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.
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.
The Golden Touch
Students will practice using a protocol to create a summary of an expository text.
Can You Summarize?
Students will work with partners, as well as independently, to create and evaluate summaries of expository text.
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.
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.
Which Organizational Pattern Is It?
Students will read a text, identify its organizational pattern, highlight signal words, create a visual representation/graphic organizer, and present to the class.
Steps for Success
Students demonstrate problem-solving skills by using Steps for Success hand signals and conflict cards and demonstrate skills during independent centers.
Tone is in the Fear of the Beholder: Reading and Writing Using Multimodal Mentor Texts
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.
Building Blocks for Teaching Adolescents with Reading Difficulties
This online resource is designed to enhance teachers’ knowledge and skills so they can effectively teach adolescent students who struggle with reading.
Teaching Sentence Skills
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.
Understand New Vocabulary Using Roots and Affixes (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how to determine the meaning of grade-level academic English words derived from Latin, Greek, or other linguistic roots and affixes.
Explain the Influence of the Setting on Plot Development in Literary Text/Fiction (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how the setting in a story can influence the development of the plot.
Analyze the Development of Plot through Characters in Literary Texts/Fiction (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how the internal and external responses of characters, including their motivations and conflicts, contribute to the development of the story’s plot.
Analyze Point of View in Literary Texts/Fiction (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how to analyze different points of view, including first person, third-person omniscient, and third-person limited.
Understanding Drama (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how to explain a playwright’s use of dialogue and stage directions.
Understand New Vocabulary Within Context (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how to determine or clarify the meaning of words using context within a sentence and in larger sections of text.
Understanding Poetry (English 7 Reading)
You will learn the importance of graphical elements (e.g., capital letters, line length, word position) in the meaning of a poem.
Describe Themes in Literary Texts (English 7 Reading)
You will learn how to describe multiple themes in fiction, analyze how place and time influence the theme, and make complex inferences.
Imagery and Figurative Language (English 7 Reading)
You will be able to identify figurative language and understand how it creates imagery, appeals to the senses, and suggests mood.