CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.8

Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Strategy: Question the Author (Bridges)

Detailed Description: Questioning the author engages students actively with a text by encouraging students to ask questions of the author and the text. Through forming their questions, students learn more about the text. It teaches students to evaluate the topic of the text as well as the style of writing.

Practical Application: The students are assigned a passage of nonfiction text to read. The text should be interesting and should have a clear argument/point that the author is trying to make/prove. At specified stopping points within the text, students pause their reading and answer questions. These would include: What point is the author trying to make here? What does the author say that leads you to believe that point is true? Could you argue something different than what the author is writing? How would you support your argument? Answers are shared in small groups of 4-6.

TRAP: This strategy is cited in Questioning the author: An approach for enhancing student engagement with text, written in 1997 by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, Rebecca Hamilton, and Linda Kucan. They purport that when students read in a QtA lesson, they learn to question the ideas presented in the text while they are reading, making them thinkers, not just readers. The authors analyze the transcripts of actual class discussions to show the important tools that differentiate QtA from other approaches to reading comprehension and engagement.

Beck, I., Hamilton, R., Kucan, L., and McKeown, M. (1997). Questioning the author: An approach for enhancing student engagement with text. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association.

Strategy:Stopping Points (Freeman)

Detailed Description: The teacher will give students sticky notes at the beginning of the class and ask the students to read a section. While they are silently reading, they need to place a sticky note in the text next to where they could pick out or evaluate specific claims that they think are confusing or need help understanding.

Practical Application: If students are required to read a lengthy passage, the teacher could provide stopping points. At these strategic points, the teacher can open a discussion that would cover what they have read up to that point, anything that they are still having troubles with, and if any connections can be made to help them better understand what they are reading.

TRAP: The article was written in 2005. The stopping points strategy is relevant because it is important for kids to understand what they are reading, and even why they are reading it. The audience for this article would be teachers who have students who may struggle with comprehending large passages, or for those who would like another strategy to improve student’s reading comprehension skills. The purpose of this strategy is to improve comprehension and their overall understanding of a passage.

Tankersley, K., & Association for Supervision and Curriculum, D. (2005). Literacy strategies for grades 4-12: reinforcing the threads of reading. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.