Investigating Cause and Effect Through the Lens of the Alamo
This lesson is structured as a gradual release model of cause and effect. Students start by identifying cause and effect within a sentence, then progress to paragraphs, and finally finding cause and effect relationships on a given page in the book. This lesson integrates fourth-grade social studies standards with a text about the Alamo.
Sticky Note Summarizing
Students will determine the important parts of a story and recognize and compose an individual summary by using color-coordinated sticky notes and the Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then (SWBST) strategy. Students will practice correctly identifying the parts of the SWBST strategy during a read-aloud. Students will work in groups and read a short story together, identify key components, and compose a written summary. Students will demonstrate their ability to recognize a good summary by writing two components of summarization on an exit ticket.
Put on Your Detective Cap: Making Inferences
Students pretend to be detectives while being presented with various pictorial and textual clues that lead them to make an overall inference about what happened on Tuesday.
Themes in Hamlet
Students will make inferences about themes from the play, use textual evidence from the play to support their inferences using the CASE model, and will make a praise and criticism for peer answers.
Who Is the Culprit?
Engaging in a crime scene investigation, students will collaboratively examine the evidence, make inferences about their observations, and write a detailed description of the crime. Students will then read an informational text about investigating a crime scene and answer inference questions.
Teaming up with Transitions
Students participate in an activity where they must link cause and effect statements using transition words. The lesson is designed with English learners in mind, and it includes instructional strategies designed to provide comprehensible input, such as visuals and collaborative learning.
Increasing Student Agency with Nonfiction Text
Students compare deep reading with an iceberg. Instruction focuses on teaching students’ close reading and annotation skills and increasing agency as students dive into informational text. Students are empowered through conversations, tech tools, and co-creation of criteria to read deeply.
Combining Sentences
Students will manipulate word and punctuation cards from mentor sentences to compose and decompose compound sentences.
Main Idea
Students will identify supporting details and the main idea in a passage.
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.
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.
How Authors Develop Complex Yet Believable Characters in Drama by Contrasting Characters
The students will identify characteristics of characters from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, explain why the characters are foils to each other, and use text evidence to support their understanding.
Fun with First Drafts
The lesson will support students’ writing a first draft of a personal narrative story by providing opportunities to listen to their previously recorded story, review their (graphic organizer) draft web, and add sticky notes with further details to their webs.
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.
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.
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.
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