Introduction to Character Foils
During this lesson, students will view video clips and read texts that have character foils examples. Students will complete a graphic organizer with evidence that supports their identification of foil characters. Once complete, students will use the information from the graphic organizer to discuss character foils.
What’s Your Feature?
Students will learn how to use text features to locate information and verify answers within an expository text.
Syncing with Inferences
In this lesson, students integrate relevant text evidence and background knowledge to generate valid inferences when reading a historical fiction text. The lesson was designed with English learners in mind, so it includes instructional strategies designed to make linguistic and content input comprehensible: a focus on vocabulary, visuals, cooperative learning, anchor charts, graphic organizers, and sentence stems/frames.
Which Organizational Pattern Is It?
Students will read a text, identify its organizational pattern, highlight signal words, create a visual representation/graphic organizer, and present to the class.
Students during Task
Drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences With Expository Text
Third grade students will identify and discuss facts and details from expository text and draw conclusions using textual evidence in learning stations.
Analyzing Author’s Purpose: Argumentative Text
Students will read a pre-Civil War speech and write author’s purpose statements using the argumentative verbs explain, urge, convince, and encourage.
Teacher in Action
Bulldogs “Paws” for a Good Summary
This lesson helps students summarize information in expository text using logical order. The lesson begins with students using a T-chart to categorize information as they summarize a text. By the end of the lesson, students will independently summarize information. As students transition through activities in the lesson, they will work both in groups and independently using a variety of best practices and a checklist to heighten intrinsic motivation, increasing chances for success.
Author’s Purpose: Reading for Meaning
In this lesson, students use text evidence and background knowledge to generate and evaluate inferences about the author's purpose for specific sections of a passage as well as the entire passage. The lesson is designed with English learners (ELs) and students from families that speak nonstandard dialects of English in mind. The lesson provides scaffolded instruction through the use of strategies designed to make input comprehensible: visuals, graphic organizers, sentence frames, hand gestures, and collaborative learning.
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.
What Can You Infer?
Students will learn how to use textual evidence to make inferences and to support their understanding.
Welcome to the Jungle!
This lesson offers an engaging format for fourth graders to spend time working with different cause-and-effect situations and text to help move them toward the objective of correctly identifying an implicit cause-and-effect relationship within a text.
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.
Text Features are a Bear
Students are expected to work with partners and then in groups to complete a text feature (scavenger) hunt activity using the same nonfiction text.
Where am I going?
The teacher will engage the students to make inferences through visuals, pictures, and informational text using problem-solving and self-questioning strategies.
Writing Summaries with Get the Gist
This lesson teaches students to use the Get the Gist strategy to find the main idea of a section. Students will then put those Get the Gist statements together to begin a written summary of their text.
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.
Sparking Curiosity and Wonder: Making Complex Inferences
Students will learn how to activate their curiosity and use questioning strategies to make complex inferences and connections across texts.