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.
Combining Sentences
Students will manipulate word and punctuation cards from mentor sentences to compose and decompose compound sentences.
Tackling Transitions
In this lesson, students will learn how to effectively use transition words. These will be used to connect ideas and organize the flow of their writing so it is coherent.
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.
Inferring Through Imagery and Figurative Language
Students rotate to four posters which contain a single stanza from a common poem (“Digging” by Seamus Heaney), marking key literary elements (imagery, diction, figurative language) before rotating to explain the connotation of the words and phrases selected by the previous group. After text marking, students regroup to discuss the inferential connections between literary terms and their connotative meaning to theorize thematic meaning within the poem.
Making an Inference
The class will review previous learning about how authors describe characters using speech, thoughts, effects on others, actions, and looks (STEAL). Students will make annotations on an excerpt using the STEAL strategy. We will talk them through making a guided inference. Students will complete a short-answer response on chart paper with evidence and inference for the focus question
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.
Thesis Throwdown
After students watch a brief video introducing thesis statements, they will create a class thesis statement checklist, use a prompt to write a personal thesis, compare theirs to others in their group while working to craft and revise a group thesis to present to the class after participating in a Gallery Walk where they provide and incorporate revision suggestions.
Teacher Introducing Lesson
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
Diggin’ for Revisions
This lesson is focused on revising one sentence in isolation. The student and teacher choose a revision focus question before the lesson for the student to use as a guide for revising their sentence. Students provide feedback to their peers on how they could revise their sentence based on the selected focus question. Once feedback is completed, students begin revising their own sentence using toolboxes. At the end, students publish their revised sentence onto the online discussion tool and share out how they revised their sentence.
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
The Magic of Words: Playing with Meaning
Students process the meaning of unknown words using a foldable that guides them through the stages of using context to predict definitions. In the first stage, students predict connotation and denotation of words in isolation. In the second stage, students read the same words used in a sentence to expose them to the word in context. In the third stage, students read the words in a passage, providing the greatest context. Students collaborate throughout the process, comparing and discussing differences in predicted meanings and connotations. Students ultimately compare their first, second, and third definitions to further understanding how context is important for word meaning.
Sentence Structure
Students will identify different types of sentence structures within a mentor text and demonstrate the understanding of varying sentence types by creating correctly structured and punctuated compound and complex sentences from simple sentences given by the teacher.
Teacher giving instructions
Synthesizing and Making Connections—Socratic Style
Students will show understanding of expository text and be able to collaborate with peers to provide evidence of their understanding.
Inference Beyond a Text
Students will make inferences through workstations that allow them to work collaboratively and explore.