middle Block:

English Language Arts

Learners in English Language Arts get to know themselves and others and use language to understand and navigate their world. Learners are offered a voice and choice while developing skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. In culturally responsive classrooms with inclusive classroom libraries, learners engage with a variety of text forms, genres, and modes. English Language Arts learning in middle school involves authentic, meaningful, and relevant materials and learning experiences. Ultimately, learners transfer their literacy skills across to other subjects, learn to advocate for themselves and others, and use their skills to achieve personal goals outside of the classroom.

CONTEXTS AND CONCEPTS

LITERACY EXPLORATION

DEVELOPING LANGUAGE

  • Using complex language
  • Communicating effectively and persuasively

IDENTIFYING AS A READER/WRITER

  • Showing unique strengths and interests
  • Connecting reading and writing
  • Increasing stamina
LITERACY EXPERIMENTATION

USING LANGUAGE

  • Developing thematic and technical vocabulary across subject areas
  • Transferring learning
  • Evaluating and responding
  • Seeking clarification
  • Supporting and defending
  • Using talk to grow thinking and understanding

ENGAGING AS A READER/WRITER

  • Taking risks
  • Reflecting authentically
  • Referencing texts for verification
  • Writing to influence and inform
  • Writing for a variety of purposes
  • Using writing as a tool for thinking
LITERACY APPLICATION

DEMONSTRATING KNOWLEDGE

  • Conveying personal ideas, opinions, and commitments
  • Reflecting on and applying feedback from others
  • Questioning and analyzing situations
  • Assessing self and others
  • Communicating using technology

SEEKING INFORMATION

  • Understanding societal values
  • Supporting and extending understanding
  • Analyzing critically
  • Reading and writing to learn about self, world, and others
GRADE 6

Strand: Interactions

Big Idea: Expression

Skill Descriptor: Describe and contribute thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and compare to those of their peers.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Express observations, understandings, viewpoints, and perspectives
  • Compare and contrast observations, understandings, viewpoints, and perspectives that have been shared by others

Skill Descriptor: Express and support ideas and opinions with evidence.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Discuss personal position and perspective
  • Explain difference of opinion, citing reasons
  • Use evidence to support or refute personal opinions and the opinions of others
  • Use evidence that is free from generalizations and bias

Skill Descriptor: Summarize and present content to communicate facts, ideas, and opinions.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select information that supports purpose
  • Present ideas, arguments, and facts
  • Share facts to support or refute ideas and opinions
  • Begin to use language to persuade audience

Skill Descriptor: Use language of harmony and respect, self-monitoring and adjusting as appropriate.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe helpful, respectful, and equitable language
  • Use language that demonstrates consideration for the feelings of others
  • Use language that is not hurtful or offensive
  • Identify examples of prejudice, stereotyping, or bias in oral language and the negative effect on individuals and cultures
  • Use bias-free language
  • Use inclusive language that respects gender identity
  • Use language that demonstrates cultural sensitivity and respect

Big Idea: Exchanges

Skill Descriptor: Ask and respond to questions to clarify information, explore possibilities, and identify solutions to a problem.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Request relevant information or further explanation to help understand a question or a problem
  • Respond with additional information to provide clarity and understanding
  • Respond citing relevant information from an identified source or personal experience

Skill Descriptor: Give and respond to a variety of directions and instructions.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Give multi-step and increasingly complex instructions
  • Follow multi-step and increasingly complex instructions
  • Clarify processes, routines, and order of sequence or operation

Skill Descriptor: Understand communication conventions for a diverse set of audiences.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Communicate with sensitivity and respect
  • Recognize language that reflects audience perspective, context, and purpose

Skill Descriptor: Respond personally and critically to a variety of text.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Respond to oral presentations and stories, and multimodal text, citing reactions, interpretations, and understandings
  • Respond to oral presentations and stories and multimodal text, providing thoughts and opinions

Skill Descriptor: Adjust interactions to reflect the situation, audience, and purpose.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Identify appropriate conventions for specific types of interactions
  • Use conversational conventions that demonstrate consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others
  • Use active listening strategies
  • Use words to negotiate and identify a next step or response (conflict resolution, material requests, task delegation, etc.)

Big Idea: Reception

Skill Descriptor: Critically reflect on the contributions of others.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Listen actively and attentively
  • Recognize and follow the presenter’s main idea and supporting details
  • Consider ideas that differ from their own
  • Detect examples of prejudice stereotyping or bias in oral language
  • Recognize the negative effect of prejudice, stereotyping, or bias on individuals and groups

Strand: Reading

Big Idea: Word Study

Skill Descriptor: Begin to explain how advanced word structure can be used as a word-solving strategy.

Global Competencies: CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Decode novel and/or complex words with ease
  • Apply knowledge of syllable patterns to chunk and decode longer words
  • Recognize and decode Anglo-Saxon morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) and how they affect word meaning
  • Begin to recognize and decode Latin morphemes and how they affect word meaning

Big Idea: Fluency

Skill Descriptor: Read an increasing variety of texts with accuracy and expression, both silently and aloud.

Global Competencies: CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Read internal and end punctuation smoothly and confidently with appropriate expression and pausing
  • Automatically recall a variety of two-and three-syllable words and high-frequency words varying in spelling regularity
  • Read a variety of subject-specific terminology with automaticity
  • Read a variety of familiar text with appropriate phrasing demonstrating an understanding of intonation and stress and their role in conveying meaning
  • Self-assess silent reading
  • Rehearse and self-correct as needed

Big Idea: Vocabulary

Skill Descriptor: Recognize how different strategies are used to determine the meanings of words.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Begin to use some academic language intentionally in expressive language
  • Begin to demonstrate an understanding of how morphemes and morphology affects meaning of words
  • Begin to recognize how to use contextual clues for solving unknown vocabulary words

Big Idea: Reading Comprehension

Skill Descriptor: Construct meaning from a variety of text considering the source, intended audience, and purpose.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Respond accurately to most literal and inferential questions
  • Interpret basic text features and explain how they help the reader understand the text
  • Identify key story or text elements including most relevant details
  • Identify appropriate situations for skimming and apply skimming strategies when needed
  • Use context clues, prior knowledge, and knowledge of text forms and features to make predictions
  • Construct meaning from a variety of text forms, including print and non-print texts
  • Identify key story elements of a variety of narrative texts
  • Preview and locate information using text features (pictorial, typographical, and organizational)
  • Distinguish between main ideas and supporting details

Skill Descriptor: Adjust and use a variety of strategies to make meaning.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Read and re-read to clarify understanding
  • Enhance use of meta-cognition (thinking about thinking) when reading
  • Make logical predictions that show cause and effect
  • Pause regularly in reading to summarize key information orally
  • Identify thick and thin questions and begin to use different questions to make meaning of text
  • Experience a variety of texts, varying in form, length, perspectives, and diverse worldviews
  • Refer to relevant textual details when inferring

Skill Descriptor: Reflect and respond personally to a variety of texts across genres, interests, and complexities.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Express personal reactions, preferences for, and opinions about, particular texts, authors, illustrators, and genres
  • Identify personal experiences and prior knowledge to make personal connections
  • Select specific and relevant textual details

Big Idea: Text Analysis and Criticality

Skill Descriptor: Independently select, read, and examine critically a variety of texts representing all voices.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Explain preferences and choice of reading material
  • Interpret information using text features (pictorial, typographical, and organizational)
  • Explain how events are related to the theme
  • Explain how the author’s style/technique creates meaning and impact
  • Discuss how purpose, structure, and characteristics/text features of a variety of text forms contribute to meaning
  • Interact with storytellers and people in the community (Elders, family members, librarians, etc.)
  • Identify claims that are supported by facts and reason from those that are not

Skill Descriptor: Explore the characteristics, language, form, features, and genres of a range of texts.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe relationships among characters and effect on plot/subplots or overall theme in narrative texts
  • Interpret relationships among ideas to draw conclusions or make comparisons
  • Support responses with relevant details
  • Describe the relationships between language, topic, genre, purpose, context, and audience
  • Demonstrate an awareness that texts reveal and produce ideologies, identities, and positions

Strand: Representations

Big Idea: Process

Skill Descriptor: Develop strategies to enhance clarity in multi-modal works.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Examine a variety of mentor texts to guide creation
  • Select and develop a topic within a chosen form demonstrating an awareness of audience
  • Gather ideas from a variety of sources and use a framework (e.g., web, graphic organizer) to sort and classify the information/ideas and make new connections
  • Apply knowledge of copyright/plagiarism (including the use of A.I.)
  • Draft a piece of writing making critical choices about ideas/content based on purpose and intended audience
  • Independently reread to add to, delete from, or reorganize the text to strengthen content
  • Request, obtain, and make decisions about constructive criticism
  • Understand revision supports clarification and strengthens communication
  • Reread writing aloud for fluency; begin to make changes to sentence structures
  • Use appropriate tools (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus, grammar checker, and text models) to edit conventions and strengthen word choice; may require teacher support for split dialogue
  • Use a variety of publishing formats (e.g., books, pamphlets, posters, websites) with appropriate text and text features

Big Idea: Composition

Skill Descriptor: Create a variety of texts with purpose and understand the influence of the writer/creator.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select a specific topic that establishes the purpose and audience
  • Include straightforward and predictable ideas/events
  • Support the ideas with relevant details

Skill Descriptor: Select an appropriate form that reflects audience, purpose, and topic.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select an appropriate form and establish the purpose in the introduction
  • Show evidence of logical sequencing
  • Show control of paragraph divisions
  • Provide an obvious conclusion

Skill Descriptor: Include interesting and/or domain specific words and phrases to convey and enhance meaning.

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include precise/interesting words and/or technical language
  • Include descriptive words (adjectives, adverbs, strong verbs, strong nouns)

Skill Descriptor: Provide evidence of author’s style, personality, and experience.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Show awareness of audience
  • Demonstrate engagement with subject
  • Include glimpses of personal feeling, energy, and individuality

Skill Descriptor: Include well-crafted sentences to support meaning and readability.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include different kinds of sentences, with a variety of complex structures (occasional errors)
  • Include a variety of sentence lengths and beginnings to establish rhythm and create interest

Skill Descriptor: Demonstrate correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar usage. 

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Use correct end punctuation and capitalization
  • Include internal punctuation (commas, quotation marks, and apostrophes) and paragraphing of dialogue with some competence
  • Spell familiar and commonly used words correctly with close approximations for more complex words (may make a few homophone mistakes)
  • Follow correct tense, subject/verb agreement, and grammatically correct pronouns (e.g., Give it to Tom and me.)
GRADE 7

Strand: Interactions

Big Idea: Expression

Skill Descriptor: Describe and contribute thoughts, feelings, and experiences and compare to those of their peers.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe observations, understandings, viewpoints, and perspectives
  • Compare and contrast observations, understandings, viewpoints, and perspectives that have been shared by others

Skill Descriptor: Defend and support ideas and opinions with evidence.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Discuss personal opinion and perspective using evidence
  • Explore difference of opinion, citing reasons based on personal experience
  • Use evidence to support, refute, and critique personal opinions and the opinions of others
  • Communicate persuasively citing evidence free from generalizations and bias

Skill Descriptor: Summarize and present content to communicate facts, ideas, and opinions.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select information that supports purpose
  • Use language to support ideas and arguments
  • Select and use language to persuade audience

Skill Descriptor: Use language of harmony and respect self-monitoring and adjusting as appropriate.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe helpful, respectful, and equitable language
  • Use language that demonstrates consideration for the feelings of others
  • Use language that is not hurtful or offensive
  • Identify examples of prejudice, stereotyping, or bias in oral language and the negative effect on individuals and cultures
  • Use bias-free language
  • Use inclusive language that respects gender identity
  • Use language that demonstrates cultural sensitivity and respect

Big Idea: Exchanges

Skill Descriptor: Seek and respond to questions to clarify or explain ideas, concepts, problems and solutions.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Ask clarifying questions to help understand a question or a problem
  • Make personal connections when responding to provide clarity and understanding
  • Respond citing relevant information from a reliable source
  • Ask questions that extend beyond a definitive answer

Skill Descriptor: Give and respond to a variety of directions and instructions.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Give multi-step and increasingly complex instructions
  • Follow multi-step and increasingly complex instructions
  • Clarify processes, routines, and order of sequence or operation

Skill Descriptor: Understand communication conventions for a diverse set of audiences.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Communicate with sensitivity and respect
  • Selects and uses language that reflects audience perspective, context, and purpose

Skill Descriptor: Respond personally and critically to a variety of text.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Respond to oral presentations and stories, and multimodal text, citing reactions, interpretations, and outstanding questions
  • Respond to oral presentations and stories and multimodal text, providing thoughts and opinions, citing evidence

Skill Descriptor: Adjust interactions to reflect the situation, audience, and purpose.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Identify appropriate conventions for specific types of interactions
  • Use conversational conventions that are respectful of the needs, rights, and feelings of others
  • Engage in active listening
  • Communicate a next step or response to negotiate

Big Idea: Reception

Skill Descriptor: Critically reflect on the contributions of others.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Listen actively and attentively
  • Reflect on information shared by others for relevance to the topic
  • Recognize and follow the presenter’s main ideas, supporting details and organizational structure
  • Consider and respect ideas from the speaker’s point of view.
  • Recognize that spoken language reveals values and attitudes such as bias, beliefs, and prejudice
  • Understand how language is used to influence and manipulate

Strand: Reading

Big Idea: Word Study

Skill Descriptor: Apply knowledge of advanced word structures as word-solving strategy.

Global Competencies: CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Apply knowledge of syllable patterns to decode complex multi-syllabic words
  • Recognize and decode Anglo-Saxon morphemes and how they affect word meaning
  • Recognize and decode Latin morphemes and how they affect word meaning
  • Begin to recognize and decode Greek morphemes and how they affect word meaning

Big Idea: Fluency

Skill Descriptor: Read an increasing variety of text with accuracy and expression, both silently and aloud.

Global Competencies: CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Automatically recall three- or four-syllable words with confidence
  • Adjust pacing to match form and purpose
  • Read a variety of familiar and some less familiar texts smoothly while using intonation, volume, and tone to convey text meaning
  • Demonstrate an understanding that multimodal fiction and non-fiction texts are read and navigated in different ways
  • Self-assess silent reading
  • Rehearse and self-correct as needed

Big Idea: Vocabulary

Skill Descriptor: Recognize how different strategies are used to determine the meaning of words.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Use some academic vocabulary intentionally in expressive language
  • Demonstrate an understanding of how different morphemes and morphology affects meaning of words
  • Begin to use multiple strategies for solving new vocabulary
  • Discuss various reasons for specific vocabulary use in multimodal text

Big Idea: Reading Comprehension

Skill Descriptor: Construct meaning from a variety of text considering the source, intended audience, and purpose.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Respond to literal and inferential questions using relevant textual details for support
  • Interpret most text features and explain how they enhance the meaning of the text
  • Explain how key story or text elements affect the plot or main idea
  • Demonstrate the ability to search for and locate information quickly and with accuracy
  • Construct meaning from a variety of text forms, including print and non-print texts
  • Distinguish between main ideas and supporting details
  • Preview and information using text features (pictorial, typographical, and organizational)
  • Identify key story elements of a variety of narrative texts

Skill Descriptor: Adjust and use a wide variety of strategies to make meaning.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Use and describe strategies to self-correct
  • Enhance use of meta-cognition when reading
  • Make predictions using evidence from the text
  • Pause regularly in reading to summarize key information concisely, either orally or written
  • Ask relevant questions before, during, and after reading to understand characters and events better and to understand author’s intent
  • Use context clues, prior knowledge, and knowledge of forms/features to make predictions/assumptions
  • Refer to relevant textual details and/or features when inferring

Skill Descriptor: Reflect and respond personally to a variety of texts across genres, interests, and complexities.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Express and support personal reactions, preferences for, and opinions about particular texts, authors, illustrators, and genres with details/examples
  • Explain interpretations, reactions, and connections to text
  • Select specific and relevant textual details

Skill Descriptor: Independently select, read, and examine critically a range of texts representing all voices.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Express and support personal reactions, preferences for, and opinions about particular texts, authors, illustrators, and genres with details/examples
  • Explain interpretations, reactions, and connections to text
  • Select specific and relevant textual details

Big Idea: Text Analysis and Criticality

Skill Descriptor: Independently select, read, and construct meaning from a range of texts representing all voices.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Explain preferences and choice of reading material
  • Interpret information using text features (pictorial, typographical, and organizational)
  • Explain how main ideas are related to the theme of a text
  • Explain how the author’s style/technique and use of text features help readers construct meaning
  • Discuss how purpose, structure, and characteristics of a variety of text forms and genres contribute to understanding
  • Interact with storytellers and people in the community (Elders, family members, librarians, etc.)
  • Use a variety of texts varying in form, length, and diverse worldview to present an alternative perspective to a topic or theme
  • Distinguish between claims based on facts/reason and claims based on opinion by citing appropriate evidence

Skill Descriptor: Analyze the characteristics, language, form, features, and genre of a range of texts.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe relationships among characters and effect on plot/subplots or overall theme in narrative texts
  • Interpret relationships among ideas to draw conclusions or make comparisons
  • Support responses with relevant details
  • Describe the relationships between language, topic, genre, purpose, context, and audience
  • Recognize that texts need to be assessed for bias
  • Detect prejudice, stereotyping and bias and how language is used to manipulate, persuade, or control

Strand: Representations

Big Idea: Process

Skill Descriptor: Develop strategies to enhance clarity in multi-modal works.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Examine a variety of mentor texts to guide creation
  • Select and develop a topic within a chosen form demonstrating an awareness of audience; some writing may combine text forms (hybrids)
  • Gather ideas from a variety of sources and use a framework (e.g., web, graphic organizer) to sort and classify the information/ideas, organize perspectives, and make new connections
  • Apply knowledge of copyright/plagiarism (including the use of A.I.)
  • Draft a piece of writing making critical choices about ideas/content based on the purpose and intended audience
  • Independently reread to add to, delete from, or reorganize the text to clarify and strengthen content
  • Request, obtain, and make decisions about constructive criticism
  • Understand revision supports clarification and strengthens communication
  • Reread writing aloud for fluency; make changes to sentence structures and word choices to provide variety
  • Use appropriate tools (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus, grammar checker, and text models) to edit conventions, and strengthen word choice
  • Use a variety of publishing formats (e.g., books, pamphlets, posters, websites) with appropriate text and text features
  • Identify helpful strategies before, during, and after the writing
  • Explain form choice as it pertains to purpose and intended audience

Big Idea: Composition

Skill Descriptor: Create a variety of texts with purpose and understand the influence of the writer/creator.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select a specific topic with a main idea that supports the purpose and audience
  • Include straightforward and thoughtful ideas/events
  • Include relevant information with details to enhance the ideas

Skill Descriptor: Select an appropriate form that reflects audience, purpose, and topic.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select an appropriate form and establish the purpose in the introduction
  • Show evidence of logical sequencing
  • Express related ideas in paragraphs
  • Include a reasonable conclusion

Skill Descriptor: Include interesting and/or domain specific words and phrases to convey and enhance meaning.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include precise/interesting words and/or technical language (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
  • Begin to use figurative language (e.g., metaphor, simile)

Skill Descriptor: Provide evidence of author’s style, personality, and experiences.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Connect the audience to the topic/theme
  • Show commitment to the topic
  • Begin to generate strong feeling, energy, and individuality

Skill Descriptor: Include well-crafted sentences to support meaning and readability.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include different kinds of sentences, with a variety of complex structures
  • Include a variety of sentence lengths and beginnings to create a natural flow of ideas

Skill Descriptor: Demonstrate correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar usage.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Use correct end punctuation and capitalization
  • Include internal punctuation (e.g., commas, semi-colons, colons, quotation marks, and apostrophes) and paragraphing of dialogue
  • Spell familiar and commonly used words correctly; use knowledge of rules to attempt difficult spellings
  • Use standard grammatical structures (subject/verb agreement and verb tense)
  • Attempt to use correct pronouns
GRADE 8

Strand: Interactions

Big Idea: Expression

Skill Descriptor: Describe and communicate thoughts, feelings, and experiences as well as personal strengths.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe observations, understandings, viewpoints and perspectives
  • Communicate personal strengths giving reasons

Skill Descriptor: Defend and support ideas and opinions with evidence.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Justify personal position citing evidence
  • Identify difference of opinion citing facts, anecdotal evidence, and experiences
  • Communicate persuasively citing evidence free from generalizations and bias

Skill Descriptor: Evaluate and present content to communicate facts, ideas, and opinions.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select information, topics, and theme that support their purpose
  • Support ideas with evidence
  • Use credible information to support or refute ideas and opinions
  • Present with intention, using source content and language to influence the audience

Skill Descriptor: Use language of harmony and respect, self-monitoring and adjusting as appropriate.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Describe helpful, respectful, and equitable language
  • Use language that demonstrates consideration for the feelings of others
  • Use language that is not hurtful or offensive
  • Identify examples of prejudice, stereotyping, or bias in oral language and the negative effect on individuals and cultures
  • Use bias-free language
  • Use inclusive language that respects gender identity
  • Use language that demonstrates cultural sensitivity and respect

Big Idea: Exchanges

Skill Descriptor: Seek and respond to questions to clarify or explain ideas, concepts, problems, and solutions.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Participate in inquisitive questioning by asking questions and responding to others
  • Ask clarifying questions to seek further information and determine next steps
  • Seek outside resources to support ideas, concepts, or claims
  • Ask pondering questions to extend ideas, rather than to seek a definitive answer

Skill Descriptor: Give and respond to a variety of directions and instructions.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Give multi-step and increasingly complex instructions
  • Follow multi-step and increasingly complex instruction
  • Clarify processes, routines, and order of sequence or operation

Skill Descriptor: Understand communication conventions for a diverse set of audiences.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Communicate with sensitivity and respect
  • Select and adjust language to reflect an understanding of the audience perspective, context, and purpose

Skill Descriptor: Respond personally and critically to a variety of text.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Respond and react to oral presentations, stories, and multimodal text by challenging ideas and communicating thoughts or opinions
  • Respond to oral presentations, stories, and multimodal text citing incomplete information, outstanding questions, and possibilities for further elaboration

Skill Descriptor: Adjust interactions to reflect the situation, audience, and purpose.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Identify appropriate conventions for specific types of interactions
  • Use conversational conventions that are respectful of the needs, rights, and feelings of others
  • Engage in active listening
  • Communicate a next step or response to negotiate

Big Idea: Reception

Skill Descriptor: Critically reflect on the contributions of others to extend understanding.

Global Competencies: SASM, CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Determine what information is important, relevant, and worthy of further consideration
  • Identify the perspective implicit within a speaker’s contribution
  • Recognize that spoken language reveals values and attitudes such as bias, beliefs, and prejudice
  • Understand how language is used to influence and manipulate

Strand: Reading

Big Idea: Word Study

Skill Descriptor: Explain how a variety of word structures can be used to solve unfamiliar words.

Global Competencies: CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Explain how different morphemes affect word meaning and how these can be used to help solve unfamiliar words
  • Solve unknown words using a variety of cues (dividing into syllables, root words and origins, background knowledge, context clues)

Big Idea: Fluency

Skill Descriptor: Begin to read less familiar text with accuracy and expression, both silently and aloud.

Global Competencies: CM

Achievement Indicators:

  • Automatically recall multisyllabic words effortlessly
  • Adjust pacing to match form and purpose with ease
  • Read texts with confidence, consistently appropriate expression, and phrasing
  • Demonstrate how multimodal fiction and non-fiction texts are read and navigated in different ways
  • Self-assess silent reading
  • Rehearse and self-correct as needed

Big Idea: Vocabulary

Skill Descriptor: Begin to use a range of strategies to determine new vocabulary in all texts.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Begin to use multiple strategies for determining new vocabulary with flexibility
  • Demonstrates an understanding of how different morphemes and morphology affects meaning of words
  • Use text features to find the meaning of unknown technical words

Big Idea: Reading Comprehension

Skill Descriptor: Construct meaning from a variety of text considering the source, intended audience, and purpose.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Construct literal and inferred meaning when reading text independently
  • Make general inferences from the information gathered from a variety of text features
  • Describe relationships among story or text elements and their effect on plot or overall theme
  • Demonstrate the ability to search for and locate specific information from a variety of sources

Skill Descriptor: Use appropriate comprehension strategies to clarify understanding of a range of text with increasing confidence.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Explain the use of self-correction strategies and how it affects meaning
  • Use and describe some meta-cognition processes when reading
  • Begin to use inferential predictions to enhance meaning
  • Annotate reading to summarize key information concisely
  • Use relevant questioning during reading to clarify understanding of text and evaluate questions after reading to determine if inferring or further information is required
  • Describe the difference between main ideas and supporting details

Skill Descriptor: Respond personally to a range of texts across genres, interests, and complexities, citing evidence.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Express and support personal reactions, and preferences for and opinions about a diverse range of texts, genres, and creators
  • Compare and contrast information with personal experiences and prior knowledge to make personal connections, textual connections, and world connections
  • Select specific and relevant textual details

Big Idea: Text Analysis and Criticality

Skill Descriptor: Independently select, read, and examine critically a variety of texts representing all voices.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS, SGC

Achievement Indicators:

  • Explain preferences and choice of reading material
  • Communicate purpose of text selection related to learning needs and interests
  • Interpret symbols, shades of meaning, and figurative and descriptive language used by the author to convey meaning in literary texts
  • Interpret genre-specific text features used by text creators to convey meaning in both literary and informational texts
  • Analyze how purpose, structure, and characteristics/text features of a variety of text forms and genres contribute to understanding
  • Articulate how an author’s/creator’s style/technique creates meaning and impact
  • Interact with storytellers and people in the community (Elders, family members, librarians, etc.)
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of the facts/reason to support a claim and identify when irrelevant information is introduced
  • Use a variety of texts varying in form, length, and diverse worldview to present an alternative perspective to a topic or theme

Skill Descriptor: Critically analyze the characteristics, language, form, features, and genre of a range of texts.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Use context clues, prior knowledge/experience, and knowledge of text forms and features to verify and adjust predictions/assumptions
  • Identify key story elements of a narrative and explain how they relate to the theme
  • Compare and contrast language, content, and themes in current and historic text
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of the different elements of an author’s style/technique in creating meaning and impact, using evidence
  • Examine texts for bias
  • Respond critically to how a text employs language to manipulate, persuade, or control and propose alternative perspectives

Strand: Representations

Big Idea: Process

Skill Descriptor: Develop strategies to enhance clarity in multi-modal works.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

  • Examine a variety of mentor texts to guide creation
  • Select and develop a topic; demonstrate awareness of audience and competence crafting a variety of text forms (including hybrids)
  • Gather ideas from a variety of sources and use a framework (e.g., web, graphic organizer) to sort and classify the information/ideas, recognize different perspectives, and make new connections
  • Apply knowledge of copyright/plagiarism (including the use of A.I.)
  • Draft a piece of writing making critical choices about ideas/content based on the purpose and intended audience
  • Independently reread to add to, delete from, or reorganize the text to clarify and strengthen content
  • Request, obtain, and make decisions about, constructive criticism
  • Refine writing to enhance impact
  • Select linguistic (e.g., analogy, colloquialism, figurative language, flattery) and print devices (e.g., print size, font, page design) designed to influence audience
  • Reread writing aloud for fluency; make changes to sentence structures and word choices to provide variety
  • Use appropriate tools (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus, grammar checker, and text models) to edit conventions, and strengthen word choice
  • Use a variety of publishing formats (e.g., books, pamphlets, posters, websites) with appropriate text and text features
  • Use specific devices to achieve purpose (instruct, persuade, entertain)
  • Explain form choice as it pertains to purpose and intended audience

Big Idea: Composition

Skill Descriptor: Create a variety of texts with purpose and understand the influence of the writer/creator.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select a specific topic with a main idea that supports the purpose and audience
  • Include thoughtful ideas/events relevant to the topic
  • Include relevant/well-researched details to enhance the ideas

Skill Descriptor: Select an appropriate form for the purpose, audience, and topic.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Select an appropriate form and clearly establish the purpose in the introduction
  • Use an underlying structure to present information (e.g., temporal sequence, cause and effect, compare and contrast)
  • Use transitions between and within paragraphs to show sequencing and connections
  • Provide an adequate conclusion

Skill Descriptor: Include interesting and/or domain specific words and phrases to convey and enhance meaning.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include interesting words and/or technical/subject-specific language to enhance meaning (strong nouns and verbs, colourful adjectives and adverbs)
  • Use figurative language (e.g., metaphor, analogy, symbolism)

Skill Descriptor: Provide evidence of author’s style, personality, and experience.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Skillfully connect the audience to the topic
  • Show care and commitment to the topic
  • Generate strong feeling, energy, and individuality

Skill Descriptor: Include well-crafted sentences to support meaning and readability.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include different kinds of sentences, with a variety of complex structures
  • Include a variety of sentence lengths and beginnings to create fluidity

Skill Descriptor: Demonstrate correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar usage.

Global Competencies: CL, CM, CTPS

Achievement Indicators:

  • Include internal punctuation (e.g., commas, semi-colons, colons, dash, hyphen, parentheses, apostrophes) and paragraphing of dialogue
  • Correctly spell almost all words; use spelling support (e.g., dictionary, spell checker); correctly use homophones
  • Use standard grammatical structures (subject/verb agreement, verb tense, all parts of speech, numbers, contractions, plurals)
  • Use a range of print characteristics and layout to enhance the meaning (e.g., headings, visuals, white space, italics, bold, font size, and style)