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6th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 9 of 12

Text Forms & Features

Patterns, scripts and visuals

What your child practices

Recognizing problem-and-solution reports, scripts, and web features like menus, and explaining how pictures and graphics add to a text.

Alaska content standards learning standard: RI.6.5; RI.6.7 · text patterns, scripts and visual features

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. A biography is about a real person’s life. A script has speaker names and stage directions.
  2. A problem-and-solution text names a problem, then explains how to fix it.
  3. Websites use menus and links. Pictures and graphs add information the words don’t give.

Example: A report explains that a creek is full of litter, then tells how a class cleaned it up. What text pattern is this? First a problem is named: litter. Then a fix is described: the cleanup. Answer: problem and solution

Text Forms & Features in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 9 of 12 in 6th grade English Language Arts, after Punctuation Power and before Check the Source.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    How does Zoe most likely feel?

    The Mystery Light

    SCENE 1: A dark kitchen. A single flashlight beam moves across the floor.

    ZOE: (whispering) Did you hear that?

    LEO: (looking up) It's only the fridge, Zoe.

    ZOE: (nervously) The fridge doesn't giggle.

    • nervous
    • bored
    • angry

  2. Question 2

    A graph, a photo and a map all appear in one article. What do they help the reader do?

    • understand ideas that are hard to explain in words alone
    • know who the author is
    • skip reading the text

  3. Question 3

    What text pattern does this passage use?

    Too Much Plastic

    The problem is clear: our lunch room produces a huge amount of plastic waste. Every day, hundreds of wrappers go into the garbage.

    One solution is to bring reusable containers. Another is to set up a recycling station. As a result, the school could cut its garbage in half.

    • problem and solution
    • chronological order
    • compare and contrast

  4. Question 4

    What is the purpose of a subheading?

    • to list the sources
    • to name the author
    • to tell what a section is about

  5. Question 5

    What text form is this?

    The Mystery Light

    SCENE 1: A dark kitchen. A single flashlight beam moves across the floor.

    ZOE: (whispering) Did you hear that?

    LEO: (looking up) It's only the fridge, Zoe.

    ZOE: (nervously) The fridge doesn't giggle.

    • a poem
    • a news report
    • a script

  6. Question 6

    Which text form is written to be performed?

    • a recipe
    • an encyclopedia entry
    • a script

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