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6th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 9 of 14

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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 6.8(D); 6.9(C) · 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 Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 9 of 14 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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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 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.

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

  2. Question 2

    A website has a menu bar at the top. What does it help readers do?

    • see how long the text is
    • find the author's age
    • move to different parts of the site

  3. Question 3

    Which text form usually has a title, a list of materials and numbered steps?

    • instructions
    • a poem
    • a diary entry

  4. Question 4

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

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

  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

    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.

    • compare and contrast
    • chronological order
    • problem and solution

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