Overview: This type of anchor chart might be my favorite to use with students. This is such an effective visual to help students compare two texts. The interactive nature of the chart also makes it reusable with multiple texts. Author & Genre Study: For this particular chart, we were comparing The BFG and The Twits as part of a larger… Read more →
One of the big challenges for students is being able to understand what “develop” means in reference to a text. These five simple questions encourage students to consider not just the main/central ideas, but the supporting details, how the ideas evolved over time, and what messages may have been woven throughout. Introduce this to your students by presenting the blank… Read more →
Are you working with Common Core standard 3? This reusable, interactive chart is specific to the sixth grade informational text standard and might be helpful! Students are expected to explain how ideas, events, or individuals are introduced, illustrated, or elaborated in a text. This requires students to look at text through the eyes of a writer. What strategy did the… Read more →
Students always hear that they should explain what they read. This is often referred to as summarizing, retelling, or recounting the text. It is important to differentiate between summarizing and analysis. Students are expected to learn how to objectively summarize text when working with Standard 2. There is a strong focus on retelling the important details, while maintaining objectivity. Standard… Read more →
This is an anchor chart created with a middle school class. It works well for any grade, but particularly fifth grade through high school. This is most appropriate because those grade levels will use the term claim through their writing and reading standards much more frequently. These grade levels focus on the idea of a claim much more intensively an… Read more →
When evaluating the strength of an argument, students are often told to examine the supporting details. The challenge with this directive is that many students are unclear what supporting details really look like. This chart serves as a visual to help students see six specific ways that an author might use to support an argument. This helps students to hone… Read more →
Outside/Inside is such a useful chart for elementary and middle school readers. This chart is interactive and helps students be able to understand that they can explicitly pull out excerpts from the text and make inferences about the author’s point of view. When you create this chart with students, they should be at a point where they have been introduced… Read more →
This fun chart can be the foundation for students in each grade level. The anchor standard explicitly states that students should analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. At first glance this seems simple. The problem is that, after reading a text, many students struggle to even define or classify… Read more →
