Text-Dependent Questions

Text-Dependent Questions
Melrose Public Schools November 2012 Delivering on the promise of higher student achievement for all students promised by the Common Core State Standards requires significant shifts in practice. The key area in ELA/Literacy to focus on in the classroom in is ensuring that students think about the text and the evidence in the text that is necessary for inferring meaning and achieving overall comprehension. In this session we’ll review these shifts in practice required by the Common Core State Standards in ELA/Literacy and dive in deeply to what it means to recognize and create excellent text dependent questions for use in the classroom. Existing questions in many basal and non-basal reading programs were designed for a different set of standards. This session is designed to give you the information to recognize high quality text dependent questions aligned to the expectations of the CCSS, where they exist, and create quality questions, where they do not.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others. James Baldwin, American Essayist, Playwright, and Novelist, 1924–1987

The CCSS Requires Three Shifts in ELA/Literacy
Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational Regular practice with complex text and its academic language The shifts are a high-level summary of the biggest changes signified by the adoption of the CCSS. They represent the most significant shifts for curriculum materials, instruction, student learning, and thinking about assessment. Taken all together, they should lead to desired student outcomes. Communicate the shifts to everyone who will listen! Everyone working in your school and district should have a solid understanding of the shifts required in both ELA/Literacy and Mathematics. They are a great starting point for learning about and understanding the CCSS. You can test any message or effort regarding the CCSS against these touchstones. From state, district, school, or classroom – how does X support the ideas of the shifts. They are meant to be succinct and easy to remember.

Shift # 2: Text Dependent Questions
Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational Regular practice with complex text and its academic language Great text dependent questions are key to building knowledge from content rich text. Text dependent questions will point students toward parts of the text most important to pay attention to. Teachers can use questions to highlight and scaffold key knowledge and information from texts, and provide the necessary practice with complex text. However, most clearly – and as highlighted here on this slide - text dependent questions are in direct service of the 2nd shift toward reading and writing grounded in evidence from the text. Answering text dependent questions requires students to examine and use evidence from the text.

Time – In and Out of the Text
More instructional time spent outside the text means less time inside the text. Departing from the text in classroom discussion privileges only those who already have experience with the topic. It is easier to talk about our experiences than to analyze the text—especially for students reluctant to engage with reading. The CCSS are College and Career Readiness Standards. 1st bullet – The shifts require experience within the text – building knowledge primarily through reading, using evidence that can only be found in text, and exposure to academic vocabulary found in those very texts. 2nd bullet – For example, reading about tornadoes, then asking students to talk about a time when they were in a tornado only allows the students who have had this experience to engage. The expectations outlined by the CCSS are requirements for ALL students. By grounding the discussion in the text itself, all students are given an equal opportunity to engage. The text becomes a shared experience in learning about any topic. 3rd bullet – As texts and reading becomes challenging – it’s easier for students to disengage with the text and go to what they know (or think they know based on their experience.) Requiring students to persevere through difficult text builds critical reading muscles. 4th bullet – Those reading muscles are what students will need to be successful in college and career – reading difficult subject matter or technical job related information without anybody to support them is the critical skill necessary for success.

What is a Close Reading

It is like taking an x-ray of a book. You get to the heart of the book!
“X-ray the book”

Not every reading is a close one!
“X-ray the book”

In the primary grades, close reading is accomplished through interactive read alouds and shared readings.

Creating a Close Reading

Short passage Creating a Close Reading

Short passage Complex text Creating a Close Reading

Short passage Complex text Limited frontloading Creating a Close Reading

Short passage Complex text Limited frontloading Repeated readings Creating a Close Reading

Multiple readings often make this unnecessary
The Role of Pre-reading Multiple readings often make this unnecessary

Multiple readings often make this unnecessary
The Role of Pre-reading Too often provides information students can glean from careful reading of the text Hard to wean students from this Similarly challenging to move teachers away from providing this “smoothing of the road” Multiple readings often make this unnecessary

The Role of Background Knowledge and Close Reading
Close reading, then, should not imply that we ignore the reader’s experience and attend closely to the text and nothing else. It should imply that we bring the text and the reader close together.

Short passage Complex text Limited frontloading Repeated readings Text-dependent questions Creating a Close Reading

Annotation is a note of any form made while reading text.
“Reading with a pencil.”

People have been annotating texts since there have been texts to annotate.

Annotation is not highlighting.

Annotation slows down the reader in order to deepen understanding.

Annotation in Kindergarten
Language experience approach Interactive writing and shared pen activities

2 4 5 3 1 Modeled Annotation in Kindergarten
Kemp, L. M. (1996). One peaceful pond: A counting book. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Modeled Annotation in Second
Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Even young students can annotate.

Annotations in Grades 3-5
Underline the major points. Circle keywords or phrases that are confusing or unknown to you. Use a question mark (?) for questions that you have during the reading. Be sure to write your question.

Using Questioning in Fifth Grade

Same text, different student, different strategy: Inferring.

Characteristics of Text-dependent questions

Characteristics of Text-dependent questions
Questions that can only be answered with evidence from the text Can be literal but can also involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation Focus on word, sentence and paragraph as well as larger ideas, themes or events Focus on difficult portions of text in order to enhance reading proficiency Can also include prompts for writing and discussion questions. TDQ’s should not require background knowledge (stores of background knowledge can be added to by collecting the evidence from the text to further build knowledge, or can be tapped into to make meaning of the text.) Questions that involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation actually point towards the most difficult parts of text. Literal question do not. TDQ’s will drive the CCSS in the classroom if questions are asked about words, sentences, paragraphs, big ideas, themes, relationships, etc. TDQ’s are an opportunity to address the academic (tier two) vocabulary and syntax that are features of complex text – the features that make text difficult for students. This means that good questions actually make students stronger and more capable readers.

Progression of Text-dependent Questions
Opinions, Arguments, Intertextual Connections Inferences Author’s Purpose Vocab & Text Structure Key Details General Understandings Whole Across texts Entire text Segments Paragraph Sentence Word Part

General Understandings
Overall view Sequence of information Story arc Main claim and evidence Gist of passage

General Understandings in Kindergarten
Retell the story in order using the words beginning, middle, and end.

Key Details Search for nuances in meaning Determine importance of ideas Find supporting details that support main ideas Answers who, what, when, where, why, how much, or how many.

Key Details in Kindergarten
How long did it take to go from a hatched egg to a butterfly? What is one food that gave him a stomach ache? What is one food that did not him a stomach ache?

It took more than 3 weeks. He ate for one week, and then “he stayed inside [his cocoon] for more than two weeks.”

Foods that did not give him a stomachache
Foods that gave him a stomachache Apples Pears Plums Strawberries Oranges Green leaf Chocolate cake Ice cream Pickle Swiss cheese Salami Lollipop Cherry pie Sausage Cupcake watermelon

Vocabulary and Text Structure
Bridges literal and inferential meanings Denotation Connotation Shades of meaning Figurative language How organization contributes to meaning

Vocabulary Which words should be taught?
Essential to understanding text Likely to appear in future reading Which words should get more time and attention? More abstract words (as opposed to concrete words) persist vs. checkpoint noticed vs. accident Words which are part of semantic word family secure, securely, security, secured By teaching your students the meaning of a word that is the member of a larger family of related words, you are given them the power to learn many words from a focus on one. Little in reading is better documented than the links between word knowledge and successful reading and learning outcomes.Concrete words are mastered much more quickly than are abstract words. Academic words are far more likely to be abstract and will need as much attention as you can provide. These words are also the ones that students are likely to encounter over and over again.

Vocabulary in Kindergarten
How does the author help us to understand what cocoon means?

There is an illustration of the cocoon, and a sentence that reads, “He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself.”

Author’s Purpose Genre: Entertain? Explain? Inform? Persuade? Point of view: First-person, third-person limited, omniscient, unreliable narrator Critical Literacy: Whose story is not represented?

Author’s Purpose in Kindergarten
Who tells the story—the narrator or the caterpillar?

A narrator tells the story, because he uses the words he and his
A narrator tells the story, because he uses the words he and his. If it was the caterpillar, he would say I and my.

Inferences Probe each argument in persuasive text, each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole.

Inferences in Kindergarten
The title of the book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. How do we know he is hungry?

The caterpillar ate food every day “but he was still hungry
The caterpillar ate food every day “but he was still hungry.” On Saturday he ate so much food he got a stomach ache! Then he was “a big, fat caterpillar” so he could build a cocoon and turn into a butterfly.

Opinions, Arguments, and Intertextual Connections
Author’s opinion and reasoning (K-5) Claims Evidence Counterclaims Ethos, Pathos, Logos Rhetoric Links to other texts throughout the grades

Opinions and Intertextual Connections in Kindergarten
Narrative Informational Is this a happy story or a sad one? How do you know? How are these two books similar? How are they different?

A Close Reading of “Post-it Notes”
Jones, C. F. (1991). Post-it notes (p. 51). In Mistakes That Worked: 40 Familiar Inventions and How They Came to Be. New York: Doubleday.

Purpose Students are learning about the invention of various products toward the development of an essay that explains their findings of the investigative question, “What does it take to be an inventor?

Read with a pencil… Underline sentences that trace the history of this product. Circle words or phrases that are unfamiliar or confusing.

“I was amazed to learn that __________!”
Write your fact and your partner’s fact.

Post-It Notes By now everyone knows what Post-it brand notes are. They are those great little self-stick notepapers. Most people have Post-it Notes. Most people use them. Most people love them. But Post-it Notes were not a planned product. No one got the idea and then stayed up nights to invent it. A man named Spencer Silver was working in the 3M research laboratories in 1970 trying to find a strong adhesive. Silver developed a new adhesive, but it was even weaker than what 3M already manufactured. It stuck to objects, but could be easily lifted off. It was superweak instead of superstrong.

No one knew what to do with the stuff, but Silver didn’t discard it.
Then one Sunday four years later, another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry was singing in his church’s choir. He used markers to keep his place in the hymnal, but they kept falling out of the book. Remembering Silver’s adhesive, Fry used some to coat his markers. Success! With the weak adhesive, the markers stayed in place, yet lifted off without damaging the pages. 3M began distributing Post-it Notes nationwide in 1980—ten years after Silver developed the superweak adhesive. Today they are one of the most popular office products available.

Text-dependent Questions
Post-it notes began as an idea that didn’t work, but then became a very useful product. What was the sequence of events that led to this invention? General Understandings Question

The author tells you twice when Spencer Silver first invented the adhesive that would be used in the Post-it Notes. The first time is in the third paragraph, when she tells us it was But she tells us the same information again later, in a different way. How did you figure out the answer? Key Details Question

Spencer Silver wasn’t alone. How did Arthur Fry contribute to the development of Post-it notes. How did you figure out the answer? Key Details Question

Do you believe that the author had a positive or negative view of Post-it Notes and its inventors? What words or phrases lead you to believe so? Vocabulary Question

What does the author want readers to know about the invention of this product? What sentences help you determine the author’s purpose? Author’s Purpose Question

What were some of the qualities of the inventors that you can infer from this text? What passages help you to draw this conclusion? Inference Question

Don’t over-teach. Students with disabilities and English learners have the right to appropriately struggle!

Accommodations for Close Reading
Provide students with copies of text-dependent questions in advance of reading. Pre-teach reading, especially background knowledge and cognates. Provide realia or visual glossaries to support student learning. Highlight contextual clues.

Develop Text-dependent Questions for Your Reading
Do the questions require the reader to return to the text? Do the questions require the reader to use evidence to support his or her ideas or claims? Do the questions move from text-explicit to text-implicit knowledge? Are there questions that require the reader to analyze, evaluate, and create?

Creating Text-Dependent Questions
Step One: Identify the core understandings and key ideas of the text. Step Two: Start small to build confidence. Step Three: Target vocabulary and text structure. Step Four: Tackle tough sections head-on. Step Five: Create coherent sequences of text-dependent questions. Step Six: Identify the standards that are being addressed. Step Seven: Create the culminating assessment. This is not a formula – not every text will require the same process. These are guidelines. Questions that directly address difficult sections of the text help with breaking down complexity. Help student to extract and create meaning where they otherwise wouldn't. How many questions is enough? It varies from text to text. Check “alignment to the standards" last, but use the language of the standards in the questions as much as possible. Over the next few slides we’ll see examples of text dependent questions that address various features of the text. Refer to the handout – “Long Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions” Clarity your own understanding regarding the core understanding, themes, and key ideas, so it can serve as your guidepost for creating questions. A coherent sequences of text dependent questions will lead students towards understanding these ideas for themselves. In literature the core understandings and big ideas can focus on the theme, interactions of characters, events in the story, important events, or any other features that are central. In informational texts the core understandings and big ideas can be closely aligned to the important ideas, the author’s purpose, claims, or arguments.

Core Understanding and Key Ideas
Core Understanding and Key Idea: Two people of very different ages may still have much in common and become friends. Synopsis: Opal has just moved to a new town in a new state and has no friends yet. Through a series of comic mishaps inadvertently started by her very special dog, Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny, the town librarian. Opal realizes they have much in common and a friendship is ignited. Example from Because of Winn Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo

Vocabulary and Text Dependent Questions
From “Hot and Cold Summer” - 5th grade fictional text “To avoid someone means to keep away from them so that you don’t have to see them and they don’t have to see you. How did the boys avoid meeting Bolivia at first?” (pg. 23) Re-read the last two paragraphs on page 39. Rory had a “strong suspicion”. What is a suspicion? What details in the story made Rory suspicious of Bolivia? The first example provides the definition since there aren’t enough contextual clues provided in the text for student to figure it out on their own. The second example asks the students to figure out the word in context. Both examples, use the word knowledge to ask pointed questions about the text.

Syntax and Text Dependent Questions
Syntax can predict student performance as much as vocabulary does. Questions and tasks addressing syntax are powerful. Example: Who are the members of the wolf pack? How many wolves are in the pack? To answer this, pay close attention to the use of commas and semi-colons in the last paragraph on pg The semi-colons separate or list each member in the pack.

Structure and Text-Dependent Questions
Text-dependent questions can be crafted to point students’ attention to features of text that enhance understanding (such as how section headers and captions lead to greater clarity or provide hints regarding what is most important in informational text, or how illustrations add to a narrative).

Structure and Text Dependent Questions
Examples: “Look at the illustrations on page 31. Why did the illustrator include details like the power outlets in the walls?” “Dillard is careful to place opposing descriptions of the natural and man-made side-by-side. How does this juxtaposition fit with or challenge what we have already read? Why might she have chosen this point in the text for these descriptions?” Text structure can be addressed through text dependent questions. See the examples in the slide.

Reading Strategies and Text-Dependent Questions
Text-dependent questions generally call on students to employ reading strategies. Strategies are no longer taught in isolation. The text and readers’ need to comprehend it should determine what strategies are activated - not the other way around. The text itself is the driver for what strategies would logically be employed to comprehend it fully. Text dependent questions and tasks need to be created in such a way that they activate the reading strategies that would be useful and appropriate to solve some comprehension challenge the text presents. Reading strategies are taught in service to the reader's comprehension of the text. In fact, the major reading strategies are contained in the Reading Standards 2 -9 for both literature and informational text. Other high value strategies such as comprehension monitoring and rereading for understanding are activated throughout the process of answering the questions because the demand for text evidence pushed the reader back to the text and constantly asks for a check on understanding. If participants are getting stuck on this point - since it represents such a shift from current practice, it may be useful to take the anchor standards for reading and either name each one for the group or ask people to work in small groups to do it for themselves. This should help reassure teachers that by creating questions that are aligned with the standards they will get frequent opportunities to have students practice using reading strategies and can build in their customary teaching and modeling of strategies into those same organic opportunities.

When writing questions…
Always follow up the question with statements such as: Point to this in the text. Use details from the text. How do you know? Support your answer with the text. What effect does/do these choices make?

Culminating Tasks Should relate to core understanding and key ideas.
A coherent sequence of text dependent questions will scaffold students toward successfully completing the culminating task. Example: “The title of this selection is ‘Because of Winn-Dixie.' Using your answers from the questions above and class discussion, explain why this is an appropriate title for the selection. Be sure to clearly cite evidence from the text for each part of your answer.” “Officer Buckle’s final safety tip is 'ALWAYS STICK WITH YOUR BUDDY.' How did he and Gloria each learn this lesson for themselves throughout the story?” Standards aligned culminating tasks must be text centered since they take more time than any other individual part of the work with the text. If done well, the sequence of questions, and students' notes from discussion and written answers to them, should provide lots of raw material for developing a solid response to a culminating writing assignment or other appropriate ending activity. This is another way text dependent questions provide scaffolding that will help students build their capacity to approach complex and challenging text independently.

Increased Ability to Use Text Evidence Increasing Range and Complexity
Bands 11-CCR 9-10 6-8 4-5 2-3 K-1 Standard One Standard Ten Bands 11-CCR 9-10 6-8 4-5 2-3 K-1 Standards Two through Nine Increased Ability to Use Text Evidence Increasing Range and Complexity Standard 1 – use of evidence, and standard 10 – appropriately complex text and the range of text called for at each grade level should accompany the other standards. They are always present on the K-12 continuum, but they themselves are not standards that drive question making. The search for text evidence should activate key strategies such as re-reading and monitoring for comprehension, but more specific strategies are present when standards 2-9 are present in the questions. Good text dependent questions will always keep reading standards two through nine in play. Which standards in particular depends on the text at hand.

Working With an Example: Because of Winn-Dixie

Is the Question Text Dependent? Is it a “Good” Text Dependent Question?
Was there ever a time where an animal scared you? Should Ms. Franny have felt embarrassed? Can bears really eat people? As you read this story think about plants and animals in Florida How can an older woman make her library safe from unwanted visitors?

This author has won prizes for her books. Why? Find a part of this story you think could win a prize. Research wildlife and plant life in Florida. Research how to safeguard libraries from “unwanted visitors” In Because of Winn-Dixie Opal tells about her experiences after moving to a new town. Think about a time that you were a newcomer to a place or situation. Now use vivid words to write a memoir about that experience.

What book was Miss Franny reading when the bear came into the library? What did the men say when they were teasing Miss Fanny? Why was Miss Franny sitting on the floor when Amanda met her? What did Miss Franny say when Amanda asked if dogs were allowed in the library? .

Final Thoughts There is no one right way to have students work with text dependent questions. Providing for the differing needs of students means providing and scaffolding supports differentially - not asking easier questions or substituting simpler text. Listening and speaking should be built into any sequence of activities along with reading and writing: “Re-read it, think it, talk it, write it” The CCSS require ALL students to read and engage with grade appropriate complex text regularly. This requires new ways of working in our classrooms. A variety of approaches is best: small groups working together question by question, pair/shares, tackling some independently through a written response, whole class discussions...are all powerful ways to work with students on this kind of evidence gathering and careful reading. The Common Core Standards exist for all students. We must create new and powerful ways to make this access happen for all students.

Text-Dependent Questions

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