consider:
• What happens to the main characters in each chapter? By novel’s end? Why?
• What does the main character have in common with another?
• How are characters not alike?
• Where and when is there the most tension? Why?
• How can I use details to explain how the character is changing?
• When I visualize the settings of important scenes, what does that reveal about the characters?
Informational Text
3 Gist: Students reading for information to describe the relationship between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps requires them to understand and use technical language. Having established this, students focus on time, sequences, and cause/effect to determine importance.
They consider:
• Does this text describe people and events in history?
• Does it outline steps in a process like a recipe?
• Does this text explain animals, nature, or another science topic?
• What vocabulary words help me understand the topic?
• How can I skim headings, photos, captions, and graphics to deepen my understanding of these pages?
• Does the author use language and key words that identify time, sequence, or cause/effect?
4 Gist: Students reading for information in historical, scientific, or technical texts use specific information directly from the text to recount what happened and why as they explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts.
They consider:
• How is this text organized? Does the author tell about a topic in a chronological sequence?
• How can I “outsmart” the text by using features like the index, TOC, glossary, illustrations and photographs, bolded words, and headings to help me understand?
• What happens in the text?
• What specific information or key ideas explain why the event happened?
• If I had to choose one specific piece of information from each page that best explains what or why something happens, what would it be?
5 Gist: Students reading for information about the relationships between two or more people, events, ideas, or concepts first determine which people, events, ideas, or concepts play an influential role. Students then read the text almost like a scientist would observe an experiment, observing how various people, events, ideas, or concepts influence each other over time.
They consider:
• What type of text is this?
• Which people, events, ideas, or concepts does the author treat as important in the text?
• How would I explain their relationships or interactions?
• What examples or key details help me support my explanation?
• How do people, events, or ideas connect together?
• What are the connections and relationships between procedures, steps, and so on?
Common Core Reading Standard 3
What the Teacher Does
To describe in depth characters, settings, or events in a story:
• As you read aloud books, get students to notice how the character drives the plot. Teach students to hit the pause button at major shifts in setting/scene, time periods, and chapter endings and ask themselves, What does the author want me to notice as new here? How is this helping — or hindering — the character resolve the problem she is trying to solve?
• Have students make a list of all the characters in a story, and chart what they’re like (both externally and internally) and what causes them to be that way/feel that way. Discuss that characters, just like people in real life, have contradictory aspects of their personality.
• Create class charts depicting the sequence of important events, and then have students work in groups to consider an event from each character’s POV.
• Build a plot map — individually, in groups, or as a class — noting specific events in a story.
• Think aloud how you would use the specific details to describe in detail the characters, settings, or events. Model orally and also in written form for the students.
• Have students write in-depth descriptions of characters, setting, or events from the text using specific details.
To explain how actions contribute to the sequence of events:
• Create a graphic chart or plot diagram and ask students to analyze the plot for moments when characters do something that affects the plot—increases tension, causes change —in a measurable, discernable way. Sometimes called a “fever chart” to represent the rising and falling action of events in the story.
To compare/contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, and to explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, procedures, ideas, or concepts:
• Have students identify the wants or needs of key characters and parts of the story where their different wants and needs conflict.
• Have students create graphic organizers (Venn diagrams, two-column notes, double-bubble Thinking Maps) to record information about what is similar and different about characters and their families, their communities, and their beliefs. Look at settings and major events through the same bifocals: What might the author want us to notice through these sharp contrasts?
• Model how to write a comparison piece and then model how to write contrast using graphic organizers. Co-construct a comparison/contrast piece with students using a shared text.
• Help students determine why something happened as it did. This will help them begin to identify cause and effect relationships between concepts, people, and events in informational texts.
• Gather a few texts (informational) that each offer a different and clear example of signal words. Read the texts and chart the signal words (timelines, dates, numbered steps, and words like first, second, next, last, most importantly, and years ago).
To draw from specific details and key details in the text and to summarize:
• Model summarizing the text by thinking aloud and using specific words, phrases, and sentences.
• Have students write their own summaries, highlighting where they have used specific text details.
