Literacy+Skills+Assessments


 * **6th Grade Knowledge ** || **6th Grade Skills ** ||
 * **Reading**
 * Identify and interpret statements of fact and opinion
 * Identify bias and exaggeration
 * Discuss and evaluate the importance of media in daily life
 * Evaluate the role of media as a source of both entertainment and information
 * Compare and contrast types of media
 * Identify inaccurate and misleading information
 * Identify, analyze, and apply propaganda techniques
 * Compare and contrast the different word choices used by writers versus speakers for a variety of purposes
 * Evaluate the effectiveness of propaganda within media campaigns, presentations, speeches, and/or debates
 * Evaluate the effectiveness of multi-media tools within campaigns, presentations, speeches, and/or debates


 * Writing**
 * Analyze responses to determine and understand how writers take a position, develop a clear argument, and provide evidence for points
 * Reflect on bigger ideas and make or defend a claim that is substantiated
 * Respond to a text in a way that reflects analytic or aesthetic thinking
 * Restate a claim with further evidence
 * Select a topic for a debate, speech, or media project
 * Gather research or evidence to support ideas for debate, speech, or media project
 * Use propaganda and/or persuasive techniques to write an effective debate, speech, or media project
 * Create an effective multi- media presentation that demonstrates an understanding of a specific topic
 * Practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information, technology, and media
 * Use established criteria to design and develop a media project for a targeted audience


 * Speaking and Listening**
 * Present speech, debate, or media project to peers (in small groups, fishbowl, etc.)
 * Speak in a manner that engages the audience (volume, expression, mannerisms)
 * Focus on the speaker (eye contact, appropriate feedback, etc.) || **Thinking Beyond the Text**
 * Recognize, understand, and discuss symbolism
 * Change opinions or understandings based on new information or insights gained from nonfiction texts


 * Thinking about the Text**
 * Notice and provide examples of the ways writers select words to convey precise meaning
 * Understand how layout contributes to the meaning and effectiveness of nonfiction texts
 * Provide specific examples and evidence to support statements about the quality, accuracy, or craft of the text
 * Recognize the writer’s use of language to convey irony or to evoke sensory images, feelings, or mood
 * Think critically about informational texts in terms of quality of writing, accuracy, and the logic of conclusions
 * Critique media messages with regard to legit or presentation of evidence
 * Examine information regarding the credibility of the speaker or media messages
 * Recognize faulty reasoning and bias in media messages and nonfiction texts
 * Identify, analyze, and critique persuasive techniques


 * Persuasive Writing**
 * Writing Process**
 * Participates in the revision and editing process of any drafts based on suggestions (self and peer)
 * Critiques own and others’ work
 * Collaborates with others
 * Engages in self-reflection
 * Rehearses & plans, drafts & revises, edits/proofs, sketches & draws
 * Views self as a writer


 * Persuasive Writing**
 * Focus**
 * Clear controlling point (position)
 * General awareness of the topic, task, and audience
 * Write in both first and third person
 * **Use paragraphs to organize ideas (more than 5)**
 * **Use transitions to support the pace and flow of the writing**
 * **Use language to establish a point of view**
 * Use transitional words for time flow (eventually, suddenly)
 * Establish a main or controlling idea that provides perspective on the topic
 * Hold the reader’s attention with clear, focused content
 * Clearly communicate main points
 * Engage the reader with ideas that show strong knowledge of the topic
 * Use a variety of ways to focus a subject (time and thematic)
 * Content**
 * Specific, illustrative details
 * A purpose that is supported with well-chosen details
 * Argument supported by some relevant evidence
 * A sufficiently elaborated purpose
 * Clearly presented information
 * Persuasive strategies are evident
 * Engage readers’ interest by presenting a problem, conflict, interesting person, or surprising information
 * Support ideas with facts, details, examples, and explanations from multiple authorities
 * End a persuasive text with a thoughtful conclusion
 * Provide details that are accurate and relevant


 * Expository Writing**
 * Focus**
 * Write in both first and third person
 * **Use paragraphs to organize ideas (more than 5)**
 * **Use transitions to support the pace and flow of the writing**
 * **Use language to establish a point of view**
 * Use transitional words for time flow (eventually, suddenly)
 * Establish a main or controlling idea that provides perspective on the topic
 * Hold the reader’s attention with clear, focused content
 * Clearly communicate main points
 * Engage the reader with ideas that show strong knowledge of the topic
 * Use a variety of ways to focus a subject (time and thematic)


 * Content**
 * Engage readers’ interest by presenting a problem, conflict, interesting person, or surprising information
 * Support ideas with facts, details, examples, and explanations from multiple authorities
 * End an informational text with a thoughtful conclusion
 * Provide details that are accurate and relevant


 * Organization**
 * **Use well-crafted paragraphs to organize ideas**
 * **Choose a persuasive format and organize the text appropriately**
 * **Use the structure of persuasion and exposition, a non-narrative, with facts and information ordered in a logical way**
 * **Use underlying structures to present different kinds of information (established sequence, temporal sequence, compare and contrast, problem and solution, cause and effect)**
 * **Use a variety of beginnings and endings to engage the reader (for example, surprise, circular story, question)**
 * **Begin with a purposeful and engaging lead that sets the tone for the piece**
 * **Bring a piece to closure, to a logical conclusion, through an ending, summary statement, or call for action**
 * **Use time appropriately as an organizing tool**
 * Organize the text to fit the choice persuasive format
 * Put important ideas together to communicate about a topic


 * Style**
 * Vary sentence length to create feeling or mood and communicate meaning
 * Vary sentence length and take risks in grammar to achieve an intended effect
 * **Show through language instead of telling or commentary**
 * **Use a variety of transactions and connections (words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs)**
 * **Arrange simple and complex sentences for an easy flow and sentence transition**
 * **Use words in figurative ways to make comparisons (simile, metaphor)**
 * **Use language to establish a point of view**
 * Creates a consistent point of view and tone
 * **Vary language and style as appropriate to audience and purpose**
 * Write in first, second, and third person to create different effects
 * Select precise words to reflect the intended message or meaning
 * **Use a range of descriptive words to enhance the meaning**
 * **Use strong verbs (active rather than passive, and more descriptive or interesting than words typically used; for example, hurled instead of threw)**
 * **Use strong nouns (more descriptive or interesting than words typically used; for example, matriarch instead of mother)**
 * **Learn new words from reading and try them out in writing**
 * **Use transitional words for time flow (next, while)**
 * **Use memorable or vivid words (transcend, luminous)**
 * **Select and write appropriate words to convey intended meaning**
 * **Use vocabulary appropriate for the topic**
 * **Vary word choice to create interesting description or dialogue**
 * **Use figurative language to make comparisons (simile, metaphor)**
 * **Use colorful modifiers and style as appropriate to audience and purpose**
 * **Choose words with the audience’s background knowledge in mind**
 * **Use words that convey an intended mood or effect**
 * Use repetition to create a particular effect
 * Write with a cadence that demonstrates the individualistic style of the writer
 * **Use punctuation to support voice or tell the reader how to read the text (commas, ellipses, dashes, colons)**
 * **State information in a unique way**
 * **Write texts that have energy**
 * **Write in a way that shows care and commitment to the topic**
 * **Use examples to make meaning clear**


 * Conventions**
 * Appropriately punctuate heading, sidebars, and titles
 * Write a variety of complex sentences using conventions of word order and punctuation
 * **Vary sentence structure and length for reasons of craft**
 * **Use a range of sentence types (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory)**
 * **Use objective and nominative case pronouns (me, him, her, he, she)**
 * Identify all parts of speech
 * Use dependent and independent clauses correctly to communicate meaning
 * **Correctly use verbs and objects that are often misused ([verb] to her and me; she and I [verb])**
 * Use nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions in agreement and in conventional order with sentences
 * Write sentences in past, present, future, present perfect, past perfect and future perfect tenses
 * Maintain consistency of tense
 * **Understand and use paragraph structure (indented or block) to organize sentences that focus on one idea**
 * **Create transitions between paragraphs to show the progression of ideas**
 * **Use a capital letter for the first word of a sentence**
 * Use a capital letter for all proper nouns
 * Identify and use special uses of capitalization (headings, titles, emphasis)
 * Use capitalization correctly within titles and headings
 * **Use capitalization for specialized functions (emphasis, key information, voice)**
 * Use more complex capitalization with increasing accuracy, such as abbreviations and within quotation marks
 * Notice effective or unusual use of punctuation marks by authors
 * **Try out new ways of using punctuation**
 * **Understand and use ellipses to show pause or anticipation, usually before something surprising**
 * **Use dashes to indicate a longer pause or slow down the reading to emphasize particular information**
 * Consistently use periods, exclamation points, and question marks as ending marks
 * **Use commas and quotation marks in writing dialogue**
 * **Use apostrophes in contractions and possessives**
 * **Use commas to identify a series**
 * **Use brackets to set aside a different idea or kind of information**
 * **Use colons to indicate something is explained or described**
 * **Use commas and parentheses to set off parenthetical information**
 * **Use hyphens to divide words**
 * **Use indentation to identify paragraphs**
 * **Use semicolons to divide related parts of a compound sentence**
 * **Be aware of the spelling of common suffixes (for example, -ion, -ment, -ly)**
 * **Spell a full range of contractions, plurals, and possessives correctly**
 * **Spell words that have been studied (spelling words) correctly**
 * **Spell multisyllable words that have vowel and r**
 * Use difficult homophones (principal, principle-counsel, council) correctly
 * Understand that many English words come from other languages and have Greek or Latin roots
 * Use word origin to assist in spelling and expanding writing vocabulary


 * Crafting Media Messages**
 * Develop and demonstrate a personal style as the developer of a media message
 * Have an audience in mind before planning a media message
 * Demonstrate awareness of the knowledge base and interests of the audience
 * Select genre of media message with audience in mind
 * Demonstrate the ability to select important information for a concise presentation
 * Use language appropriate for an media message (rather than slang or dense lifeless text)
 * Demonstrate awareness of and sensitivity to the use of words that implies stereotypes (race, gender, age) in general as well as to a particular audience
 * Demonstrate awareness of words that have connotative meaning relative to social values
 * Use specific vocabulary to argue, draw contrasts, indicate agreement and disagreement
 * Demonstrate understanding through full development of a topic using facts, statistics, examples, anecdotes, and quotations
 * Make persuasive media messages that presents a clear and logical argument
 * Use persuasive strategies (compelling examples, appeal to emotion)
 * Address counter arguments and listener bias
 * Deliver both formal and informal presentations and vary content, language, and style appropriately
 * Support the argument with relevant evidence
 * Use effective presentation ‘devices (examples, case studies, analogy)
 * Create nonlinear presentations using video, photos, voice over, and other elements
 * Select appropriate forms of graphics to represent particular types of data (for example, bar or line graphs)
 * Use digital photos or illustrations from the Internet


 * Library Media Skills: Technology Communications**
 * Digital Citizenship**
 * Document multiple sources (primary and secondary) to support points
 * Understand ethical issues related to electronic communication
 * Understand how to protect personal identification on the Internet
 * Understand the concept of networking and be able to identify various components of a computer system
 * Demonstrate knowledge of strategies used by media games, video, radio/TV broadcasts, websites to entertain and influence people Critically read material published on Internet and compare points of view
 * Search to authenticate sources of information
 * Understand that material downloaded from interactive media should be credited and cited
 * Locate and validate information on the Internet (from approved sites)
 * Cite material downloaded from interactive media


 * Information Research**
 * Draw information from both text (print) and non-text (photos, sound effects, animation, illustrations, variation in font and color) elements
 * Search for and download information on a wide range of topics
 * Understand the importance of multiple sites and resources for research
 * Use technology tools for research across curriculum areas
 * Recognize that information is framed by the source’s point of view and use this information to detect bias on websites
 * Use the Internet to examine current events, gathering several points of view
 * Select appropriate forms of graphics to represent particular types of data (for example, bar or line graphs)
 * Use digital photos or illustrations from the Internet
 * Understand the connection between presentation (text and non-text elements) on a website and its intended audience
 * Communicate knowledge through multimedia presentations, desktop published reports, and other electronic media
 * Frame points and issues to create persuasive productions ||