners will apply knowledge and understanding of the variables of writing to enhance the clarity, precision and effectiveness of their creations and reflect critically on created text.
- C3 Edit and Publish: Learners will apply knowledge of editing to communicate the text clearly and coherently to an audience, using a variety of media, tools and strategies to publish text.
- D1 Share Ideas and Information: Learners will use a range of multimodal forms of communication (e.g., visual, multimedia, oral and written texts) to share, clarify, and extend ideas/ information for different purposes and audiences.
- D2 Assess and Set Goals: Learners will use metacognition (the ability to think about one’s own thinking) to assess their language skills as listeners, speakers, readers, writers, viewers and representers, supporting their grow as independent learners. Learners will set goals and monitor progress.
Units
Unit 1
Close Reading
Reading original stories and information texts, then finding the theme or main idea, making inferences, explaining why characters act as they do and choosing the sentence that best supports an answer.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.B2.3, ELA.6.B2.5, ELA.6.B2.6 · making predictions, checking understanding and summarizing key ideas
Unit 2
Point of View
Telling first person, third person limited and third person omniscient apart, and thinking about what each narrator can and can't know.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.B3.3 · how the point of view chosen by the text creator shapes a text
Unit 3
Figurative Language
Naming similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, alliteration and idioms, explaining what they mean, finding the sense an image appeals to and working out what a symbol stands for.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.C2.3, ELA.6.B2.1 · figurative language, vivid verbs and specific nouns
Unit 4
Connotation & Tone
Words can share a dictionary meaning (denotation) but carry different feelings (connotation), like “cozy” and “cramped.” Students choose words for effect and identify a writer's tone.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.C2.4, ELA.6.A2.5 · word choice, tone and the feeling of words
Unit 5
Make Your Case
Building an argument: stating a claim, choosing the strongest evidence, recognizing counterarguments and rebuttals, spotting persuasive techniques and ordering a persuasive paragraph.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.C1.4, ELA.6.D1.3 · persuasive writing and presenting ideas to persuade
Unit 6
Sources & Bias
Separating fact from opinion, judging whether a source is reliable, spotting loaded words and one-sided reporting, and asking who made a message and why.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.B3.2, ELA.6.B1.4 · bias in sources, and checking information
Unit 7
Agreement
Making verbs agree with their subjects (even with tricky phrases, “each,” “everyone” and “either…or”) and choosing pronouns that clearly match the nouns they replace.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.C3.4, ELA.6.C2.2 · subject-verb agreement in sentences
Unit 8
Sentence Repair
Spotting sentence fragments, run-on sentences and comma splices, and choosing correct ways to fix them with periods, semicolons, joining words or dependent clauses.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.C2.2, ELA.6.C2.5 · fixing fragments and run-ons when revising
Unit 9
Commas & Clauses
Finding dependent clauses, telling simple, compound and complex sentences apart, and using commas in lists, compound sentences, introductions and appositives.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.C3.4, ELA.6.C2.2 · commas and clauses in simple, compound and complex sentences
Unit 10
Roots & Analogies
Using Greek and Latin roots (like “geo,” “aud” and “port”) to work out unfamiliar words, and completing analogies that compare word relationships.
Learning outcome: ELA.6.A2.4, ELA.6.A2.5 · word parts, roots and relationships between words
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