Grades 5 to 6 - Making Connections
Fifth and sixth grade students begin to experiment with their writing in order to make an impact on their audience. As they gain confidence in their ability to express themselves, they feel more comfortable taking risks. Students practice manipulating subjects and predicates to vary their sentence style. They integrate dialogue in order to flesh out a character or add quotations to drive home a point. They play with the sequence of paragraphs to see what order works best. This experimentation helps students to make connections between ideas and pull together and use what they have learned about writing. Skills that fifth and sixth grade students practice include the development of a theme/argument and the proper formatting and structure of paragraphs.

Getting Started:
- WEX Habits and Routines to Develop a Writing Community
Skills Covered:
- Focus (topic development)
- Showing
- Sentence Mechanics & Usage I
- Sentence Mechanics & Usage II
- Dialogue & Evidence I
- Setting & Context I
- Logical Structure I
- Logical Structure II
- Strong Verbs
- Sensory Detail
- Character Development
- Verb Tense
- Subject Verb Agreement I
- Subject Verb Agreement II
- Setting & Context II
- Dialogue & Evidence II
- Punctuating & Formatting Quotations
Genre Units:
- Personal Essay
- Short Story
- Response to Literature


