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.
A Reader’s Survival Guide: Connecting and Synthesizing Ideas in Nonfiction Texts
This lesson is designed to teach students to synthesize and make connections between ideas within a text and with previous texts students have read.
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.
Intelligible Inferences
Students will work in cooperative learning groups that foster empathy to make inferences from pictures and text. They will discuss the differences between inferences made from pictures and inferences made from text.
Students working on poster
Analyzing Online Sources for Credibility
The students will analyze online sources for credibility and reliability while respecting others opinions through collaboration.
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
A Trip to the Hospital
Students participate in a set of stations about the work done in different areas of a hospital. During each station, students revise paragraphs based on word choice, clarity, and transitions while also looking at introductions and adding or deleting sentences.
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.
Empowered by the Evidence: Making Inferences with Confidence
A mini-lesson on how to select the best text evidence to support an inference or draw a conclusion is presented. Teachers use the think-aloud method to model how to use a checklist in order to identify the strongest support provided in the text. Students are then asked to work with a group to discuss and support a given conclusion drawn from a self-chosen text. They are encouraged to use the checklist to ensure the best evidence is identified
2 OnTRACK Grade 8 English: Vocabulary Development
OnTRACK Grade 8 English Reading, Module 1, Lessons 1 and 2. Students will learn how to understand new vocabulary and use it when reading and writing.
11 OnTRACK Grade 8 English: Comprehension of Literary Texts
OnTRACK Grade 8 English Reading Module 2, Lessons 1–11. Students will learn how to analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about literary texts.
5 OnTRACK Grade 8 English: Comprehension of Informational Text
OnTRACK Grade 8 English Reading Module 3, Lessons 1–5. Students will learn how to analyze, make inferences, and draw conclusions about informational text.
9 OnTRACK Grade 8 English: Writing
OnTRACK Grade 8 English Writing, Module 1 Lessons 1–9. Students will learn how to write literary texts, personal narratives, expository/procedural texts, and persuasive tests.
8 OnTRACK Grade 8 English: Editing
OnTRACK Grade 8 English Writing, Module 2, Lesson 1. Students will learn to revise drafts for word choice, consistenc, transitions, and effective sentence strategies. OnTRACK Grade 8 English Writing, Module 3, Lessons 1-7. Students will learn how to edit a draft for grammar, mechanics, and spelling. Students will learn the function of the conventions of academic language and will learn how to use these conventions when speaking and writing.
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
4 Using Reading and Writing to Support Learning Across the Content Areas
This resource presents instructional writing and reading practices that support the content area learning of adolescent learners.
The Write for Texas guiding principles of effective writing instruction, developed for all teachers across disciplines, focus on building every student's understanding and ability to read, write, and think like experts—historians, mathematicians, scientists, and literary critics.
7 OnTRACK English II Reading: Reading and Vocabulary Development Across Genres
OnTRACK English II Reading, Module 1 Lessons 1–6 and practice lesson. Students will understand new vocabulary and use it when reading and writing.
10 OnTRACK English I Reading: Understanding and Analysis of Informational Text
OnTRACK English I Reading, Module 5, Lessons 1–8, Practice 1 and 2. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
3 OnTRACK English I Reading: Analysis of Media Literacy
OnTRACK English I Reading, Module 4, Lessons 1 and 2, and Practice Lesson. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts.