TDA Practice: Paired Reading Excerpts {Middle Level}

The follow are sample paired texts: from Brian’s Winter and Call of the Wild which can be used for across text analysis for middle level students.

Sample analysis question:

Write an essay analyzing how each character’s thoughts and actions reveal aspects of his personality. Use evidence from each excerpt to support your analysis.

Brian’s Winter

1.Then the bear came.

2.Brian had come to know bears as well as he knew wolves or birds. They were usually alone—unless it was a female with cubs—and they were absolutely, totally devoted toeating. He had seen them several times while picking berries, raking the bushes with theirteeth to pull the fruit off—

and a goodly number of leaves as well, which they spit out before swallowing the berries—and, as with the wolves, they seemed toget along with him.

3.That is to say Brian would see them eating and he would move away and let them pick where they wanted while he found another location. It worked for the bears, he thought, smiling, and it worked for him, and this thinking evolved into what Brian thought of as an understanding between him and the bears: Since he left them alone, they would leave him

alone.

4. Unfortunately the bears did not know that it was an agreement, and Brian was suffering under the misunderstanding that, as in some imaginary politically correct society, everything was working out.

5. All of this made him totally unprepared for the reality of the woods. To wit: Bears and wolves did what they wanted to do, and Brian had to fit in.

6. He was literally awakened to the facts one morning during the two

– week warm spell. Brian had been sleeping soundly and woke to the clunking sound of metal on rock. His mind and ears were tuned to all the natural sounds around him and there was no sound in nature of metal on stone. It snapped him aw ake in midbreath.

7. He was sleeping with his head in the opening of the shelter and he had his face out and when he opened his eyes he saw what appeared to be a wall of black-brown fur directlyin front of him.

from Call of the Wild

1. That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, illumined by a candle,glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain; and when he, as a matter of course,entered it, both Perrault and Francois bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils,till he recovered from his consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer cold. A

chill wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with especial venom into his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about among

the many tents, only to find that one place was as cold as another. Here and there savage dogs rushed upon him, but he bristled his neck

-hair and snarled (for he was learning fast), and they let him go his way unmolested.

2.Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own teammates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking for them, and

again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not be, else he would not have been driven out. Then where could they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed, he aimlessly

circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his fore legs and he sank down.Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to investigate. A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils, and there, curled up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and intentions, and even ventured, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck’s face with his warm wet tongue.

3.

Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck confidently selected a spot, andwith much fuss and waste effort proceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his body filled the confined space and he was asleep. The day had been long and arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and

wrestled with bad dreams.

4. Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the waking camp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the night and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed him on every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him—the

fear of the wild thing for the trap. It was a token that he was harking back through his own life to the lives of his forebears; for he was a

civilized dog, an unduly civilized dog,and of his own experience knew no trap and so could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole body contracted spasmodically and instinctively, the hair on his neck and

shoulders stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he bounded straight up into the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. Ere he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp spread out before him and knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from the time he went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself the night before.

5. A shout from Francois hailed his appearance. “Wot I say?” the dog-

driver cried to Perrault. “Dat Buck for sure learn queek as anyt’ing.”

6. Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government, bearing important dispatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs, and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck.

Using LDC to Tackle TDA: Holy Acronyms Batman!

Acronym jokes aside, whether or not you’re proficient with Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC), their modules are excellent resources for all things K-12 writing. In preparing a Text-Dependent Analysis workshop for ELA teachers I immediately looked at the LDC modules to increase students’ understanding of analysis.

Their Text-Dependent Analysis module, intended as a lesson for 4th/5th grade students complete with lesson plan and handouts, is a perfect way to increase students’ own knowledge about TDA since they are the ones who will be tackling these questions on PSSA.

If you haven’t explored the LDC Curriculum Library, you’re missing out on a resource which allows users to filter by rating, type and grade level. Enjoy!

IFL Patterened Way, Strategy for Working Toward Text-Dependent Analysis {Video Tutorial}

In the past I’ve shared my favorite resource from the Institute for Learning called Patterned Way of Reading, Writing and Talking. A close-reading strategy which promotes text-based questioning, essential for working toward text-based analysis.

Although mostly self-explanatory, the actual protocol which can be used in any classroom, is even easier to understand with a quick explanation. Whether a teacher asking students to analyze literature or informational text, a paragraph or multiple texts, the “Patterned Way” can be easily utilized with built in scaffolds for struggling students.

TDA Takeaways from CCSS Publisher’s Criteria

One of the CCSS supporting documents which guides our curricular work is the Publisher’s Criteria guiding publishers on how to align to the more rigorous ELA standards. The question, “Why is the TDA (text-dependent analysis) assessment anchor worth such a significant portion of the PSSA (19%)” can be easily answered by taking at look at this guide.

Discussion tasks, activities, questions, and writings following readings should draw on a full range of insights and knowledge contained in the text in terms of both content and language. Instructional support materials should focus on posing questions and writing tasks that help students become interested in the text and cultivate student mastery of the specific details and ideas of the text.

One phrase worth lingering over, a good starting point for discovering words, phrases or passages worthy of analysis, is “cultivate student mastery of the specific details and ideas of the text.” The question I ask myself is, “How can students cultivate mastery of details in the text?”

The answer can be found a bit later in the same paragraph:

Materials should develop sequences of individually crafted questions that draw students and teachers into an exploration of the text or texts at hand.

So while there is still a place for entry-level questions to a text such as “what is the main idea” or even “give me one detail to support that idea,” such questions are a starting, not an ending, point. Subsequent questions–remember we’re looking for sequences of questions which build upon each other–should continue to engage the reader into a deeper discussion of the text itself. Eventually these discussions translate to the more difficult output of written expression.

If between 80-90% of the Reading Standards in each grade require text dependent analysis, according to the CCSS publisher’s criteria, then the number of open-ended, text dependent questions teachers’ pose in class should be similarly as weighted. I highly recommend reading the criteria for a broad snapshot of the major shifts necessary for curriculum and teaching materials to align to the standards.

FOUND! New TDA Resource

A colleague found the below document from CA PDE so I wanted to (as promised) pass it along to all “Not Math” readers. A TDA Question Generator  which aligns to CCSS helps generate text-dependent questions with any course material. Enjoy!