6th grade genres worksheets

Tap to see another sample sheet.

Sixth grade passages are full-length originals in ten kinds of prose, from myth to opinion piece to headed information text. Questions ask what each kind is built to do, which detail could exist only in that kind, and what would have to change to turn the text into its neighbor, which is how readers learn to expect the right things from a page.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core RL.6.5.

Each click picks one of the 13 passages written for this grade. Every sheet comes with its answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of passages you'll get

Read the passage. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question.

Dome Seven

The alarm in Dome Seven went off at 0340 station time, and Elowen was the only person awake to hear it, because at fourteen she had the night watch on the farm decks and nobody else wanted it. The dome was a half-sphere of clear…

  1. What kind of text is this? science fiction · historical fiction · a myth · an information text

    Answer: science fiction

  2. Which clue tells you the kind of text? the story happens on a space station with technology that does not exist yet · the story explains why the sun rises · the story is set in a real year in the past, on a farm that really existed · the story is told by a talking animal

Each print picks one of the 13 passages written for this grade, and its questions come with it. With 13 to pick from, a second print can land on one you've used, so check the title before you hand it out.

What's on a 6th grade sheet

6th grade sheets draw from 13 passages, 291 to 312 words long. 5th and 6th grade print from the same 13 passages. What changes is the standard (RL.6.5 here) and the teaching notes below.

Some of the titles: Why the Sea Breathes Twice a Day, Chalk on the Coat, Put a Clock on Homework, The Tooth That Grows Through the Lip, The Girl Who Sold Sea Dragons, Read to Us, Please.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

Play the swap. Take the passage and ask what would have to change to make it a different kind: give the myth a scientist, give the opinion piece a plot, give the fact article a hero. Naming the change names the feature, and that is the whole standard.

Watch for: Fiction versus nonfiction is only the first sort. The real skill is the next level down: a myth and a science text can cover the same river, and the difference is how each one explains it. Kids match genres by topic instead of by clues. Space means science fiction to them, even when the text is a fact article about astronauts. The clue questions exist to break that habit.

Common questions about 6th grade genres

How do sixth grade genre questions get harder?
They stop asking only what a text is and start asking what it is for and what separates it from its neighbor. A myth and a science article can both be about the tides; the questions ask what one does that the other cannot.
Why are the passages so long?
A genre needs room to behave like itself. A mystery needs clues and a false suspect, an opinion piece needs to answer the other side, a legend needs the part where the records stop and the telling begins. Short samples would only name the genre; these let your child watch it work.

Related worksheets

Ready to print one?

Want a different passage? Print again. Each print picks one of the 13.

Aligned to Common Core RL.6.5. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

Spot a mistake on this sheet? Tell us. · About these worksheets