Check-In
RL 3.9
Standard: RI.3.9
Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two
texts on the same topic.
Turn and Talk – Use Accountable Talk Stems
Have students turn and talk about the details in the text that are similar. This helps
students draw conclusions about themes, important points, and central messages
found in informational text. Use open-ended text dependent questions to help your
students draw conclusions.


What is your evidence to support the theme ______ in the text?
What big ideas and messages keep repeating in the text? How does that help
me draw conclusions about themes in the text? How does it compare or
contrast to big ideas and messages in the other text?
Reading Response Journal
Use a three-column response to keep track of big ideas and themes in the text and
how your thinking is changing or questions that you have.
Text 1 Evidence
Important points
Big Ideas
Themes
My Thinking and Questions
My Conclusions
Students will begin to draw
conclusions about themes,
big ideas, and key details
found in the text.
Text 2 Evidence
Important points
Big Ideas
Themes
My Thinking and Questions
My Conclusions
Students will begin to draw
conclusions about themes,
big ideas, and key details
found in the text.
Venn Diagrams – Graphic organizers to compare and contrast.
Check-In
RL 3.9
Close Reading
Getting Ready to Close Read for Text Evidence
Teaching students to read in a careful way involves helping them to
acquire the vocabulary for talking about text. The more specific your
language, the more you focus your attention and your thinking. We
often used to say to students, “Take your idea about the book, say
“because the text says,” and then find a detail from the text to support
your thinking.” But what we found was that students’ initial ideas
were overly simple, or too far removed from the text. As we studied this more
closely, it turned out that the issue was not whether they could cite, the challenge
was how they constructed their ideas in the first place. What we came to find is that
helping students to develop clearer ideas often involves flipping the steps around:
1) Now, students tend to: have an idea, then go find evidence.
2) Instead, we can teach: gather evidence, then develop an idea.
As you teach students to gather text evidence, analyze it, and develop new
understandings, plan to pay careful attention to what they produce when
working independently.
Close Reading teaches students to
1) Look at the text evidence.
2) Find patterns in the evidence and make inferences.
3) Develop and support your idea.
Instructional Focus: Understanding character to develop a theme
English Text: Sonia Joins the Supreme Court (level P)
Spanish Text: Sonia se une a la Corte Suprema
Instructional Focus: Understanding character to develop a theme
Paired Text: English Text: Amelia Earhart: A Legend in Flight (level Q)
Alternate Spanish Text: Amelia Earhart: Una leyenda en vuelo
Introduce
Text
Vocabulary
Development
Identify Genre:
Read Aloud
and scaffold
vocabulary.
Possible
Vocabulary:
Have students
identify 3-5
Close
Reading
1. Read
through a
lens.
Reread the
passage
looking for
what the facts
about the
Sonia
Sotomayor
and Amelia
Earhart.
Close
Reading
2. Look For
Patterns
Close Reading
3. Developing
a new
understanding
Assessment:
Narrative or
Expository
Writing Task
In small
groups reread
the passage
and the
evidence from
yesterday.
Have students
work in pairs
and find
Ask students to
reread the
passage.
Review anchor
chart evidence
and patterns.
Turn and Talk
about
noticing’s.
After reading
the two texts,
how might
these two
women
change career
exploration
for people,
especially
Check-In
RL 3.9
words using
the following
criteria.
What words do
you need to
learn? What
parts are you
having trouble
understanding?
What clues in
the book help
you determine
the meaning of
those words?
What is a
synonym for
the word?
Have students
highlight text
evidence.
Chart student
responses in
the first
column of an
anchor chart.
which pieces
of evidence fit
together.
Chart the
patterns you
find in the
second
column of
your anchor
chart.
Journaling and
Discussion
Questions:
How do the
facts about
Sonia
Sotomayor
support themes
in the text and
themes in the
unit on women
pioneers?
What
conclusions can
we draw?
women?
Provide
evidence to
support your
answer.