Spur 6-Language Arts

Course Description:
In this full-year sixth-grade course, students develop a mastery of reading, writing, and language arts skills. Students grow as readers and writers as they read critically, analyze texts, and cite evidence through a vast range of engaging literary and informational reading selections. Students explore a full unit on Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Through the Looking Glass and read essential parts of other fictional texts including Holes, Esperanza Rising, and The Number Devil. Students also evaluate poetry and drama, such as a poem by Langston Hughes and an excerpt from Brighton Beach Memoirs. In order to help students comprehend text structure, author’s purpose, and argumentative claims, the course delves into nonfiction, from a biography of Frida Kahlo to a historic speech about the Brooklyn Bridge. Students sharpen their vocabulary, grammar, and listening skills through explicit modeling and ample practice. Students also engage in routine, responsive writing based on an examination of the variety of texts they have read. In more extensive process-based writing lessons, students write topical essays in narrative, informative, analytical, and argumentative formats. Course Prerequisites:
Acceptance into Spur Virtual Academy Required Materials:
A computer (or similar device) and access to high speed internet. Course Accessibility:
Spur Virtual Academy uses the Edgenuity program for students in grades 6-12 and VLNPartners for students in grades K-5. Both platforms wantall users to have equal access to the information and functionality of the learning materials and are committed to making their educational resources and websites accessible to individuals with disabilities and to meet appropriate standards includingWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0at Conformance Level AA. Course Participation:
Student participation in this course is documented by the following:

• Student active time in course logged by the learning management system.
• Coursework submissions recorded by the learning management system.
• Percentage of coursework completed. Completion of weekly steps.
No
• Synchronous time with the class, a group or the virtual education teacher recorded by the learning management system or teacher.
• The virtual education teacher verifies participation in the course 1-3 times a week.
• Teachers will verify one or more of the following as course participation: 60 or more active minutes for the course recorded in the LMS,weekly coursework submitted for the course in the LMS, recommended weekly steps completed for the course in the LMS, 3% progress completed for the course recorded in the LMS, attendance at a synchronous session for the course recorded by the teacher of record.