Skip to main content
Massachusetts Standards

Massachusetts 6th Grade ELA Standards

All 41 Massachusetts English language arts standards for 6th grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

41 standards

Reading Standards for Literature

9 standards
RL.6.1
Use evidence from a story, quoted or paraphrased as fits, to support your analysis of what it says outright and what you infer from it.
RL.6.2
Find a theme or central idea in a text and the details that carry it, then summarize the text without your own opinions.
RL.6.3
Describe how the plot of a story, poem, or play develops scene by scene and how the characters react or change on the way to the resolution.
RL.6.4
Work out figurative and connotative meanings of words, and analyze how word choices, including sound and rhythm in poems, affect meaning, tone, and mood.
RL.6.5
Explain how one sentence, chapter, scene or stanza fits into the whole work and helps build its theme, setting or plot.
Common Core RL.6.5
RL.6.6
Explain how an author builds the narrator's or speaker's point of view through what they notice, say and leave out.
Common Core RL.6.6
RL.6.7
Compare and contrast reading a story, play, or poem with listening to or watching the same work, like an audiobook or a film version.
RL.6.9
Compare how texts in different forms or genres, like a poem and a story or a historical novel and a fantasy, handle a similar theme.
Common Core RL.6.9
RL.6.10
Read grade 6 level literature or harder on your own with solid understanding, drawn from a wide range of genres, cultures, and perspectives.

Reading Standards for Informational Text

10 standards
RI.6.1
Cite evidence from a nonfiction text, quoting or paraphrasing as fits, to support your analysis of its direct statements and of your inferences.
RI.6.2
Identify a nonfiction text's central idea or ideas and the details that convey them, and summarize it without personal opinions or judgments.
RI.6.3
Explain how a nonfiction text introduces a key person, event or idea and then builds it out with examples or anecdotes.
Common Core RI.6.3
RI.6.4
Work out figurative, connotative, and technical meanings of words in nonfiction, and explain how word choice affects the text's meaning and tone.
RI.6.5
Analyze how one sentence, paragraph, chapter, section, or feature like a heading fits the text's overall structure and helps develop its ideas.
RI.6.6
Figure out an author's purpose or stance in a nonfiction text and point to the places where it shows.
Common Core RI.6.6
RI.6.7
Combine information from charts, graphs, photos, videos, maps, and written words to build a clear, complete understanding of a topic or issue.
RI.6.8
Follow an author's argument claim by claim and sort the claims backed by reasons and evidence from the ones that are not.
Common Core RI.6.8
RI.6.9
Compare how two authors present the same events, like a memoir and a biography about the same person.
Common Core RI.6.9
RI.6.10
Read and understand grade 6 level literary nonfiction or harder on your own, like memoirs and essays from a range of genres, cultures, and perspectives.

Writing Standards

10 standards
W.6.1
Write arguments, like essays or letters to the editor, that state a claim, organize clear reasons and credible evidence, keep a fitting style, and conclude.
W.6.2
Write informative essays, oral reports, or feature articles that organize facts and examples in sections, use transitions and precise terms, and conclude.
W.6.3
Write narratives that set the scene, order events, and use dialogue, pacing, transitions, sensory and figurative language like personification, and a fitting ending.
W.6.4
Match how a piece of writing is developed, organized and styled to its task, its purpose and the people who will read it.
Common Core W.6.4
W.6.5
Plan, revise, edit, rewrite, or take a new approach to improve writing, applying grade 6 conventions and choosing accurate vocabulary.
W.6.6
Publish writing and collaborate with others using technology and online platforms, and keyboard at least three pages at one time.
W.6.7
Carry out short and longer research projects to answer a question, using several sources and narrowing or shifting the focus when needed.
W.6.8
Gather research from print and digital sources, judge each source's credibility, and quote or paraphrase others without plagiarizing, listing basic source details.
W.6.9
Use evidence from stories or nonfiction to back up written analysis, interpretation, reflection, and research, drawing on grade 6 reading skills.
W.6.10
Write regularly, from a report built over several days to a journal entry finished in one class, for different subjects, purposes and readers.
Common Core W.3.10

Speaking and Listening Standards

6 standards
SL.6.1
Come to a discussion having read the material, follow the group's rules and roles, ask and answer questions in detail, and restate others' points to show you listened.
Common Core SL.6.1
SL.6.2
Explain what a chart, video, speech or other source adds to the topic the class is studying.
Common Core SL.6.2
SL.6.3
Lay out a speaker's argument claim by claim and tell which claims are backed by reasons and evidence and which are not.
Common Core SL.6.3
SL.6.4
Present claims and findings in a logical order with descriptions, facts, and details that highlight main ideas, using fitting words, eye contact, volume, and pronunciation.
SL.6.5
Use multimedia and visual displays in presentations to make information clearer, like a chart or a short video clip.
SL.6.6
Switch between casual and formal English to fit the setting, using formal English when a task calls for it.
Common Core SL.6.6

Language Standards

6 standards
L.6.1
Use correct grammar, like mixing sentence types, explaining how phrases and clauses work, and moving them to fix misplaced or dangling modifiers.
L.6.2
Capitalize the first word of a sentence and the word I, name the period and question mark, and spell simple words the way they sound, like kat for cat.
Common Core L.K.2
L.6.3
Notice the difference between formal and casual English, like Good morning, Mrs. Lee versus Hey, and choose which fits the moment.
Common Core L.2.3
L.6.4
Work out an unfamiliar word from context clues, Greek and Latin roots like aud in audience and audible, or a dictionary, then check the guess.
Common Core L.6.4
L.6.5
Explain a nonliteral phrase like take steps, name someone who is friendly to link a word to real life, and rank knew, believed and suspected by how sure they are.
Common Core L.3.5
L.6.6
Learn and accurately use grade 6 academic and subject words, and research new words on your own to keep building vocabulary.

The official Massachusetts documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Massachusetts's standards, not the official wording, which Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.