6th Grade - Gateway 2

Materials reviewed for Grade 6 partially meet the criteria for indicator 2b. Materials contain sets of questions and tasks, but they inconsistently require students to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts in a coherent sequence related to the standards. Over the course of the year, instructional materials and identified elements stay consistent and do not grow in rigor from early in the year (considering smaller components) to being more embedded in student work at the end of the year. There are limited rubrics and scoring guides for students to work with the specifics of text components as they grow their understanding of topic and theme.

At the beginning of each text, there is a “Why this Text?” box which includes a lesson focus for that text. Underneath this box, is the “Key Learning Objective.” Each text has guided discussions in the margins of the teacher edition. These discussions focus around two or three key skills. Each text also has a set of analysis questions at the end where students typically answer five to eight questions, each with a specific target. Each set of analysis questions that accompany individual texts start with the global phrase "Cite Text Evidence – Support your responses with evidence from the text."

There is an outline provided that indicates at what point students will practice analyzing different components of the texts. For example, according to these overviews, the following skills will be covered (examples include some but not all indicated components of study):

Collection 1: The student will be able to:

• Describe characters and setting and make inferences in the context of a short story.
• Describe plot elements and analyze point of view in a short story.
• Describe the structure of a lyric poem and identify repetition and rhyme scheme.
• Cite textual evidence to analyze text features and structure.
• Determine central ideas and supporting details in informational text.

Collection 2: The student will be able to:

• Describe how characters respond and change and analyze point of view in a short story.
• Understand how personification and imagery emphasize themes and ideas in poetry and learn how to paraphrase these ideas.
• Summarize central ideas and important details and determine author’s purpose
• Analyze how anecdotes and text features contribute to the structure of a text.

Collection 3: The student will be able to:

• Identify and analyze cause-and-effect organization and determine meanings of technical language in an informational text.
• Analyze and compare poetic form and learn how poets use form, alliteration, and tone to express feelings and ideas.
• Identify and analyze how dialect and imagery, including figurative language, bring a story to life.
• Analyze elements of narrative nonfiction, including how authors establish style and tone in their writing.
• Understand the features and analyze the purpose of a documentary, as well as integrate its information with other sources.

Collection 6: The student will be able to:

• Describe literary elements and determine themes in a Greek myth.
• Understand and identify the elements of a parody and learn to compare and contrast texts in different genres.
• Analyze structure and cite textual evidence.

There are questions and tasks that support students’ understanding of these components, but they are infrequently employed over the course of the school year. Guidance for teachers to support students who exhibit misunderstandings or struggle are minimal. The following examples are representative of questions and tasks that do support students’ development in this area, but are missing instructional supports to assure learning:

• From Collection 2: “Examine lines 12-17 of ‘Animal Wisdom.’ Find two examples of imagery and describe the image that each suggests” (page 104).
• From Collection 3: “Review lines 129-142. Then reread the footnote for aboriginal. What does the footnote explain that helps you understand the people’s response to the tsunami?” (page 154). Also: “Review lines 101-121 and examine how the poet arranges the words and lines. Describe the variations in line lengths. What circumstances is the poet trying to explain, and how does the form support those ideas?” (page 165).
• From Collection 6: “Read lines 8-20. Identify the central idea in this paragraph. What details support the central idea?” (page 370).

Below is specific evidence from an anchor text in Collection 1 that is representative of how the materials partially meet the expectations of this indicator:

Analysis of Materials for “The Ravine”

The key learning objective of this story is that the student will be able to describe characters and setting and make inferences in the context of a short story. The textbook gives the teacher the following to facilitate the learning and assess if the objective is understood by the students:

• Discussion questions during the reading – ten focused on character, two focused on setting, five on inferences.
• Description of how to extend and reteach conflict and character development.
• Five questions that focus on characterization and plot and one that focuses on setting.
• A three-paragraph essay that compares and contrasts character traits.

Although all of the discussion and short answer questions focus on the key learning objective, they are not equally distributed and there is minimal opportunity for teachers to evaluate the level of understanding from each student. Much of the directions in the teacher edition are intended for whole class discussions. The short answer questions mainly assess the students’ understanding of characterization and plot; study of setting is only covered in one question. The longer performance task will also assess characters as it asks students to compare and contrast character traits. This assessment pieces in this story will really only give teachers insight into how each student understands the characters, but will not provide a deeper look into students’ understanding of key details, vocabulary, and overall craft of the piece.

Materials reviewed for Grade 6 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2c. The materials do contain some sets of text-dependent questions and tasks that require students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas across both individual and multiple texts, but instructional direction for teachers to support students' engaging in this work is not consistent nor clear. The majority of analysis questions and tasks apply to single texts, although there are occasional cross-text tasks and questions. Students may not be prepared to demonstrate mastery of integrating knowledge and ideas as an embedded part of their regular work by the end of the year, and in this case the teacher will need to create or identify resources outside the materials to support their building knowledge and demonstrating skill in this area.

Within each collection, text-specific questions appear in “Analyzing the Text” section. There are typically a range of 5-8 questions following each selection. Some questions and tasks do meet these expectations. For example, on page 126 of the Student Edition, question 5 says, "A rattlesnake and a special whale find their prey in different ways." Students are asked to to "prove" this statement by reviewing and using information from a particular part of the text.

Other questions lead the student to write more commentary and don’t specifically ask for evidence other than the general line at the top of each question section. For example, “What opinion does the author of Tall Mountain have of the wolf and of people and their effect on the environment?” Teacher directions are not included with questions like this to attend to misunderstandings about the text or its content.

In Collection 6, What Tales Tell, has students comparing versions of "The Prince and the Pauper," including a drama by Joellen Bland and a graphic story by Marvel Comics. After the third version of the story, in the Close Reader (page 128), students are asked to "Analyze the way you learn about Tom and the prince's similarities in the three versions of the story. Which version was most effective? Review your reading notes and cite text evidence in your response." This sample of work supports students' working with knowledge across texts, but this is one of the few examples across the program's year's worth of materials.

The instructional materials for Grade 6 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2d. Students are sometimes offered the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge through culminating tasks that integrate skills. Each Collection typically provides two performance tasks as culminating projects. These are often full writing projects requiring some components of research and the writing process; there are also are speaking and listening and multimedia expectations in many. To complete the performance tasks, students draw on their reading and analysis of the collection's selections as well as additional research.

However, the skills studied in the "analyzing the text" section after each piece do not necessarily lead to the culminating performance task of a writing project. The reading standards that are the focus of each analyzing the text section prepare students to be close readers, but teachers will need to rely on the Performance Assessment booklet to guide students in the writing process to support written culminating tasks. There is minimal support for the teacher to identify how and when this Performance Assessment work is used in conjunction with the main student edition.

The skills studied in the "Analyzing the Text" section after each piece sometimes lead students to completing the culminating writing performance tasks. Teachers will need to rely on the Performance Assessment booklet to guide students in the writing process in order to support written culminating tasks, as there is less guidance to support students in this area in the main student edition.

For some culminating tasks, the questions and tasks preceding do align and support students' understandings and abilities to complete the assignments. In others, the teacher will need to create or obtain other supports to ensure students have the knowledge and tools to complete the tasks.

Examples representative of the program supporting students in demonstrating knowledge through an integrated culminating task include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Collection 4 has one performance task – "present an argument in a speech." This performance task asks students to gather evidence for their arguments about whether people should own exotic animals, based on texts in the collection. There is no outside research, so students gather all evidence they need from the pieces in the textbook. This collection also has questions following the argument pieces in it that ask students whether the argument is convincing; this is preparation for the performance task.

Students will need exposure to additional language arts skills independently to prepare for the end of unit performance task. Examples representative of the need for more support in this area include (but are not limited to) the following:

• In Collection 1, the second performance task is to write an expository essay about fear. Content understanding is definitely supported with the theme of all of the pieces; however, skills support leading up to this big task is not explicit. The assignment is to “choose a fear and write an expository essay about it, using the texts [students] have read in this collection and adding [their] own research.” There are informational pieces in the collection that will help the students complete this essay, and some of the questions they have answered after each selection can be used as evidence in the essay. However, this is not explicitly stated in the textbook; rather, the teacher will have to make those connections and illustrate them to the students.

For example, after the piece, "Fear and Phobias," there is the following question: "What causes phobias? Cite evidence from the text that explains where phobias come from" (page 48). The answer to this question can help the students with evidence for the culminating project; however, nowhere in the teacher's or student's edition does it connect this. In the directions for the Performance Task B, under "Plan," the instructions include: "Look for information about the type of fear you are investigating. Jot down important facts, examples and definitions . . . ." (page 67). The teacher will need to fill in instructional supports for students to complete the essay.

• In Collection 5, the first performance task is to write a personal narrative “about a decision [students] made or will make that will have an impact on [their] immediate future.” The directions ask the students to think about the Colin Powell piece and reflect on how that decision affected his life. However, the questions after the Colin Powell piece in the unit do not focus on analyzing his decisions. Teachers will need to support students' understanding of the connections between the task and the text to ensure students are able to complete the culminating task.

The instructional materials for Grade 6 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2e. There are academic vocabulary assignments and lessons present, but the materials do not include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts. Each collection has a box for “Academic Vocabulary” at the beginning stating, “Study the words and their definitions in the chart below. You will use these words as you discuss and write about the texts in this collection.” There are generally five words in this box. As a blanket statement, students are encouraged to practice using these vocabulary words in the following areas within the collection: "Collaborative Discussion" at the end of each selection, "Analyzing the Text" questions for each selection, brief performance tasks, and the End-of-Collection Performance Tasks. Once into those sections, there is no explicit instructions for teacher guidance to support students' vocabulary development. The teacher and students must remember to include the use of the words in these areas. There is little evidence of an actual scope and sequence of skills or a "year-long plan" beyond these labeled components. There is little explicit vertical articulation of vocabulary skills or use of academic vocabulary across collections within a grade level throughout the year.

Examples of resources for vocabulary include multiple pages, although they are disconnected from the contexts of the texts:

• Students' texts include several reference pages on vocabulary and spelling (pages R52-R59), as well as a glossary of academic vocabulary (page R76) and a glossary of critical vocabulary (pages R77-R79).
• The strategy of "Using Context Clues" on page 15 is not connected to other texts or vocabulary practice pages.

For each text from the teacher edition anthology, the teacher is directed to discuss the academic vocabulary with the students from the “Applying Academic Vocabulary” section. General instructions are given before each discussion point. At the end of each text, students encounter a critical vocabulary section which encourage use of all of the critical vocabulary words with practice outside of the text content. Students are invited to discuss vocabulary as it relates to the text and/or topic and theme being studied. Support for these conversations and tasks is minimal:

• In each Collection there are directions to the teacher to share with the students this type of prompt: "As you discuss (title), incorporate the following Collection 1 academic vocabulary words: evident, factor, indicate, similar, and specific." Further instruction and modeling on how to incorporate these words is minimal.
• Performance Task A for Collection 2 has a sidebar in the plan section stating “As you plan, write, and review your draft, be sure to use the academic vocabulary words.” It repeats this for Performance Task B.

The instructional materials for Grade 6 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2f. Materials include writing instruction aligned to the standards for the grade level, and writing instruction spans the whole year. However, materials do not support students' increasing skills over the course of the school year. Materials within the anthology include prompts but do not include a full year-long plans, models nor protocols to support students' writing. The addition of the Performance Assessment booklet will be needed to support modeling, process, and practice of writing. The Performance Assessment booklet contains three individual units and one comprehensive unit. Since each of the six collections throughout the year contain multiple types of writing experiences, in order to receive the full instruction on the writing process for each mode of writing, the entire Performance Assessment booklet would need to be taught prior to end-of-collection performance tasks found within the anthology.

The materials includes opportunities for students to write in all modes required by the CCSS-ELA writing standards for Grade 6 (argumentative, narrative, and informative). It also has students do short research projects and gather evidence from multiple sources. Although it does all of these things, it does not do them in a complete manner. Teachers will sometimes need to add supplementary materials for certain tasks such as rubrics, graphic organizers, etc. to support students' learning. The anthology provides a simple outline to provide support for the specific performance task topic, but no support for the full writing process.

Performance Assessment booklet: The Performance Assessment booklet has the most complete instruction for students and teachers, however is a stand-alone piece that does not necessarily connect to the texts in the anthology. Within the Performance Assessment booklet, HMH walks students through the three types of writing; argumentative, informative, and a literary analysis essay. Students are provided sources and the ability to write in the booklet and take notes. There are close reading questions after each source that assists students in the writing task. However, for Unit 1, this sequence builds students toward writing an argumentative essay, a text type they have not even read within the anthology selections.

Within each collection in the anthology, most culminating tasks are written performance tasks. The performance tasks are engaging and meaningful activities on their own, but there is no writing support within the collection itself. Students’ reading provides models of the type of writing they will be asked to do. While students encounter multiple opportunities to build their close reading skills throughout the collection, they do not directly prepare students for the culminating performance task using the full writing process.

Collection 1 has two tasks:

• Performance Task A - Write a short story. While students closely read and analyze short stories throughout Collection 1, there is no direct instruction as to how they should brainstorm, plan, organize, draft, revise, and publish written work. This is also the first time they've even been exposed to the rubric.
• Performance Task B - Write your own Expository Essay. Even though they have written explanatory answers to text-dependent questions, students have not had exposure to crafting their own expository essay within the collection.

Examples of performance tasks across the collections during the school year that involve writing include expository essay, short story, nonfiction narrative, personal narrative, multimedia presentation and opinion essay. The teacher will have to supplement instruction for these pieces over the year. Each section has a Plan, Produce, Revise and Edit and Present section. The Plan section is usually the most in depth and supports students in the topic they will be writing about. The Revise and Edit section contains very general instructions such as, “Use the chart on the next page to evaluate the content and style of your draft.” Then there are four to five bullets with more detail. The book relies on the rubric included for students to edit.

Shorter Writing Opportunities:

After each text within a collection, there is a shorter performance task. The instructions for this performance task are usually brief and contain general instructions. In the teacher edition, there are ideas for how to implement this task. There is no rubric for this task given with the materials. Teachers would have to decide how many points to assign this and on what skills they will focus for the rubric. These shorter performance tasks include styles of writing like: essay, narrative, summary, letter, poem, description, research and analysis.

As an example, here is an excerpt from Collection 5, page 292:

“Write an essay that analyzes how the individual stanzas fit into the poem’s overall structure. Choose three or four stanzas. Decide how each stanza helps develop the plot. Note the ideas you want to include. Take notes about details and information you will include to support your ideas. Plan and organize your essay. Draft three ideas you will discuss and details to support them. Use a formal writing style. Include linking and transition words to show how your ideas are related. Use clear, precise language. Be sure your introduction and conclusion help readers understand your topic.

The instructional materials for Grade 6 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2g. While students consistently confront and analyze different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials, the materials do not include a progression of focused research projects providing students robust instruction, practice, and application of research skills as they employ grade-level reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language skills. Research skill practice and learning do not follow a clear progression; there is not an overview of research skill progressions.

When looking at the Student Resources Index of Skills for Grade 6, page R84, there are two different categories listed under research: “research, conducting, 67-68, 133-134, R8-R9” and “research questions, 186, 191.” The standards ask sixth graders to “Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.” In order to accomplish that with this project, teachers will have to add a lot of extra instruction and materials.

Conducting Research

The first instruction in research skills is found in Collection 1, pages 67-68. This is the Performance Task B – write an expository essay. There are two pages of instruction for how to do the research. These are very general. For example, “Gather Information: Look for information about the type of fear you are investigating. Jot down important facts, examples, and definitions, including: what causes this type of fear; what happens to our bodies and emotions in response to this fear; what methods can be sued to overcome this fear” (Collection 1, page 67). The only instruction for finding credible sources is the following: “Make sure facts are credible. If possible, back up facts with research or endorsements from experts” (Collection 1, page 67).

The second instruction in research skills is found in Performance Task B – write an expository essay in Collection 2, pages 133-134. There are two pages of instruction for how to complete the research. The instructions are almost identical to the research project in Collection 1.

Below are the instructions for “Do Research” from the task in Collection 1 and 2 for comparison:

Collection 1, pages 67-68:

Do Research - Use print and digital sources to find additional definitions, information, and quotations from experts.

• Search for unique or little-known facts. Make sure facts are credible. If possible, back up facts with research or endorsements from experts.
• Cite real-life examples of people living with this fear and explain how they overcame it.
• Explore and provide links to websites that can be used as resources for understanding this fear.
• Identify any visuals, such as pictures or graphs that illustrate your ideas.

Collection 2, pages 133-134:

Do Research – Use print and digital sources to gain a better understanding of how animals show intelligence.

• Search for facts that support your ideas. If possible, back up facts with research or endorsements from experts.
• Use relevant sources. Find sources online using appropriate keywords. Also use your school library to research books and magazines.
• Cite real-life examples of animal intelligence from credible sources.
• Check that the information you find is supported by the information you read in the collection.

As seen in the examples, the instruction and support for the teacher to implement is inconsistently comprehensive.