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.
Revising and Editing Escape Room
Students will collaboratively apply revising and editing skills to make their way through passages and a series of questions to decode a lock. If groups successfully complete the tasks, they will escape the room and win a prize.
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.
Revising for Coherence
Students will use a checklist to peer edit a composition. They will check for coherence through the proper use of transition words and conjunctions.
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.
Figuring out Figurative Language
Students will work collaboratively to infer the implied meaning of a metaphor used in a poem. Students will complete a graphic organizer in which they discuss with their peers the two items being compared in the metaphor, write and illustrate the literal meaning of each word being compared, and use this information to infer the implied meaning of the metaphor. The lesson has a strong focus on vocabulary development and is designed with English learners (ELs) in mind.
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.
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.
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.
Connecting Author’s Purpose and Organizational Patterns
Students explore and analyze how the author can achieve a specific purpose by using a variety of organizational patterns.
Critiquing and Creating Compound and Complex Sentences
Students will create compound and complex sentences with proper comma usage and present their explanations to the class.
Layers to Understanding Poetry
Students will apply their analytical skills to different types of poems by reviewing the devices used in poetry, reading and analyzing two poems, and creating a poster to demonstrate their learning.
Teaming up with Transitions
Students participate in an activity where they must link cause and effect statements using transition words. The lesson is designed with English learners in mind, and it includes instructional strategies designed to provide comprehensible input, such as visuals and collaborative learning.
Una Reseña de un Restaurante
Students describe a restaurant in restaurant review form using simple phrases and sentences. As they write, students focus on noun-adjective agreement and sentence structure.
Morphology Mania
Students will discover and use knowledge of Greek and Latin roots to determine the meaning of unknown words.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
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.
The Battle Between Editing and Revising
Students will apply revision strategies to mentor texts. They also will have the opportunity to create a new book.
Discovering the Power of a Complete Sentence
Students will discover the necessary components of a complete sentence and use the complete subject and complete predicate in their own writing through a process called ratiocination.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
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.
Painting With Expository Writing
After students examine an image by Faith Ringgold, they will write supporting sentences when given a central idea sentence.