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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.

Arizona Academic Standards learning standard: 6.RI.5; 6.RI.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 Arizona

In the Arizona Academic 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: Arizona Department of Education

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

    What is the likely result if the school uses reusable containers?

    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.

    • more wrappers
    • less garbage
    • no lunch at all

  2. Question 2

    What do the words in brackets tell the actors?

    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.

    • who wrote the play
    • when the play ends
    • how to say the lines

  3. Question 3

    Which text form is a set of lines written as a speaker's private thoughts, with dates?

    • a diary or journal entry
    • a news article
    • a script

  4. Question 4

    A text lists events in the order they happened, using first, then and finally. What pattern is it?

    • compare and contrast
    • chronological order
    • problem and solution

  5. Question 5

    Two images show the same park in summer and in winter. What is the likely purpose?

    • to hide the name of the park
    • to confuse the reader
    • to compare how it changes

  6. Question 6

    Which text form is written to be performed?

    • a recipe
    • an encyclopedia entry
    • a script

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