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ELA 6: Once Upon a Genre—Semester A

Welcome to 6th grade—Shmoop promises not to shove you into your locker.

  • Credit Recovery Enabled
  • Course Length: 18 weeks
  • Course Type: Basic
  • Category:
    • English
    • Literature
    • Middle School

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When Junie B. isn't cool anymore, and every Goosebumps book on the shelf has been read, what is there to whet a sixth-grade reader's whistle?

Of course there's always the Harry Potters, but those are all movies now. And The Hunger Games trilogy—but oh wait, those have movies too. Is there anything good out there for someone who's not an elementary schooler, but not quote a teen?

Enter Shmoop, here to put the pizzazz back into the sixth-grade reading lifestyle. No need to fear that there aren't fun and interesting things to read. Shmoop has combed the stacks for every genre. We've got the mushy, the pushy, the crazy-eyed, and the magical, the heroes, beasts, and mysteries better left unsolved.

Yep, we've worked day and night to find the school of the future, and you don't even need to take a Magic School Bus to get there.

We're not going to lie. We may have snuck in some stuff like the rules of commas or how to figure out a word's connotation. Plus, the lessons are standard-aligned, rigorous, and cover informational text, poetry, skits, art, film, and more. In fact, Semester A alone will cover:

  • Text structure, fact and opinions, and argumentative writing
  • Explanatory writing, how-tos in writing and video, fiction vs. memoir, and figurative language
  • Plot structure, inferences, and author biography and individual style

So—are you ready for middle school, or what?

ELA 6: Once Upon a Genre is a two-semester course. You're looking at Semester A. You can find Semester B here.

Unit Breakdown

1 ELA 6: Once Upon a Genre—Semester A - Jerry! Jerry!

This unit is our ode to Newbery Award-winner Jerry Spinelli. We'll read some of his contemporary fiction as well as parts of his memoir, through which we'll learn to analyze arguments by determining fact and opinion and author's bias. Writing will focus on persuasive strategies and techniques, and we'll prove our mastery through an argument essay; our language lessons will focus on the use of pronouns and pronoun agreement, case, and type.

2 ELA 6: Once Upon a Genre—Semester A - Take This Hatchet and Survive

Not into Spinelli? Try Gary Paulsen and his ridiculously awesome memoirs and fiction about isolation, inner-strength, and the power of nature. Through Paulsen's work, we'll determine main ideas and identify specific supporting details, as well as examine the art of the "how to" in nonfiction, video, and research-based writing. Language focus will be primarily on the use of figurative language—Paulsen's gripping nonfiction proves something doesn't have to be a poem to use a metaphor.

3 ELA 6: Once Upon a Genre—Semester A - The History of Mystery

This unit is a genre study on mysteries, namely the history of mystery (duh), structural elements of a mystery novel, and how and why mysteries are written. Nonfiction selections will introduce determining the author's point of view or a text's purpose, and our writing lessons will pick up where Unit 2 left off and focus on explanatory strategies and "how-to" techniques. Mysterious, right?


Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 1.03: Maniac vs. Knot

A unicorn.
C'mon kids, follow the Conflict Unicorn to learn about conflict. And magic. And rainbows.
(Source)

When was the last time you faced a conflict?

For Shmoop, it was when we were on our way to the office and got caught in a giant traffic jam. We climbed out of our car with our skateboard, took the rainbow bridge shortcut, got lost in a maze of chocolate, and then hitched a ride with a cranky unicorn.

Wait. Now that we say it aloud, we're thinking that might have been a dream. Well, anyway, you get what we're saying.

Conflict is seriously everywhere. Why else do you think there are always rumors of cafeteria food fights and penalties for showing up late to soccer practice?

In this lesson, we're going to learn about the different types of conflict, and how those types of conflict show up in Maniac Magee. As a bonus, when we learn about different types of conflict, we start to better understand how to solve these conflicts, and whether or not the conflict even matters.

Really, who knows? Maybe that cranky unicorn wasn't such a bad conflict, after all.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.03a: Vocabulary Activity

Look at you go, vocab-machine. It's time to add another word to our vocabulary collection. Remember, you'll be turning in your graphic organizer in a few days—so fill that baby out!

Today's word is:

  • vacant (adjective): empty (if it's a place) or not having interest or intelligence (if describing a person)
    Example Sentence: The creepy house at the end of the street had been vacant for years.

Fill in your Vocabulary Sheet with your own original sentence and look out for your word to appear in today's reading. Sweet.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.03b: Pre-Reading Activity

In our reading today, Maniac is going to encounter a hunk of problems similar to those listed below. Decide how you'd respond to each of the problems below. Write your responses on your Pre-Reading Sheet, in a sentence each.

  • Somebody tells you to get out of your own neighborhood. What would you do?
  • You sass your mom—on accident. What would you do?
  • People stop calling you your own name and start calling you a nickname. You're worried that they're going to forget your real name. What do you do?

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.03c: He's a Maniac! Maniac!

As we said earlier, Maniac is about to encounter more than a few problems.

For one, Maniac doesn't exactly see colors the way many people do. Though this doesn't seem like a big deal, it becomes problematic for our strange hero. Then of course, there's the matter of Cobble's Knot: the most infamous and daunting knot of all.

What are you waiting for? Mars Bar to come rip your book out of your hands? Read Chapters 14–20 in your copy of Maniac Magee, to see what sort of troubles Maniac is going to encounter.

Hop, skip, or jump into the Chapter Summaries to catch Shmoop's rundown on Maniac's daily escapades:

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.03: Caught in a Conflict

Good stories can't exist without conflict. It's a fact.

Think about the last time your BFF told you a juicy story. We doubt it was about how he/she went home and found delicious cupcakes waiting for them, so they ate them, and then were happy.

Yawn.

Nobody wants to hear that one again—sorry, cupcake-rich best friend.

No, we bet that the last time you heard a great story it was filled with conflict. Like maybe your friend thought that the cupcakes were all hers, so she ate them, but then her mom came home and grounded her because they were actually for the school's annual bake sale. Woof. Poor friend—but much better story.

As you've probably noticed, there's a ton of conflict in Maniac Magee, and we're going to start identifying it, like the cool conflict people that we are.

First, we have to learn the basics.

Conflict in literature is when there is a struggle between two forces. There are four major types of conflict:

  • Person vs. person. This type of conflict occurs when two characters are conflicting with each other. For example: when you came home to see your little sister's sticky fingerprints all over your newly polished best person ever trophy and you confronted her about it.
  • Person vs. society. This type of conflict occurs when one person is in conflict with a group or government. For example: when the authorities turn against Spider-Man because they start to think that he is a menace, Spidey is experiencing some person vs. society conflict.
  • Person vs. nature. This type of conflict happens when a person is—you guessed it—facing some force of nature, such as a storm or disaster. For example: if you were stranded on a desert island with a hungry tiger, you'd be facing two forces of nature.
  • Person vs. self. Remember the last time you didn't study for a test? If you were filled with rage—at yourself—then you have experienced some good old-fashioned person vs. self conflict.

Now that we know all of these crazy conflict types, we can connect them to our reading. Can we get a "woo-hoo"?

Part One

Download your graphic organizer for this lesson here. Then…

Step One:

Decide what type of conflict each of the following quotes represents. Write the type of conflict into the graphic organizer. See our example below.


Scene from the bookType of ConflictWhy?
Before Maniac answered, "A book," Mars Bar had snatched it from his hand. "This ain't yours," he said. He flipped through some pages. "Looks like mine."Person vs. person

Maniac and Mars Bar are both people in this conflict, hence why we just had to put it in the person vs. person category.

Step Two:

Explain why that quote represents that type of conflict. Your explanation should be as specific as possible. Specific does not mean "there is a conflict between two characters." Check out our explanation below and use this to shape your own answers:


Scene from the bookType of ConflictWhy?
Before Maniac answered, "A book," Mars Bar had snatched it from his hand. "This ain't yours," he said. He flipped through some pages. "Looks like mine."Person vs. personIn this scene, there is a conflict between the characters Mars Bar and Maniac. Mars Bar is bullying Maniac, stealing Maniac's book, and calling it his own.

Grab your copy of the organizer. Fill 'er up.

Part Two

Step One:

Find three examples of conflict from any of the chapters that we've read so far (Chapters 1–20). Place these examples on the blank spots on the graphic organizer.

Step Two:

Fill in the rest of the chart as you did for part one of this activity. Decide what type of conflict your examples represent, and explain why each example represents that type of conflict.

Step Three:

Upload your graphic organizer here. Then call yourself "King/Queen Conflict," and celebrate your accomplishments. Good stuff.

Representing Information Rubric - 25 Points

OutstandingProficientDevelopingNeeds Improvement
Content Understanding

All content is accurate and presentation reflects sophisticated understanding.

(10)

All content is accurate.

(9)

May contain minor errors.

(8)

Major errors.

(7)
Organization

Has a logical organizational scheme. Each piece of information flows logically and smoothly to the next.

(10)

Has a clear organizational plan. Information is presented logically with some sense of connection.

(9)

General sense of organizational plan. Information makes sense within it, but transitions are lacking.

(8)

Information appears disconnected or illogical.

(7)
Style

Language is clear and interesting. Enhances presentation of information. No errors.

(5)

Language is clear and appropriate to topic. Minor spelling or grammatical errors.

(4)

Language is occasionally unclear, but meaning is generally understandable. Frequent spelling/grammar errors that do not impede comprehension.

(4)

Language use makes writing very difficult to understand. Frequent spelling or grammar errors that impede comprehension.

(3)