Common Core Standards

Grade 6

Writing W.6.3

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

Yay, story time! That's what this Common Core Standard is about. According to the people who made these standards, here's what a good story will look like:

1. It'll have a setting and some sort of main character, with a plot that more or less makes sense (unless if deus ex machina is your thing, then by all means go for nonsensicalness).
2. It'll have some words in there that actually tell something about the characters or the plot.
3. It'll have some other words that show how one thing happens after another or how one thing happens in this one place and that other thing happens in that other place.
4. It'll describe things using more specific words than "good" or "bad" or "thing." In other words, it won't do what we've been doing the entire time for this standard. (As they say, the only thing worse than being vague is doing the other thing.)
5. It'll make the reader feel like they didn't just waste a small percentage of his or her life reading this story.

And that's it. Time to have students get writing on that next sixth-grade masterpiece.

Standard Components

Example 1

Here's a lesson from a unit about dealing with differences—and of course, you can adjust to any topic of your choosing.

Have students write a narrative essay about a time they formed a unique friendship. They should include first person voice, dialogue, and sensory details. Ask them to pay special attention to the organization of a narrative (beginning, middle, and ending) and the use of character in order to ensure that quality work of appropriate rigor is being practiced.

Aligned Resources

Teacher Guides

More standards from Grade 6 - Writing

If I'd had to teach to the Common Core, I would have used Shmoop, too.

Aristotle

The observed gravitational effect between Common Core activities results from their warping of Shmooptime.