Wixie provides students with tools to combine original artwork, images, text, voice narration, and video to create a range of products including how-to instructions, digital stories, eBooks, comics, and more.

In sixth grade, students are transitioning from thinking like a child to thinking like an adult. They are capable of dealing with conflict and complexity, and should be asked to create products for use by other people that challenge their abilities. Work in Wixie should involve lots of writing and creativity as they explore the new boundaries of their thinking.

Here are a few ideas drawn for the Common Core State Standards for Grade 6.

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The book report may be the most dreaded elementary classroom assignment of all time. The elementary Common Core writing standard for argument includes opinion pieces about books, encouraging many teachers to incorporate some form of literature review rather than worksheets filled with information.

A book report that simply regurgitates facts like who, what, when, is doesn't push student thinking and presents no argument. Being assigned such a task is an open invitation to copy and paste a summary from a wiki or even the book’s dust jacket. While we can police student work for plagiarism, we can also do much better.

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