Savvas Grade 6 English Language Arts and Reading Program Summary Section 1. English Language Arts and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Alignment Grade TEKS Student % TEKS Teacher % ELPS Student % ELPS Teacher % Grade 6 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% Grade 7 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% Grade 8 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% Section 2. Texts ● The sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade materials include high-quality texts across a variety of text types and genres as required by the TEKS. ● The materials describe their approach to text complexity as a blend of quantitative and qualitative analyses resulting in a grade-band categorization of texts. The sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade materials include a variety of text types and genres across content as required by the TEKS. Texts are appropriately challenging and are at an appropriate level of complexity to support students at their grade level. Section 3. Literacy Practices and Text Interactions ● The materials provide students the opportunity to analyze and integrate knowledge, ideas, themes, and connections within and across texts using clear and concise information and well-defended text-supported claims through coherently sequenced questions and activities. ● The materials provide students the opportunity to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts. ● The materials provide opportunities for students to build their academic vocabulary across the course of the year. ● The materials include a plan to support and hold students accountable in independent reading. ● The materials provide students the opportunity to develop composition skills across multiple text types for varied purposes and audiences. ● The materials provide opportunities for students to apply composition convention skills in increasingly complex contexts throughout the year. ● The materials support students’ listening and speaking about texts and engage students in productive teamwork and student-led discussions in a variety of settings. January 2021 Savvas Grade 6 English Language Arts and Reading Program Summary ● The materials provide opportunities for students to engage in both short-term and sustained inquiry processes throughout the year. ● The materials contain interconnected tasks that build student knowledge and provide opportunities for increased independence. These tasks are supported by spiraling and scaffolded practice. Section 4. Developing and Sustaining Foundational Literacy Skill ● N/A for ELAR 6-8 Section 5. Supports All Learners ● The materials offer differentiation supports for students who are performing below and above grade level. ● The materials provide support and scaffolding strategies for English Learners (EL) that are commensurate with the various levels of English language proficiency as defined by the ELPS. Section 6. Implementation ● The materials include a TEKS for English Language Arts and Reading-aligned scope and sequence. ● The materials include annotations and support for engaging students in the materials as well as annotations and ancillary materials that provide support for student learning and assistance for teachers and administrators. Section 7. Additional Information ● The publisher submitted the technology, cost, professional learning, and additional language supports worksheets. January 2021 Savvas Grade 6 English Language Arts and Reading Program Summary Indicator 2.1 Materials include high-quality texts for ELAR instruction and cover a range of student interests. ● The texts are well-crafted, representing the quality of content, language, and writing that is produced by experts in various disciplines. ● Materials include increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts. Meets 4/4 The materials include high-quality texts for ELAR instruction, which represent the quality of content, language, and writing that experts in various disciplines produce. The texts cover a range of student interests and include increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and multiculturally diverse texts. Evidence includes but is not limited to: Unit 1 includes a variety of genres and texts that appeal to sixth-grade students. For example, they include an excerpt from the memoir Brown Girl Dreaming by the well-known author Jacqueline Woodson who relates her childhood experiences through poetry; a short story, “The Sound of Summer Running,” by the acclaimed science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury; and other selections including texts that represent a variety of well-known contemporary writers such as Gary Soto and Sandra Cisneros. The materials provide increasingly complex themes throughout the units. For example, this first unit contains texts involving the accessible theme of growing up and features text that sixth graders can easily connect with, such as the short story “The Sound of Summer Running,” where the protagonist, Douglas, wants a new pair of sneakers for summer and finds a way that he can buy them for himself. Unit 2 includes a variety of texts by experts and well-known authors. For example, an excerpt from acclaimed primatologist Jane Goodall’s autobiography My Life With the Chimpanzees, T.S. Eliot’s classic poem “The Naming of Cats,” contemporary works such as the nonfiction article “How Smart Are Animals?” by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, and the multiculturally diverse text “The Tale of the Hummingbird,” a Puerto Rican myth by Pura Belpré, the famous librarian, author, and inspiration behind the Pura Belpré literature award. Unit 3 includes the contemporary essay “The Black Hole of Technology” by Leena Khan, with rich information about the drawbacks of constant access to smartphones. The text connects to the younger audience in this grade level and gives them an alternate perspective on how smartphones can disconnect people from the outside world. The unit also includes the multiculturally diverse vignette “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. Students read selections thematically linked to the more complex Technology and Society concept in this unit, reading more informational texts and media connections, which expose students to less accessible January 2021 Savvas Grade 6 English Language Arts and Reading Program Summary structures and content. In the informational text “The Biometric Body,” author Kathiann M. Kowalski offers an introductory look into biometrics and shares some of the benefits and concerns that come with this advanced technology. The texts align with the complicated essential question: “Is technology helpful or harmful to society?” Unit 4 contains classic Lewis Carroll texts such as “Jabberwocky,” “The Mock Turtle’s Song,” and an excerpt from the traditional Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The unit includes the contemporary essay “The Importance of Imagination” by Esha Chhabra and a multiculturally diverse novel excerpt from The Shah of Blah by Salman Rushdie. Unit 5 includes The Hero Twins Against the Lords of Death: A Mayan Myth, a contemporary graphic novel with bright illustrations that engage young readers with mythology from Mayan culture. This unit culminates with texts focused on the theme of Exploration and the essential question “What drives people to explore?” For example, students read the memoir A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly. Brierly tells about how, after getting lost at age five in a train station in India, he became an orphan and then was adopted by a family in Australia. As an adult, he later decides to find where he was born. The unit requires students to explore more complex themes and less explicit connections between the texts and the theme. January 2021 Savvas Grade 6 English Language Arts and Reading Program Summary Indicator 2.2 Materials include a variety of text types and genres across content that meet the requirements of the TEKS for each grade level. ● Text types must include those outlined for specific grades by the TEKS: ○ Literary texts must include those outlined for specific grades. ○ Informational texts include texts of information, exposition, argument, procedures, and documents as outlined in the TEKS. ● Materials include print and graphic features of a variety of texts. Meets 4/4 The materials include various text types and genres across content that meet the TEKS requirements. The materials also include print and graphic features of a variety of texts. Examples of literary texts include but are not limited to: “The Sand Castle” by Alma Luz Villanueva (science fiction) “Prince Francis” by Roddy Doyle (realistic short story) “The Naming of Cats” by T.S. Eliot (poetry) “The Tale of the Hummingbird” by Pura Belpre (myth) Excerpt from My Life With the Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall (memoir) “Black Cowboy, Wild Horses” by Julius Lester (narrative biography) The Phantom Tollbooth, Act I and Act II, a play by Susan Nanus based on the book by Norton Juster (drama) “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll (narrative poem) From The Misadventures of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, retold by Tom Lathrop (fiction) Excerpt from Sacajawea by Joseph Bruchac (historical fiction) Examples of informational texts include but are not limited to: “How Smart Are Animals?” by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent (nonfiction/science article) “So What Is a Primate?” by Faith Hickman Brynie (nonfiction/ science article) “Pet Therapy: How Animals And Humans Heal Each Other” by Julie Rovner (news article) “All the Pretty Ponies” by Oscar Casares (reflective essay/autobiographical essay) “The Black Hole of Technology”