WELCOME CENTAURS!
English Centaurs are embarking upon a wonderful journey. Our year is divided into units: Interactions, Habits of Mind, Structures, The Art of Persuasion, and Shakespeare. The units will include short stories, nonfiction articles, and poetry. Novels include The View from Saturday, A Solitary Blue, And Then There Were None, and Oliver Twist as well as Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing."
Sixth grade is a pivotal year. We will sharpen our skills in several areas. In grammar, we move beyond the parts of speech and analyze them in depth. For example, what makes a noun a noun, how do these words function in a sentence, or what makes a phrase a phrase, a clause a clause? Sixth graders augment their Latin studies with examining many of the Latin/Greek roots. In writing, we begin with analyzing what makes a good paragraph and move into analyzing literature, and writing essays with textual evidence. Sixth grade research includes an examination of the primary sources in the Library of Congress and relating them to the investigation of Dickens' Oliver Twist. As we move through the writing process, we learn to revise substance - hunting for that exact word that conveys the meaning we intend. The literature selections open the world; we begin with a novel about four gifted students who, through their interactions with each other, manage to find themselves....In the course of this year, you will learn about yourself and others through a lens of thinking deeply.
I have included here the English Expectations. We will go over this document in class together; the students are asked to share it with their parents and ask that they sign it and return it to Mrs. Rust.