Sixth Grade
Sixth Grade: A Parent's Guide
Students receive instruction in reading, writing, speaking, and listening in Literacy at Pea Ridge. Each year students experience this instruction through the context of building background knowledge in social science and science. The more students know about more topics, the better they comprehend what they read and the more likely they are able to make connections beyond the text they are reading.
In Sixth Grade, we learn about the topics below.
Resilience in the Great Depression
We will study one of the worst economic situations in United States history, the Great Depression. We will explore the hardships families faced and the triumphs they endured during that period?
Some of the books we are reading include:
- Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis
- Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse
Our class will ask these questions as we read to learn more:
- What hardships did people face during the Great Depression?
- What sustained people’s spirits during the Great Depression?
- How does hardship alter the characters’ perspectives in Out of the Dust?
- What makes the characters in Out of the Dust survivors?
- How can enduring tremendous hardship contribute to personal transformation?
Hero’s Journey
We will study what makes a hero. Is it simply courage, or something more? What traits do all of us share with the most famous heroes in literature?
Some of the books we are reading include:
- The Odyssey, Gillian Cross and Neil Packer
- Ramayana: Divine Loophole, Sanjay Patel
Our class will ask these questions as we read to learn more:
- How do the stories we read exhibit the genre expectations of the monomyth?
- How do translations of The Odyssey and Ramayana expand our understanding of these texts?
- How does the monomyth genre persist in and influence the stories we tell?
- What is the significance and power of the hero’s journey?
Narrating the Unknown
Students work across multiple texts and genres to construct a complex picture of life and struggle in Jamestown, assessing the forces—both internal and external—that brought the near demise of the colony. We will ask the question: How did the social and environmental challenges in the unknown world of Jamestown shape its development and decline?
We will read:
- Blood on the River: Jamestown 1607, Elisa Carbone
Our class will ask these questions to learn more as we read:
- How do the settlers respond to the challenges of their journey to the unknown?
- How do the characters' responses to the challenges of Jamestown impact its development and decline?
- How does the art and science of observation contribute to a more complete narrative of Jamestown’s development and decline?
- How did the social and environmental factors in the unknown world of Jamestown shape its development and decline?
Courage in Crisis
Students work across multiple texts to construct a complex understanding of what it means to endure hostile environments and respond heroically to positively impact others. We will ask the question: How can the challenges of a hostile environment inspire heroism?
Some of the books we are reading include:
- Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True
- Story of Shackleton and the Endurance, Jennifer Armstrong
- I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and
- Changed the World, Malala Yousafzai and Patricia McCormick
Our class will ask these questions to learn more as we read:
- How do the characters respond to the hostile environment of Antarctica?
- How does Armstrong’s portrayal of Shackleton and his crew develop the concept of heroism?
- How do Malala and her community respond to the hostile environment in Pakistan?
- How does Yousafzai and McCormick’s portrayal of Malala develop the concept of heroism?
Each grade level addresses learning in number sense, operations and algebraic thinking, numbers and operations, measurement and data, and geometry. Our students work to build a conceptual understanding in order to think mathematically. Here you will find helpful resources for supporting your learner unit-by-unit.
Students participate in learning in Art and Music each week. The Arkansas Fine Arts Academic Standards allow students to participate in the four artistic processes, both cognitive and physical, with which artists in every discipline learn and make art: creating, performing or presenting, responding, and connecting. These are the basis of the four domains that stretch across all disciplines, grade levels, and courses in the standards. For more information on grade level Arkansas standards for Visual Art and Music, click here.
Students participate in learning in Health and Physical Education each week. The Arkansas Health & Safety and Physical Education Standards provide opportunities for students to demonstrate competency in the following domains:
- Human Growth and Development
- Healthy Skills and Relationships
- Nutrition
- Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs
- Personal Health and Safety
- Disease Prevention and Control
- Mental and Emotional Health
- Physical Competence
- Knowledge and Understanding
- Motivation and Confidence