Putting It All Together

Thursday and Friday of this week will be the post-assessment for the informational reading unit.  After learning, and reviewing, and practicing a variety of reading strategies, students will need to demonstrate their ability to:

• generate ideas about the central idea of a text by asking, “What is this mostly about? What is the author saying about this topic?”
• look for patterns and connections by asking themselves, “Why does this keep coming up? What might the author be showing us with these patterns? What connections are being made throughout the text?”
• connect specific, relevant details in a text to the central idea by looking for supporting ideas that support the central idea and summarizing key events and ideas by asking themselves, “Which events are important to the central idea?”
• recognize and track connections among individuals, ideas, and events as they read by roadmapping and asking themselves: “How are the individuals, ideas or events related? How do they connect? What idea do I have about what this text is saying?”
• know that authors use specific words or phrases to create a tone and think to themselves, “What central idea is the author developing? How do these words or phrases impact the central idea?”
• identify and differentiate between words with connotative, figurative, and technical meanings that connect to the purpose.
• identify when an author uses figurative language by locating examples of analogies and allusions to other texts.
• pay attention to how an author has structured a text and think, “Why would the author use this structure? What is he or she trying to show me?”
• reflect on a feature of text and identify how it relates to the central idea by asking, "Why did the author choose to include this feature in the text? How does this feature contribute to the central idea?”
• look for particular sentences within a paragraph that develop or refine a key concept (central idea) and ask, “What role do these sentences play in developing the concept or idea? How does this specific sentence add to the meaning of the central idea?”
• identify specific claims within a text by reviewing the supporting ideas around the central idea and assess whether the claim is sound by asking, “Does this make sense? Is there enough evidence that supports the claim?”
• recognize when an author introduces information that is irrelevant to the claim (or central idea) and think, “What does this have to do with the claim (or central idea)?”