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Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings: Grade 6

Essential Questions Enduring Understandings

Overarching Grade Level

Essential Questions

How do my past experiences

affect who I am?

How do I decide who I am?

All of us experience highs and lows in our lives. How we choose to think about them affects the way we think about and respond to new experiences.

All of us have strengths and interests that we can choose to develop.

Units of Study Unit #1 – Reading to

Understand Myself

How does an author’s viewpoint impact the text and the reader?

How can reading and

discussing texts help one to

clarify values and define the

most important human

qualities?

Texts are meant to be questioned

Learning about others’ qualities and values, both fictional and real, helps to clarify thinking about one’s own values and define one’s qualities.

Unit #2 – Writing to

Understand Myself

How do I draw from my experiences to create meaningful texts?

What makes writing effective?

How can writing help me to learn?

Writers use personal experience to create meaningful texts.

Writing is effective when it’s honest and specific.

Writing helps me to clarify my thinking

Unit #3 – Reading Fiction How does my understanding of literary elements increase my enjoyment of fiction, poetry and drama?

How is my understanding of a text deepened by my conversation with others?

How do I know which

Capable learners are well equipped to recognize the value of the literary elements authors have chosen.

Determining the meaning in text requires a curious learner to respond personally to the author’s intent.

Confident readers are well

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reading strategies are best to use when I’m stuck?

How does reading, reflecting, and discussing what I read help me understand who I am?

equipped with complex reading strategies.

Curious learners listen to understand others’ thinking and seek to challenge and clarify their own thoughts.

Unit #4 – Reading

Nonfiction

When our interests make us curious about a topic, how do we learn more about it?

How do capable readers make sense of nonfiction text?

How do responsible readers judge the accuracy of nonfiction text?

How do we read nonfiction text to clarify what we personally agree and disagree with?

Readers read nonfiction to satisfy their curiosity about the things they are interested in.

Capable readers choose specific strategies to make meaning of nonfiction text

Responsible readers are able to make better personal choices when they evaluate the accuracy of information in a reading to determine the validity of the writer’s view point.

Reading nonfiction text helps me decide what I value and respect.

Unit #5 – Writing Nonfiction How do I effectively support what I believe?

How do I make the information I share memorable?

Beliefs can be strengthened or challenged with credible evidence

Information is more memorable when enriched with clear and interesting examples

Yearlong Commitments

Article of the Week Why is reading critically

essential to my growth as a

person?

Critical literacy builds background knowledge in readers, engages them to read beyond the assigned text, and encourages them to take action.

Building a Learning

Community

Sustained Silent Reading How valuable is my ability to read critically?

How can reading texts of opposing views enhance my ability to be a creative,

Literate and critical consumers of

information and ideas read large

volumes of text, at ever increasing

levels of complexity.

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effective citizen?

How does reading, reflecting in a journal, and discussing what I read help me understand who I am?

How do I know which reading strategies are best to use when I’m stuck?

How is my understanding of a text deepened by my conversation with others?

Creative, thoughtful and effective

problem solvers nurture their

capacity as citizens of a democracy

through the reading of varying

viewpoints and ideas.

Determining the meaning in text

requires a curious learner to

respond personally to the author’s

intent.

Confident readers are well

equipped with complex reading

strategies.

Curious learners listen to

understand others’ thinking and

seek to challenge and clarify their

own thoughts

Resources for Writing

Workshop

How do I draw from my experiences to create meaningful texts?

What makes writing effective?

How can writing help me to learn?

Writers use personal experiences to create meaningful texts.

Writing is effective when it's honest and specific.

Writing helps me to clarify my thinking.

Word Study How can students identify the parts of a word?

How can students combine and create new words using the root, prefixes and suffixes?

How does adding a suffix change a word?

How do students apply word parts to determine the meaning of a word?

How do students apply knowledge of word parts to determine the correct spelling of a word?

Most words in English have parts that can be identified.

Many words share similar parts.

Students can use the parts of a word to aid their reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.