Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

  
 

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 CURRICULUM

We Built This City

Unit Overview

WE BUILT THIS CITY

6th grade
6 lessons
Students learn to identify and explain grade level appropriate figurative language through reading a number of fiction, nonfiction and poetry selections.
Students use conventions of capitalization for proper nouns and proper adjectives, use apostrophes in irregular and plural possessives, and quotation marks in dialogue.
This unit consists of six lessons.  To connect all the skills and knowledge students work on a project throughout the unit known as “We Built This City”. The end product is a script for a commercial encouraging people to visit or to live in the student’s city. The work from each of the first five lessons provides the prewriting/writing for the dialogue or script that is the culminating activity of this unit. Some of the activities in this unit provide opportunities for cross-curricular studies, especially with art and technology/computer classes.
Handouts including graphic organizers
Formative and Summative Assessment
Glossary

Unit Plan: Lessons

Pretest and Present Project Word HTML (with links to documents)
What's Proper Word HTML (with links to documents)
Does this Belong to You? Word HTML (with links to documents)
Snappy Solutions, Sizzling Sentences: understanding figurative language in poems, prose, fiction, and nonfiction Word HTML (with links to documents)
Dazzling Dialogue Word HTML (with links to documents)
Come to My City Word HTML (with links to documents)

 Essential Questions:

How does the use of Standard English affect overall communication?
How do figurative language/literary devices contribute to the understanding of written and spoken communication?
What organizations, businesses and institutions will a student include in an ideal city?
How will students describe their idea cities?

Summative Assessment and Scoring Guides:

          instructions Replace the next sentence with whatever information about summative assessment is in the unit -- Students complete selected response, constructed response, and performance event portions of the assessment over the course of two days. 

Summative Assessment - Teacher Summative Assessment - Student Summative Assessment - Scoring Guide
     

 

PREVIOUS LEARNING

TARGETED LEARNING

FUTURE LEARNING

R2B:  Identify and explain figurative language in poetry and prose, including metaphor, simile personification and sensory details.

R2B:  Identify and explain figurative language in poetry, prose, and nonfiction with an emphasis on onomatopoeia and alliteration.

R2B:  Identify and explain figurative language in poetry, prose, and nonfiction with an emphasis on imagery, hyperbole, and symbolism.

W2B Use conventions of capitalization in written text in titles and proper nouns (departments of government, school subjects)

W2B:  Use conventions of capitalization in written text focusing on proper nouns (team names, companies, school, and institutions), proper adjectives, and the first word of direct quotations.

 

W2B:   Use conventions of capitalizations in written text in titles (magazines, songs, newspapers, and work of art) and proper nouns (brand names of products, and nationalities).

W2C: Compose text using commas in compound sentences and apostrophes in singular possessives.

W2C: In composing text, use apostrophe in irregular and plural possessives and use quotation marks in dialogue, with assistance.

W2C: In composing text, use comma rules for punctuating various sentence structures, correct format in writing titles, quotation marks in dialogue, and colons I business letters salutations.

W2E: In writing, correctly spell grade-level frequently used words, use spelling strategies and patterns, and classroom resources and dictionaries to verify correct spelling.

W2E: In writing, use correct spelling of grade-level frequently used words, and classroom resources and dictionary to verify correct spelling.

W2E: In writing, use dictionaries, spell check, and other resources to spell correctly.

 

 

 

 

 


Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Division of School Improvement - Curriculum Services
Email: webreplyimprcurr@dese.mo.gov
Phone: 573-751-2625

Revised: July 21, 2006

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