South Dakota ELA 6.W.6.a

ELA6th GradeWriting

The Standard

6.W.6: Use technology, including digital tools/platforms, to produce and publish writing.

Link to and cite sources with a standard format such as MLA or APA.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students add clickable links to online sources they use in their writing. They cite those sources in a consistent format, such as MLA, so readers can find them.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student links a borrowed fact to the page where they found it. They add an in-text citation that matches a Works Cited entry with the source details.
Common Misconceptions: Students may paste a URL alone and call it a citation. They may link to search results instead of the source page, or leave out the author and title.
How to Assess It: Give students a short paragraph with one borrowed fact and a source card with an author, title, site, date, and URL. Ask them to link the fact and add a matching MLA in-text citation and Works Cited entry.

Lesson moves

Pairs arrange cut-up article details into an MLA entry, then add the article link to a shared document.
Show a paragraph with a linked fact but no citation. Ask, "What else would help a reader find and check this source?"
Run a citation repair race: teams fix three entries missing an author, title, or URL using printed source cards.
Have students cite and link a local weather report in a one-sentence claim about tomorrow's forecast.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 6.W.6.a, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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