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.
Escribir una carta persuasiva
This lesson was intended to be delivered in a face-to-face classroom environment. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, this lesson has been modified from its original design to be executed in a virtual setting.
This virtual lesson was designed to prepare students to communicate familiar topics in the presentational writing mode in the target language. Students will act as a college advisor and respond to a prospective student’s email regarding housing options. Students will then peer evaluate each other’s writing and provide meaningful feedback using a rubric.
Analyzing Author’s Purpose: Argumentative Text
Students will read a pre-Civil War speech and write author’s purpose statements using the argumentative verbs explain, urge, convince, and encourage.
Teacher in Action
Uncovering Tone in Poetry
Students will interpret the tone of a poem, cite text evidence to justify their response, and research a synonym for the word they chose to expand their understanding of Tier 2 vocabulary.
Teacher introducing the poem
Summarizing as a Reading Strategy
Students work collaboratively using reading and comprehension skills to demonstrate their mastery of summarizing a text or piece of literature.
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.
Syntax Shuffle
Students will analyze one of four ways to incorporate grammar and syntax into their everyday language through the use of technological instruction. Once students have comprehended their grammatical type, they will practice among their peers to master and share the lesson (grammar rule) in a Jigsaw activity.
Evaluating Inferences
Students will evaluate a set of inferences to determine if they are valid or invalid and use text evidence to support their stance. The lesson incorporates best practices for English learners (ELs) and at-risk students such as the use of graphic organizers, anchor charts, and cooperative learning.
Santa Timeline Breakout
Students collaborate and critically-think to analyze resources from informational texts of various disciplines and unlock a breakout box. Once the box is unlocked, students receive a final text to summarize.
Exploring Identity and Diving Deep into the Complex Meaning of Poetry
This lesson is designed to teach students to make complex inferences, choose specific text evidence that strongly supports the inference, and develop a coherent explanation of how the evidence strongly supports the validity of the idea within the genre of poetry.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
Poetry With Purpose
Students collaborate in small groups to discuss their peers’ poetry and assess the poetry according to the student-created rubric. The rubric assesses students’ ability to make meaningful connections to the poetic devices in their poetry. Through collaboration, they are building a culture of receptiveness among their peers.
Paired Passages with a Purpose
Students will make inferences about the author’s purpose after reading paired passages involving the same subject.
Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions in an Anne Frank Digital Challenge
Students will work collaboratively on a digital challenge activity by reading short excerpts of nonfiction text and explore an online webpage where they will learn more about the life of Anne Frank and the World War II era. By answering inferential and organizational structure questions, regarding those topics, students will be in a race against each other to crack the code to a lockbox.
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.
TSLP—0–SE—Leadership—L2—Matching Instruction to Needs
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.
TSLP—6–12—Assessment—A1—Literacy Assessment Plan
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.
TSLP—6–12—Assessment—A2—Identifying Students At Risk
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.
TSLP—6–12—Assessment—A3—Determining Instructional Needs
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.
TSLP—6–12—Assessment—A4—Monitoring Student Progress
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.
TSLP—6–12—Standards-based Instruction—SBI 3.A—Reading Instruction
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.
TSLP—6–12—Effective Instructional Framework—E1—Data to Inform Instruction
The goal of the Texas State Literacy Plan (TSLP) is to ensure that every Texas child is strategically prepared for the literacy demands of college or career by high school graduation.