Syntax Shuffle
Students will analyze one of four ways to incorporate grammar and syntax into their everyday language through the use of technological instruction. Once students have comprehended their grammatical type, they will practice among their peers to master and share the lesson (grammar rule) in a Jigsaw activity.
Main Idea
Students will identify supporting details and the main idea in a passage.
Moving Beyond P. I. E.
In this lesson, students infer the author’s purpose of selected paragraphs of expository text. The lesson is designed with English learners in mind and utilizes instructional strategies designed to scaffold instruction such as collaborative learning strategies, student generated questions, anchor charts, and sentence frames to facilitate oral responses.
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.
Evaluating Inferences
Students will evaluate a set of inferences to determine if they are valid or invalid and use text evidence to support their stance. The lesson incorporates best practices for English learners (ELs) and at-risk students such as the use of graphic organizers, anchor charts, and cooperative learning.
Santa Timeline Breakout
Students collaborate and critically-think to analyze resources from informational texts of various disciplines and unlock a breakout box. Once the box is unlocked, students receive a final text to summarize.
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.
Poetry With Purpose
Students collaborate in small groups to discuss their peers’ poetry and assess the poetry according to the student-created rubric. The rubric assesses students’ ability to make meaningful connections to the poetic devices in their poetry. Through collaboration, they are building a culture of receptiveness among their peers.
Inferring with Dr. Seuss
Students will work collaboratively in groups as they practice their inferring skills using children’s literature books.
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.
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.
Super Sleuths SIP on Vocabulary: Using Sentences, Illustrations, and Prefixes/Suffixes to Make Meaning
Students will learn strategies to find the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary words using the acronym SIP (sentence, illustration, prefixes/suffixes).
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.
Did You Get the "Text" Message?
Students will work independently and collaboratively to recognize the theme within a variety of texts. Students will create theme topics and theme statements from texts read.
Paired Passages with a Purpose
Students will make inferences about the author’s purpose after reading paired passages involving the same subject.
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.
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.
Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions in an Anne Frank Digital Challenge
Students will work collaboratively on a digital challenge activity by reading short excerpts of nonfiction text and explore an online webpage where they will learn more about the life of Anne Frank and the World War II era. By answering inferential and organizational structure questions, regarding those topics, students will be in a race against each other to crack the code to a lockbox.
Author’s Purpose, Text Features, Informational Text, and Daily Three
Students will follow the Daily Three structure to engage in mini-lessons regarding author’s purpose, text features, guided reading, work on writing, read to self, and word work. The students will also infer the author’s purpose for writing a book using a book order form.
Be an Editing Star with Checklists and TPR!
Students review editing marks using TPR (Total Physical Response), while listening to a reading of a mentor text. Next, students use a brief procedural composition to edit for punctuation, capitalization, commas, and complete sentences. Students also use a checklist to edit a peer’s writing.