Crime Scene Investigations through Text Structures
Students participate in an activity where they must solve a crime. Students visit different stations that include surveillance tape, tips, eyewitness statements, and a crime scene. Each station is formatted as a different organizational pattern allowing students to practice creating summaries reflecting the structure used.
One-Step Word Problems
Students participate in a teacher-created three-act task in order to solve math word problems. They reactivate their prior knowledge and determine the question to solve the main problem during Act One. Act Two engages students in a differentiated, rich task. During Act Three, students compare and discuss their work with peers outside their original groups.
Solve Problems using Place Value Strategies with a Carnival Theme
Students will work collaboratively through a fictitious real-world scenario to solve one‐step and multi‐step word problems. The lesson will involve solving addition and subtraction within 1,000 using a variety of strategies based on place value.
Express Yourself
Students determine which expression is a truth or a lie by generating equivalent expressions.
Keep Your Balance!
Students are introduced to solving one-variable, one-step equations using addition and subtraction through models and hands-on activities. The students will learn the substitution method of checking answers.
Perfecting Percents
Students will engage in an activity that allows them to explore the different parts of percents: part, whole, and percent, and develop conceptual understanding of percents through the Concrete, Representational, Abstract (CRA) method of instruction.
Text Evidence and the Moral Lesson
Teacher will read How Spiders Got Eight Legs as a read-aloud. Students will write notes about what they think the moral is. Students will collaborate in groups to determine what they think the moral lesson is. Students will reread, highlight, and write the text evidence that identifies the moral lesson.
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Quality Questioning
In this lesson, students analyze, rate, and revise questions generated in response to their reading of a short story. They use the questions in student-led conversations and activities, helping them understand the connection between strong questioning, inferring, and communicating during reading.
Traditional vs. Contemporary: "The Three Little Pigs"
Students will compare a contemporary version of "The Three Little Pigs" to a traditional version with respect to characters, setting, and plot. In a small group, students will analyze story elements on a t-chart to determine which parts of the stories are the same and which are different.
Solving Equations and Inequalities
Students will be divided into four groups and work on their assigned task to become an expert. They will match vocabulary terms with definitions and examples, use the “Pass the Pen” strategy to create and solve equations or inequalities, or write a real-world problem for an equation given. The experts will then teach these concepts to their peers.
Revision Rally
Students will use the ARMS (add, remove, move, and substitute words and phrases) revision strategy to revise a procedural passage.
Human Paragraphs
Students assume roles of paragraph parts, including the main idea and supporting details, in order to reassemble a text that has been divided into pieces based on textual purpose.
Texas Courses Update
Professional development courses for CPE credit are transitioning to a new course platform—TEALearn; professional development courses are no longer available through the Texas Gateway. As part of this process, TEA has reviewed courses that were previously offered through the Gateway. This resource provides an update on current status and availability of Classic Gateway courses.
New Resource Link to Test
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Connecting Author’s Purpose and Organizational Patterns
Students explore and analyze how the author can achieve a specific purpose by using a variety of organizational patterns.
Cooking Up Word Problems
Students rotate through four stations, collaboratively utilizing different strategies and manipulatives to analyze, explore, solve, and generate real-world culinary problem situations.
Are You in Your Place?
Students will be able to use concrete and pictorial models to compose and decompose numbers with place value.
Growing Our Vocabulary Goals
Students will use a variety of vocabulary strategies to apply their knowledge of unknown and multiple-meaning words.
Metacognitive Approaches to Student-based Learning
In this lesson, students will learn how to make complex inferences and draw conclusions about a work of literary fiction using a combination of text evidence and background knowledge. Using a graphic organizer and a short story, students will record both text evidence and their prior knowledge, and combine these elements to make an inference about the character.
2 Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment: Administering and Interpreting Results
This binder details how to score and interpret the results of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA). This course is Unit 4 of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy (TALA). These materials are available for view only; no credit or certificate is provided.