Georgia Milestones Assessment System English Language Arts Grade 6

The sack on the folding table was heavier than Nia expected. Her grandmother had sent her to the Saturday market a block off Broughton Street in Savannah to buy one peck of pecans and nothing else. A card said the nuts came from a farm outside Guyton and were still in their shells.

Nia counted the bills in her pocket. She had enough for the pecans and one dollar left. A boy at the next table was selling cold lemonade. She pictured the walk back to the car in the June heat and almost set the sack down.

Then she read the note her grandmother had pinned to the list: "If the price is higher than we planned, choose the smaller sack and come home." The pecans cost exactly the planned amount. The lemonade was not on the list. Nia put the dollar back in her pocket.

The seller tipped the sack so Nia could see the pale shells underneath, not only the dark ones on top. "People judge the whole sack by the first handful," the seller said. Nia took a nut from the bottom. Its shell matched the ones on top.

On the way to the car she passed the lemonade table again. The boy called out a price. Nia shook her head and lifted the sack so the paper would not drag on the bricks. Her grandmother was waiting with the cracker tin open.

When the pecans poured into the bowl, a few shells clicked against the metal. Nia heard the clicks as a quiet yes. She had done the errand as it was written, not as the hot street had suggested. The dollar was still in her pocket, and the list had no extra line on it.

The nature card at the sandhill plot behind Longleaf Middle School, near Waycross, is about the gopher tortoise. Its main point is that a tortoise burrow shelters more living things than the tortoise alone.

A gopher tortoise digs a tunnel in the sandy soil. The card says the tunnel slopes downward and stays cooler than the sunlit sand at noon. The opening is a half-moon of pale sand. Students can recognize a burrow by that shape.

The tortoise eats low plants and needs sunlight on the sand. That is why the class keeps thick brush off the plot. A dense hedge would shade out the food plants. The card tells students not to plant one along the edge.

Other animals may use the burrow after it exists. The card names an indigo snake, a gopher frog, and mice as guests. The tortoise is the digger. The guests do not make the tunnel. A student who says the frog digs the burrow is mixing up the guest and the maker.

The visit rules are short. Stay on the board path. Do not put a hand or a stick into a burrow. A stick can hurt an animal the visitor cannot see. Looking is allowed. Reaching in is not.

The card ends with this sentence: the class should protect the open sand, because the burrow and its guests depend on that sunny ground.

The editorial in the Peachtree Bend Middle School news, in Atlanta, is about a rectangle of soil behind the cafeteria. The city lets the school use the plot. Jordan Hale writes that the school should keep it as a garden.

Some students want the space for more bike racks. Jordan disagrees. The plot should stay a garden because it supplies the Friday pantry and gives the class a way to practice measurement that a rack cannot offer.

Last spring the class harvested 42 pounds of collards and 18 pounds of peppers. The pantry director signed a note that those pounds went into family boxes. Jordan includes the signed note so readers can check the pantry result instead of relying on the writer's word alone.

Jordan admits that riders need a place to lock bikes. The editorial does not say the school should have no racks. It says the racks can stand along the gym wall, where the pavement is already bare. Garden soil cannot be shifted onto pavement and still grow collards.

Jordan calls the plot "a classroom with weather." The editorial explains the phrase. It means a place to learn outdoors. Students record rain and heat beside the harvest weights, so the weather is part of the lesson, not a room inside the building.

The last sentence returns to the request. The fourth-period plot should remain a garden.

The Altamaha wore a tin roof for an hour, though no house stood in the channel. Rain stitched the gray water to the gray sky, and the far bank vanished like a word rubbed out.

A heron waited as if the storm were a closed door. When the door opened, the bird did not clap or bow. It lifted, a pale hinge, and the rain thinned to thread.

On the dock a coiled rope drank what the clouds spilled. By dark the rope was heavy, and the river had its own face again. I wrung the rope and heard the hour pour back out.

Ellis found the blue jar on the wrong porch. It belonged to Ms. Ward, two doors down, who had left it at his house by mistake after the Saturday canning swap in Madison. The jar held pepper jelly, and a tag read "Not for sale."

Ellis meant to walk it back before supper. Then a friend texted about a pickup game at the park. The sky over the pecan trees was still bright. Ellis set the jar on the rail and went to change shoes.

On the rail the jar looked like a small blue lighthouse, easy to see and easy to forget. His mother passed it and asked whose jelly it was. Ellis said he would take it "in a minute." The minute became the game.

When he came back, the sky had the color of a bruised peach, and the jar was gone from the rail. He checked the steps, the bushes, and the chair. Then he saw Ms. Ward on her porch, holding the jar. She had come over when she noticed it sitting alone.

"I was not scolding the jelly," she said. "I was worried about the heat on the rail." Ellis understood. The problem had not been a stolen jar. It had been his delay.

He thanked her. At the table he told his mother the truth before she asked. The game had been fun, and the minute had been a story he told himself so the delay would sound short.

A how-to card at Laney Creek Middle School, in Augusta, explains the two rain barrels beside the gym. The card's central idea is that the barrels store roof water for the garden so the drinking fountains do not have to supply the watering cans.

Each barrel holds 50 gallons. The downspout fills the first barrel. A short pipe near the top lets extra water flow into the second barrel. When both are full, overflow runs to a gravel pit, not to the gym door.

Students may fill watering cans from the spigot at the bottom. They may not drink the barrel water. Roof water can carry dust and bird droppings. The words "garden-only" on the spigot state a rule, not a decoration.

One middle sentence tells what the barrels do in a hard rain. They slow the rush from the roof, and the garden uses the water later. Slowing the rush and saving the water are two jobs of the same barrels.

The card compares the barrels to a pause button. In this card, the pause button means the rain is held and used later instead of racing off the pavement at once. It does not mean the rain stops falling.

If a barrel leans, students tell the custodian. They do not climb the stand. The barrels should stay capped, because an open top lets in leaves and mosquitoes.

Good morning, members of the council. My name is Priya Shah, and I am a sixth grader at Concord Hill Middle School in Smyrna. I am asking you to put a crossing light at the corner of Basket Street and Ridge School Road.

The claim of this speech is direct. The city should add a crossing light at that corner. Students already cross there on school days. A painted line by itself is not doing the job.

On a Tuesday, our safety club watched the corner from 7:15 to 7:45 in the morning. In those thirty minutes, 64 students crossed, and 11 drivers did not stop for people already in the crosswalk. We wrote the numbers on a sheet the clerk can check. Those numbers are our evidence.

Some residents say a light will slow the morning cars. A short wait is the point. I compare the corner to a conversation in which one person never pauses. In this speech, that picture means drivers keep going while walkers need a turn. A light would build the pause into the corner.

We are not asking for a bridge, a new school, or a closed road. The sentence "We are asking for a light, not a new map" keeps the request narrow. It tells the council what is not being proposed.

Please vote for the crossing light before the dark mornings of winter. Thank you.

Cam left the borrowed field guide on a bench outside the visitor center in St. Marys. The guide belonged to the school library. She had not gone to Cumberland Island. She had come only to return the book before the library desk closed at four.

A volunteer picked up the guide and started toward a lost-and-found box. Cam called, "That one is mine to return, not to lose." The volunteer stopped. The box was for items with no name. This book had a card in the pocket with Cam's school and the due date.

Inside, the clock read 3:40. The library desk was a ten-minute walk. Cam had time. A poster of a wild horse had pulled her off the walk earlier, and that stop was why the book had reached the bench. She touched the poster once, then left it.

The volunteer said the horses on the poster live on the island, not in the town. Cam nodded. The poster was a window, not a door. She could look at the horses and still had to walk the book back. Looking did not finish the errand.

At the library, the clerk stamped the card and smiled at a grain of sand in the pocket. "Did you go?" she asked. "I went as far as the bench," Cam said. The answer was exact. The bench had been the far point, not the island.

Before she left, Cam wrote the next due date on a slip of paper. The slip was a fence against another almost. She meant a small stop that could keep the same mistake from happening again.

A museum card at Yellow Creek Mill, north of Dahlonega, explains how the waterwheel turns the stone. The central idea is that moving water does the work of grinding corn.

Water from the creek drops into buckets on the wheel. Full buckets grow heavy and swing down. Empty buckets rise on the other side. That uneven weight turns the wheel. The card says the wheel does not turn because the creek is cold. Cold describes the water. Weight and motion do the turning.

A wooden shaft carries the turn to a gear, and the gear spins the top millstone. Corn sits between that moving stone and a bottom stone that stays still. The card compares the two stones to a pair of hands, one moving and one cupped. The moving hand is the top stone. The cupped hand is the still stone that holds the corn.

If the creek is low, the buckets do not fill, and the wheel rests. The miller does not pour city water on it to pretend the creek is high. The card says a resting wheel is honest. Here, honest means the wheel shows the real water level instead of faking a busy day.

Visitors may watch from the rail. They may not touch the gear. The mill should grind only on days the creek can power it, because forcing a dry wheel would break the old wooden teeth.

A labeled arrow points from the creek to the buckets to the shaft to the stone. The arrow shows the order of the work. It is not a road map from Dahlonega.

Dear Members of the Muscogee County Library Board,

I am Luis Ortega, a sixth grader who uses the River Branch Library in Columbus. You are considering closing that branch on Saturdays. The board should keep the River Branch open on Saturdays.

Saturday is the only day my sister and I can walk there together. On school days the branch closes before our bus gets us home. Last month we counted our visits: five Saturdays, and a project finished on four of them. The tally sheet is attached. It shows that Saturday is a workday for us, not an extra.

A shorter Saturday, from ten to two, would still help. I am not claiming the branch must stay open until evening. The hours from ten to two are a smaller request inside the larger one. I can accept a shorter day if the door still opens.

Some people say students should use the downtown branch instead. That branch is a forty-minute bus ride for us. The River Branch is a twelve-minute walk. Calling the downtown building "close enough" treats a long ride as a short one.

Please keep at least a short Saturday at the River Branch.

Sincerely, Luis Ortega

Aunt June gave the cousins one rule at the park on the Chattahoochee in Columbus. Stay on the sandbar that touches the picnic side. The far sandbar, closer to the deep channel, was off limits. Talia wanted a photo with the city bridges behind her, and the far bar had the wider view.

She took one step into the river. The water tugged at her ankle like a sleeve someone was pulling. She stepped back. The tug was small, but it was the river's warning, not an invitation. Her cousin Marcus had stayed on the near bar and held up the dry bag.

"The picture can come to you," he said. He meant she could turn and let the bridges sit behind the near bar. She did not have to go to them. Talia turned. The bridges looked smaller, and her feet were still on the sand Aunt June had named.

A motorboat passed. Its wake slapped the off-limits bar and then faded before it reached Talia. Marcus said, "That slap is why the rule exists." The wake was something they could see without leaving the safe sand.

Talia took the photo and showed Marcus. She had been ready to argue that a rule was only words. The tug on her ankle and the wake on the far bar made those words visible. She put the phone away before the next boat arrived.

On the walk to the car, Aunt June asked who had chosen the spot. "I did," Talia said, "after I tried not to." Aunt June nodded, as if the second half of the sentence was the part that mattered.

The visitor card for a school trip to the Okefenokee Swamp describes a prairie along the boardwalk. In this swamp, a prairie is a wet, open stretch of water and plants. The card's central idea is that the prairie is not a dry grassy field and not solid ground.

Water under the lilies may look dark because it carries tannins from plants. The card says dark does not mean dirty in the way a muddy puddle is dirty. That sentence separates color from pollution. Students should not treat the brown water as a sign that the prairie has been spoiled.

The boardwalk keeps feet off the peat. Peat can shake when a person walks on it. The card calls that shake "trembling earth." In the card, the phrase means the mat of plants moves under weight. It does not mean the ground is afraid.

Alligators may rest on sunny logs. The rule is one sentence: watch, and do not feed. The card says feeding teaches an alligator to come toward people. That result is the reason for the rule. A student who thinks the rule is only about manners is missing the reason.

The card asks students to write what they see, not what they wish to see. If no heron appears, the honest note is "no heron." Inventing a bird would break the record the class is making.

The class should stay on the boards. The prairie's mat can hide deep water beside plants that look like a floor.

During the spring concert at Pine Street Middle School in Valdosta, the gym lights flickered and then steadied. Deon was third in the clarinet row. His solo was twelve measures. He had practiced them until they felt like a path he could walk with his eyes closed.

When the lights flickered, he lost his place on the page. The measure numbers seemed to crowd together. He did not stop the band. He listened for the drum pattern his teacher had called the porch light: a quiet tap that marked the beat before the solo. In rehearsal she had said the tap would lead him back if the page ever seemed to swim.

The tap came. Deon found measure nine, not measure one, and entered there. Starting at the right spot late was better than playing the opening over the flutes. A wrong start would have been a door slammed in the middle of the song.

After the concert, a parent said the flicker had ruined the night. Deon did not agree. The night had bent and then held. He told his teacher, "I used the tap." She wrote on his folder: "Recovered at nine."

That note was not a prize. It was a record of where he came back in. The next rehearsal could start from what happened, not from a wish that the lights had stayed still.

On the bus he hummed all twelve measures, including the ones he had missed. Humming the missed part kept it from becoming a hole he pretended was not there.

We are the speech club at Creek Bed Middle School in Albany. This post is our argument. The school should keep the Thursday activity bus. Without it, students who stay for speech, band, and tutoring may have no ride when families cannot leave work at three.

In our survey of 80 students who stay on Thursdays, 57 said they would have to quit an activity if the bus stopped. We posted the question and the tally. Readers can see that 57 is more than half of 80. The survey is the evidence we offer. It is not a story about only one student.

A counselor suggested carpools. Carpools can help some riders and still fail others. Two students live past the mall, where no teammate goes. The sentence about those two students keeps the argument from treating "some" as "all."

We call the bus "a bridge with a schedule." The bridge is a way across the gap between the end of classes and the end of practice. The schedule means the bus comes at 5:15, not whenever a driver happens to be free.

We are not asking for a new bus at dawn. We are asking the board to keep the one Thursday route that already exists.

The garden guide at Chestnut Middle School in Covington explains the raised beds. The central idea is that Piedmont red clay needs a mix before vegetables can thrive in it.

Red clay packs tightly when it dries. Water sits on top or runs off instead of soaking in. Roots struggle to push through that packed layer. The guide says the clay is not "bad dirt" in the sense of being useless. It holds minerals. The problem is the packing and the drainage.

Each bed is a wooden frame filled with a mix of one part yard clay, one part compost, and one part coarse sand. The mix leaves spaces for air and water. The guide compares the mix to a hallway with open doors. In the guide, that picture means water and roots can move through, instead of meeting a wall of packed clay.

Students water in the morning. They do not flood the beds at noon, because much of that water would dry up before it helped. A chart from a hot week in May showed fewer wilted pepper plants on the beds watered in the morning. The chart is the evidence for the morning rule.

The class should keep the frames. Taking the vegetables back into unmixed clay would return them to the packed layer the frames were built to avoid.

A sidebar tells how to test a handful. Squeeze damp soil. If it stays a hard ball, it needs more compost and sand. If it crumbles, the mix is ready. The sidebar is a test students can use, not a contest.

I had planned to reach the top of the staircase at Amicalola Falls before noon. The sign said the steps were steep. A blue mark showed the return spur my uncle and I had agreed we could use. At the trailhead I insisted, "Strong walkers do not need the short return."

Halfway up, my legs shook. The falls beside us looked like a white rope, loud and bright and not a thing we could hold. My uncle passed me a water bottle and said, "Pretty is not a handle." I understood him. Staring at the water would not pull me up the steps.

We stopped where the blue mark pointed down the shorter return. I still wanted the top. I also wanted to be able to walk the next day. That second want became the decision. I said we should take the spur.

My uncle did not cheer, and he did not sigh. He said, "Then the mark did its job." In his sentence, the mark's job was to offer a planned way back, not to scold anyone for using it. I had treated the sign as a dare. He treated it as a tool.

On the way down I counted landings instead of every step. Counting landings broke the descent into pieces I could finish. At the bottom I wrote in our notebook: "Turned at the blue mark. Top not reached. Legs still working."

The line was a record, not an apology. I still want the top on another day. Wanting it later is different from pretending I reached it today.

A trail kiosk near Providence Canyon, in Stewart County, explains the gullies for students. The central idea is that the deep gullies were cut after people cleared and plowed the land. They were not carved slowly in the way an ancient mountain valley is carved.

In the 1800s, farmers cleared the forest and plowed the sandy soil. Rain that once soaked among the trees began to run downhill in ditches. The kiosk says those ditches grew into canyons more than 100 feet deep. On a geologic clock, that growth was fast. Fast here means over years of farming and rain. It does not mean one storm, and it does not mean millions of years.

The canyon walls show pink, orange, and white layers. Color marks a layer of soil or sand. It does not mark a trail sign. A visitor who follows color as if it were a path mark is mixing up the wall with the signs on the trail.

The kiosk uses the phrase "a wound that became a view." Then it explains the phrase. The wound means the land was damaged by erosion. The view means people now come to see the walls that erosion left. The phrase holds both facts. Damage came first. The beauty is a result, not a replacement that erases the damage.

Visitors must stay behind the fences. The edges can crumble. The reason comes right after the rule, so the fence is not offered as a decoration. The fences should stay, because a shortcut for a photo is not worth a collapsed edge.

Students are asked to write one cause and one result. A complete answer names the plowing and the runoff as the cause and the deep gullies as the result. Naming only the colors describes the walls without explaining how the canyon grew.