This resource is a demonstration lesson presented at the 2014 Write for Texas Summer Institute. It provides a snapshot of a four to five week unit that engages students in the reading and writing workshop model.

This resource series is designed to enhance teachers' knowledge and skill so they can effectively teach grammar in context. Teaching grammar in context uses powerful models like sentences within mentor texts, rather than marking errors and correcting weak or wrong examples. 

You will be able to evaluate the authors’ style and syntax, and evaluate how effective style and syntax are to the overall meaning of the text.

You will learn how to determine the meaning of grade-level academic English words derived from Latin, Greek, or other linguistic roots and affixes.

You will learn how to use context (e.g., cause and effect or compare and contrast organizational text structures) to determine or clarify the meaning of unfamiliar or multiple-meaning words.

You will learn how to infer the implicit theme in a work of fiction, distinguish theme from topic, and make complex inferences using textual evidence.

Using textual evidence, you will be able to explain how authors create meaning through stylistic elements and figurative language emphasizing the use of personification, hyperbole, and refrains in prose and poetry.

You will be able to identify the literary language and devices used in memoirs and personal narratives and compare their characteristics with those of an autobiography.

You will learn how to summarize the main ideas and supporting details in text and understand that a summary does not include opinions.

You will be able to explain how different organizational patterns (e.g., proposition and support, problem and solution) develop the main idea and the author’s viewpoint.

You will learn how to synthesize and make logical connections between ideas within a text and across two or three texts representing similar or different genres (including literary text) and support the findings with textual evidence.

The ELPS Instructional Tool outlines how to plan focused, targeted, and systematic instruction to meet the linguistic needs of ELLs identified at the beginning and intermediate proficiency levels in grade 3 or higher.

The ELPS Linguistic Instructional Alignment Guide (LIAG) is designed to help teachers gather information needed to ensure that classroom instruction meets the individual academic and linguistic needs of English language learners (ELLs).

This resource links to the Write for Texas online resources and includes a short video overview.

You will learn how to write an expository/procedural text with a variety of sentence structures, rhetorical devices, transitions, appropriate facts, and details.

You will learn how to make connections between and across texts, including other media (e.g., film, play), and provide textual evidence.

You will learn the importance of graphical elements (e.g., capital letters, line length, word position) in the meaning of a poem.

You will learn how to analyze different points of view, including first-person, third-person omniscient, and third-person limited.

You will learn how to write an expository/procedural text that synthesizes ideas from several sources.

Sheltered instruction is an instructional approach that uses various strategies to ensure that grade-level instruction provided in English addresses both content and language objectives. This resource introduces the Sheltered Instruction Training Series (20 CPE hours).