Hooked on Inferring
In this lesson, students use text evidence and schema to create an inference. Students read informational text and practice inferring with varying levels of support.
Creating Connections Across Literary Texts
Students will explore organizational patterns in short passages and use signal words/phrases as evidence to support the main idea and their understanding.
Courts of Measure
Students will use measurement tools to measure the dimensions of the basketball court and calculate the area of the court.
Choose Your Words Wisely!
Students will create a collection using objects, participate in a read-aloud, create another collection using sight word cards, and present their collections to the class.
Centers in Subtraction
Students will participate in multiple centers including a guided math center that reinforces subtraction concepts.
Circuit Designers
Students will work in small groups of two to three on a structured challenge around circuits which includes requirements such as including using a switch or a conductor. They will then use that knowledge to work on a collaborative challenge to solve a relevant problem related to elephant poaching. Students will create a containment system that will have an alarm system, a lighting system, and a way to pass through. Finally, they will review the other projects and discuss similarities and differences in the design.
Quality Questioning
In this lesson, students analyze, rate, and revise questions generated in response to their reading of a short story. They use the questions in student-led conversations and activities, helping them understand the connection between strong questioning, inferring, and communicating during reading.
Analyzing the Text for Summary and Connections
Students will critically think and communicate; they will summarize a text to understand and make connections to other texts, themselves, and the world.
Solving Equations and Inequalities
Students will be divided into four groups and work on their assigned task to become an expert. They will match vocabulary terms with definitions and examples, use the “Pass the Pen” strategy to create and solve equations or inequalities, or write a real-world problem for an equation given. The experts will then teach these concepts to their peers.
Human Paragraphs
Students assume roles of paragraph parts, including the main idea and supporting details, in order to reassemble a text that has been divided into pieces based on textual purpose.
Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cells
Students will categorize cells as prokaryotic or eukaryotic by identifying the presence or lack of a nucleus.
45-45-90 Triangles
To learn the pattern of the side lengths of a 45-45-90 triangle, students complete a gallery walk, a card sort activity starting with using the Pythagorean theorem, and activity to locate if there is an error in a presented problem and if so to identify what the error is.
Lights, Camera, Action!
Students compare and contrast potential and kinetic energy by creating a real-world model through a movie.
Crime Scene Investigations through Text Structures
Students participate in an activity where they must solve a crime. Students visit different stations that include surveillance tape, tips, eyewitness statements, and a crime scene. Each station is formatted as a different organizational pattern allowing students to practice creating summaries reflecting the structure used.
Working with Literal Equations
The lesson will provide a conceptual basis for illustrating the parallelism between solving multi-step equations and translating literal equations into solutions for specified variables.
Reading Strategies: Choose, Monitor, and Comprehend with Nonfiction Texts
Students will engage in activities that allow them to take a book walk and use criteria to choose a good-fit book, use strategies to self-monitor their own comprehension while independently reading, and use partner talk criteria to reflect on their strategies collaboratively.
Organized Authors: Name That Structure
Students will read a text passage, looking for and highlighting key words that indicate the appropriate organizational pattern of the text.
Rhyming is Out of This World!
Students will participate in stations with board games that reinforce rhyming, onset, and rimes, and blending.
Conversations in Art
In this lesson, students will learn the critique process using description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation. Students will create an evaluation of artwork using the critique process and communicate their understanding through written responses and discourse.
2 Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment: Administering and Interpreting Results
This binder details how to score and interpret the results of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA). This course is Unit 4 of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy (TALA). These materials are available for view only; no credit or certificate is provided.