Are You Speaking Greek?
Students will be able to determine the meaning of words using Greek, Latin, or other linguistic roots and affixes.
Exploring Identity and Diving Deep into the Complex Meaning of Poetry
This lesson is designed to teach students to make complex inferences, choose specific text evidence that strongly supports the inference, and develop a coherent explanation of how the evidence strongly supports the validity of the idea within the genre of poetry.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
Can You Summarize?
Students will work with partners, as well as independently, to create and evaluate summaries of expository text.
Reading Between the Lines
In this lesson, students will expand their critical thinking skills by making inferences found in a short film and listening to a literary fictional text on tablets. Working collaboratively in groups, students will create anchor charts to demonstrate their understanding of making inferences and present their detailed anchor charts to their classmates.
Inferring: It’s a Beast!
Using a digital forum, seventh-grade students will collaboratively generate authentic inferences about character motivation. Students will utilize textual evidence and draw from personal schema in order to make logical connections across multiple genres.
Inference in the Real World: Using Clues to Identify Key Details
Students will actively read as a critical component; they will infer in expository text.
Analyzing Online Sources for Credibility
The students will analyze online sources for credibility and reliability while respecting others opinions through collaboration.
Catch Me If You Can—Retelling "The Gingerbread Man"
Students retell or re-enact events in sequence from "The Gingerbread Man" using pictures.
It’s All in the Details
This lesson demonstrates a small group intervention that scaffolds instruction of main idea for native English or Spanish speaking students. This lesson is scripted in both languages.
Sound Effects, Poetic Elements, and Analysis, Oh My! Visualizing the Text to Gain Meaning Out of Poetry
Students will be asked to use metacognition as they analyze a poem, make inferences, and draw conclusions about the overall meaning of a text.
Stop, Collaborate, and Listen. Poetry is Our Mission! Thinking Deeply About Poetry
Students will actively engage with poetry in a blend of collaborative and independent analysis of poetic devices and an author’s use of devices to communicate a deeper meaning. Students will use their analysis to infer the meaning of a variety of poems.
Building Vocabulary with a Morphing Mindset
Students will explore vocabulary words from other content areas and apply their learning of word parts to find meaning.
Teacher working with students
Sound Detectives
Through the application of mentor text, various poetry, cooperative learning, self and peer-evaluation, and sound devices, students will build self-motivation to better appreciate and understand the author’s usage of sound devices in poetry.
Example of What Students Hear
4 Using Reading and Writing to Support Learning Across the Content Areas
This resource presents instructional writing and reading practices that support the content area learning of adolescent learners.
The Write for Texas guiding principles of effective writing instruction, developed for all teachers across disciplines, focus on building every student's understanding and ability to read, write, and think like experts—historians, mathematicians, scientists, and literary critics.
4 OnTRACK English I Writing: Writing the Expository and Procedural Essay
OnTRACK English I Writing, Module 3, Lessons 1–4. Students write expository and procedural or work-related texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes
2 Online Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy Unit 1
The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies help prepare middle school teachers to design appropriate instruction for all students, including those who are struggling with reading due to limited English proficiency, learning disabilities, dyslexia, and other risk factors for reading difficulties. The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy contains seven units. Units 1–3 are designed for all teachers; Units 4–7 are more appropriate for English Language Arts teachers. Credit-bearing courses are available at the links below. This binder contains Unit 1.
Tier I (Units 1–3)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA1+2016_T1/about
Tiers II/III (Units 4–7)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA2+2016_T1/about
3 Online Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy Unit 3
The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies help prepare middle school teachers to design appropriate instruction for all students, including those who are struggling with reading due to limited English proficiency, learning disabilities, dyslexia, and other risk factors for reading difficulties. The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy contains seven units. Units 1–3 are designed for all teachers; Units 4–7 are more appropriate for English Language Arts teachers. Credit-bearing courses are available at the links below. This binder contains Unit 3.
Tier I (Units 1–3)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA1+2016_T1/about
Tiers II/III (Units 4–7)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA2+2016_T1/about
2 Online Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy Unit 4
The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies help prepare middle school teachers to design appropriate instruction for all students, including those who are struggling with reading due to limited English proficiency, learning disabilities, dyslexia, and other risk factors for reading difficulties. The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy contains seven units. Units 1–3 are designed for all teachers; Units 4–7 are more appropriate for English Language Arts teachers. Credit-bearing courses are available at the links below. This binder contains Unit 4.
Tier I (Units 1–3)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA1+2016_T1/about
Tiers II/III (Units 4–7)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA2+2016_T1/about
2 Online Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy Unit 5
The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies help prepare middle school teachers to design appropriate instruction for all students, including those who are struggling with reading due to limited English proficiency, learning disabilities, dyslexia, and other risk factors for reading difficulties. The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy contains seven units. Units 1–3 are designed for all teachers; Units 4–7 are more appropriate for English Language Arts teachers. Credit-bearing courses are available at the links below. This binder contains Unit 5.
Tier I (Units 1–3)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA1+2016_T1/about
Tiers II/III (Units 4–7)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA2+2016_T1/about
1 Online Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy Unit 6
The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies help prepare middle school teachers to design appropriate instruction for all students, including those who are struggling with reading due to limited English proficiency, learning disabilities, dyslexia, and other risk factors for reading difficulties. The Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy contains seven units. Units 1–3 are designed for all teachers; Units 4–7 are more appropriate for English Language Arts teachers. Credit-bearing courses are available at the links below. This binder contains Unit 6.
Tier I (Units 1–3)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA1+2016_T1/about
Tiers II/III (Units 4–7)
http://www.texascourses.org/courses/course-v1:TexasGateway+TALA2+2016_T1/about