My Favorite Text Dependent Questioning Technique

March 11, 20151 Comment

Asking text-dependent questions is heavily routed in the Common Core/PA Core standards. A first step to having students analyze text is training them to look down (text) and not up (teacher) for the answers. At times our challenge as educators is an overabundance of information. Strategies focusing on close and careful reading can be found in CCSS “aligned” textbooks and online including the one I linked to above. Even with the abundance of information, maybe because of it, one question teachers often ask is “how do I get kids to answer questions at this level with a complex text?”

If forced to choose one resource or strategy it would be the IFL Patterned Way of Reading, Writing and Talking. The first page overviews the importance of asking open-ended, text dependent questions. The second outlines a structured method for a close reading (or discussion or writing) of text.

Asking students for the “most significant moment in a text” is a low stakes question–there is not a right or wrong answer– that forces a second look at text and beings to open to door for discussions about using evidence to support an answer. The strategy outlined could be used for reading, writing or speaking. Oral discussions are a great place to start as “speaking is natural–reading and writing are not.”

Have a great resource for text dependent questioning? Feel free to share in the comment section.

Text Analysis Lesson {Teaching Channel}

January 13, 2015January 13, 2015Leave a comment

The Teaching Channel contains a wealth of common core aligned lessons with video of teachers implementation, often a missing piece of content in professional development.

The following lesson, for example, focuses on analyzing literature (ELA.RL.11-12.1, ELA.RL.11-12.4) through questions, discussion, and symbols in a 12th grade English class. All Teaching Channel lessons are supported with the resources necessary to conduct the lesson in a classroom.

The Nuts & Bolts of Text Dependent Analysis

January 8, 2015September 8, 20153 Comments

Reading Anchor Standard 1 of the Common Core State Standards states:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

With an increased focus in the CCSS (PA Core Standards here in PA) on students’ ability to tackle complex text comes “text dependent analysis.” A new reporting category on the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) in Spring 2015 for grades 4-8, TDA represents a shift in reading, speaking and writing with questioning moving well beyond basic recall and even further than “find evidence from the text” which we’ve been training students to do for some time. Text dependent questions ask students to think about and analyze the evidence they find, orienting it in the larger text.

My thoughts…good writers are typically good readers. The process of examining a well written (remember not all text is worthy of an analysis) literature and non-fiction to understand how an author crafts an argument, creates a particular mood or tone, conveys a message through syntax or carefully crafted vocabulary to convey meaning seems like a worthy endeavor.

To that end I’ve included below “Writing TDA Questions with with Examples [sample question starters] from M. Burke from North Penn School District as well as other resources I’ve found helpful in crating TDA trainings. I also recommend reading Tackling the Misconceptions of Text Dependent Questions by Ryan McCarty and exploring TDA resources on Achieve the Core.

Enjoy!