Here is where you'll find resources for sixth-grade classrooms.

A Seating Arrangement that Empowers: The Conversation Circle Ann Marie Corgill How many of you have tried to lead a writing or reading share time with elementary students who'd rather chat with a friend about recess, or hide under the easel to confiscate the new markers, or play jingle bells with the Velcro on the new sneakers? . . . more The Triple Threat: Building a Community, Discussion Skills, and Writing Stamina Katie Doherty Students need to be able to: read and discuss texts, feel comfortable with each other so they can openly share their thinking, and be willing and able to write for lengthy amounts of time. Because there are so many things that need to be done at the start of the year, I incorporate many lessons in the first few weeks that build skills within this trifecta of necessities. . . . more "And Then and Then and Then": Moving Students from Retelling to Thoughtful Response (VIDEO) Katie Doherty confers with sixth-grader Kristina during reading workshop. Kristina is new to the classroom, and Katie demonstrates how to gently move a student from retelling to more thoughtful response to literature through a few simple and carefully worded questions. . . . more Weekend Headlines: Whole Class Share (VIDEO) Katie Doherty In this final installment of a three-part video series, Katie Doherty and her sixth-grade students continue the Weekend Headlines activity. The activity ends with a whole-class sharing and discussion of student writing. . . . more On Compassion Katie Baydo-Reed "You're a sucky teacher!" She hurled these words at me just before throwing a Kleenex box across the room, tipping over her desk, and storming out the door. I sighed and called the office. . . . more Weekend Headlines: Introduction (VIDEO) Katie Doherty In this first part of a video series, Katie Doherty and her sixth grade students begin the Weekend Headlines activity. Each Monday, students listen to Katie share some of the headlines from the local newspaper, and then they share their "headlines" from the big events that happened to each of them over the weekend. These personal headlines provide a natural starting point for writing, peer response, and revision. . . . more Conferring with Tweens: Nastia (VIDEO) Katie Doherty In this conference from a sixth-grade classroom, Katie Doherty confers with Nastia, a young English language learner who is working on her inferring skills . . . more Conferring with Tweens: Boys and Series Books (VIDEO) Katie Doherty In this conference from a sixth grade classroom, Katie Doherty confers with a boy who is reading a book from a series she is unfamiliar with. Watch how Katie engages with the child, learning about the series and continually refocusing the discussion on reading skills and goals. . . . more Great Lead Investigators Katie Doherty It's writing time. As I meander around the room and read over the shoulders of my 6th graders, I realize it's time to talk leads. Writing leads is a strategy we learn every year - at least once. This year I decided we are going to turn into Great Lead Investigators. We will start learning about great leads by noticing the gripping first sentences in our favorite books. . . . more 6th Grade Word Sort In this six-minute video, Pam Pogson leads an open word sort with her sixth-grade students. As you watch the video, you can see how experienced students are with word sorts, as well as recording their findings in their word study notebooks. . . . more Lifting the Quality of Student Reading Logs with Quotes (VIDEO) If you're looking for a way to perk up student reading journals, try a lesson on adding quotes. Katie Doherty demonstrates for her middle school students how quotes can lift the quality of writing, using student and literary examples in this 11 minute video. . . . more Strategy Instruction in Intermediate and Middle School Reading Workshops This cluster is designed to support conversations about reading strategies with tweens and teens. . . . more Clearing Up Confusion Katie Doherty Brian needed a change. He had been voraciously reading graphic novels since school began two months ago, and I had been wondering when to start nudging him to change it up a bit. Brian is a 6th grader who caught my eye almost immediately: he asked me if he could take home one of my giant yellow literature anthologies. You know the ones: the ones that are virtually unused -- save for a great story or two. The ones that sit on the bottom shelf of a catch-all bookcase. . . . more Quick Take: Katie Doherty on Middle School Reading Workshop Choices (VIDEO) In this two-minute Quick Take video, Katie Doherty explains the choices students have in her sixth-grade reading workshop. . . . more Linking Reading, Writing, and Getting to Know You Activities During the First Week of Middle School Katie Doherty The first day of 6th grade in my school is a challenge. The 6th graders get the school to themselves for a day since they are new to the building: a great idea in theory. The day begins with a tour, which includes the expectations our middle school has set forth at each destination. This means that at each location (be it the library, cafeteria, hallway, or bathrooms), the 6th graders will hear how to be Respectful, Responsible, Make Good Choices, and Safe in that particular area of the school. There are about 10 stops on this tour. It is a long tedious process that, unfortunately, many 6th graders will remember as the worst first day of school ever. After this tour, they go through their schedules to practice getting from classroom to classroom. With A and B day schedules, the kids go to eight different 15-minute classes and hear the same phrases repeatedly: how to be Respectful, Responsible, Making Good Choices, and Safe in the classrooms of our school. . . . more "The Wrath of Guess Jeans": Debrief (VIDEO) In this third video in a three-part series, Katie Doherty leads her sixth graders through a response activity. The text they are reading was written by a middle school student over a decade ago, and its themes of popularity and belonging still ring true for students. . . . more Book Matchmaker: Texts for "Outdoorsy" Boys Franki Sibberson I received this request from Carolyn: "Can we tackle the age-old problem of books that get ten-year-old boys jazzed about reading? I had many boys this past year that just didn't get drawn into a book. The boys in my school are outdoors guys. Many hike, hunt, fish, and ride their all-terrain vehicles." . . . more Seedfolks: Connecting Community and Literature Katie Doherty The first few weeks of school at any grade level should be jam packed with "get to know you" activities. There are so many great ways to share bits of information about ourselves with our students, and many of those are done in those first few weeks of school. Games like "I'm Cool Because", Three-Ball Toss, and Snowball are favorites in my classroom. These are relatively quick to organize and play, and they help kids to get to know names and laugh a bit with each other right off the bat. . . . more Quick Takes: Using Timers in Middle School Writing Workshops from Katie Doherty In this video quick take, Katie Doherty explains why she finds a timer helpful in her middle school writing workshop. . . . more "The Wrath of Guess Jeans": Response and Write-Around (VIDEO) In this second video in a three-part series, Katie Doherty leads her sixth graders through a response activity. The text they are reading was written by a middle school student over a decade ago, and its themes of popularity and belonging still ring true for students. . . . more "The Wrath of Guess Jeans": Reading, Writing, and Cliques in Middle School (VIDEO) In this first video in a three-part series, Katie Doherty leads her sixth graders through a response activity. The text they are reading was written by a middle school student over a decade ago, and its themes of popularity and belonging still ring true for students. . . . more Literary Letters: Helping New Students Understand Ongoing Assignments (VIDEO) Katie Doherty How do teachers bring new students up to speed with ongoing assignments? In this video from Katie Doherty's middle school classroom, Katie presents the latest "Literary Letters" assignment to her sixth graders. It is early spring, and all but two of the students have experience with this writing assignment. Katie helps the new students understand the assignment by using a student example as a mentor text, taking five minutes in a small group to walk the new students through the assignment and brainstorm strategies for completing it. . . . more 6th Grade Classroom Room Tour (VIDEO) Katie Doherty In this video, Katie Doherty shares how she has organized her 6th grade classroom to support different groups of students at her bustling middle school. . . . more Conferring About Inferring (VIDEO) Katie Doherty During reader's workshop, my main goal is to have students reading and practicing some form of reading strategy with the text that they choose. At the beginning of the year, this is more structured. For independent practice of a reading strategy I have students read their choice book (a novel of their choosing which they bring to class everyday), and as they are reading I will have them complete the strategy activity. As the year goes on, I give the students more choice. Reader's workshop becomes just that; a place where students can work on reading skills and strategies together. Students have the option of reading their choice book or working with a friend or two with some picture books to practice their reading skills and discuss text. . . . more "I Am the One Who. . .": Building Writing Skills and Community in Middle Schools (VIDEO) Katie Doherty In this 12 minute video, Katie Doherty leads her sixth-grade students as they try the prompt "I am the one who.." during writing workshop. This is an excellent activity for building classroom community. . . . more Changing the Learning Landscape: Organizing My 6th Grade Classroom (PHOTO ESSAY) Ann Marie Corgill It's that time of year when many of us are headed to a classroom that's been packed away for the summer, thinking, "HOW am I going to get this room together and unpack all these boxes and move this furniture?!" and "How can I make this room beautiful and purposeful for the students?" It's a big job, and even if you've been teaching for many years-or if it's your first teaching job ever, setting up the classroom and preparing that learning landscape can sometimes be overwhelming. . . . more 6th Grade Lesson - Editing for Conventions (VIDEO) In this lesson with her sixth graders, Pam Pogson talks about a goal many students have mentioned during writing conferences - editing for conventions. This brief lesson gives everyone a chance to brainstorm common errors and fixes. . . . more Inferring Read Aloud Part I (VIDEO) Katie Doherty Using picture books to teach strategy instruction is not only popular; it works. When my 6th graders see me pull out a picture book during the first week of school and "make" them hunker down on the floor, I hear a lot of groans. This is not a "middle school" thing to do. When I hear these groans I simply tell them the Truth According to Doherty: picture books are meant to be seen. That can't happen if 32 students are spread throughout the room at all angles. In my experience they get over their "picture books are soooo 5th grade" preconceptions fairly quickly as they settle down and all of a sudden start to genuinely enjoy the books we read together. . . . more 6th Grade Word Sort In this six-minute video, Pam Pogson leads an open word sort with her sixth-grade students. As you watch the video, you can see how experienced students are with word sorts, and recording their findings in their word study notebooks. . . . more Staying True to Our Beliefs When Working With Struggling Readers and Writers in Grades 3-6 Franki Sibberson I often find myself wondering how my knowledge about quality reading instruction plays out for my most struggling students. To keep myself true to my beliefs so that these students can make great progress, I think through the four things that hold true for all students and consider how they apply to struggling readers in my grades 3-4 classroom. . . . more Fostering More Curricular Collaboration in Teams: The Meeting Notes Form (TEMPLATE) Katie Doherty It's hard to be a team leader as well as the youngest teacher on my team. It can be awkward attempting to implement new ways of doing things when everyone else has been teaching longer and has their own systems established. I felt surprisingly nervous! But as we sat together at our first staff meeting of the school year, I realized how silly I was being. . . . more Bookroom Tours Part III (VIDEO) The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) In this six-minute video, The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) give a tour of a "choice" bookroom. Unlike many bookrooms organized by level and maintained by teachers, this room of chapter books is organized by author. Students are responsible for sorting, cataloging, and maintaining the books in the room. . . . more First Day of School Read-Alouds with Global and Multicultural Perspectives Mary Ann Reilly These are good picks for first day of school read-alouds with multicultural, global perspectives. . . . more Playing with Word Work: Inviting Students to See Playful Language in Books (BOOKLIST) Franki Sibberson Over the years, I have learned that for children to really be attentive to word meanings and spelling patterns, they first need to see the fun in words and language. I often get so caught up in the "skill lesson" I am trying to teach or the fact that I want kids to understand a particular word that I don't show them how much fun words can be. I can be in such a hurry to get through the spelling and vocabulary goals of the curriculum that kids jump through my hoops without being fascinated by words and language. . . . more Worth a Thousand Words: Teaching with Wordless Picture Books Shari Frost Wordless picture books are a wonderful instructional tool for teachers to use with students of any age. A few years ago when the American Library Association annouched their annual awards, we celebrated in our coaches' meeting by giving each coach a copy of the Caldecott award winning book Flotsam by David Wiesner. This was David Wiesner's third Caldecott award, the second for a wordless picture book. After the ooh-ing and ah-ing, the literacy coaches immediately began talking about how they planned to use the book. . . . more Writing Strengths Anchor Chart Suzy Kaback As a teacher of middle school students, I liked to have kids display their talents as often as possible. While students usually didn't have trouble sharing their social selves, asking them to extol their academic virtues is another story. One way to link the social with the academic self in any student is a strengths chart. On a large piece of chart paper divided into two columns, I write the names of students in the class down the left hand side and the label "My Writing Strength" at the top of the right hand side. Each student is asked to think of a writing strategy they feel comfortable using and offering to others. . . . more Comprehending Graphic Novels: A Primer for Teachers Mary Lee Hahn Graphic novels are book-length works of sequential art. Calling them graphic novels would seem to indicate that their storylines are always fiction. This could not be further from the truth, as I've come to realize. In recent months, I've read graphic fiction, graphic memoir, graphic documentary, graphic nonfiction, graphic fairy tales, and graphic mythology. I've also dipped my toe into Manga, or Japanese-style comics/graphic novels... . . . more The "All About Us" Board: Linking Literacy and Community Building All Year Long Suzy Kaback One activity that supports our community building and literacy development all year is the "All About Us" bulletin board. In preparation I divide my largest bulletin board into as many sections as there are people in the class using yarn to make the squares. I make sure there is a space for me, and I several empty squares in case a new student is added to our class, or for a student teacher to use. Each child is assigned a square to decorate with objects that will help the class learn more about him or her. I give everyone a week to fill their space, and each day the board grows more colorful and intriguing... . . . more Top 10 New Fiction Read Alouds for the Intermediate Grades Franki Sibberson I am picky about read alouds. A book that makes my list of possible read alouds has to be REALLY good. There is only so much time in a school year. I average about a book per month during read-aloud time. So, during a good year, we can possibly read aloud a total of 10 books. I have to make sure that each book is worth the time... . . . more Inviting Students to Organize Books and Materials Debbie Miller Involving kids in the organization and placement of books and materials is a smart thing for us to consider. Kids will learn a thing or two about thoughtful organization, and because they've been part of the placement process, they'll know firsthand where things are kept, why it makes sense to keep them there, and where to put things back... . . . more