Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.
English Language Arts and Reading.5.7.A
The student is expected to
describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected texts;
Knowledge and Skills Statement
Demonstrated Proficiency of ELA.5.7.A
After directing students to read a teacher-selected or self-selected text, elicit student responses regarding personal connections students have made with the text.
Further Explanation
This assessment directs students to demonstrate how they have interpreted the explicit and implied ideas expressed as they describe personal connections made while reading. This can be shared orally or in writing.
Supporting Information for ELA.5.7.A
Research
1. Dallacqua, A.L. (2012). Exploring literary devices in graphic novels. Language Arts, 89(6), 365–378. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/LA/0896-jul2012/LA0896Exploring.pdf
Summary: This study examine how students engage in reading self-selected literature that uses visuals/graphics. The process includes intra mental reading. The study reveals that when students openly discuss the literature mental cognition increases, and students are able to make meaning from the text. The findings also reveal that students question the text, draw multiple interpretations of the meanings, and are able to create hypothetical scenarios.
2. Maine, F. (2013). How children talk together to make meaning from texts: A dialogic perspective on reading comprehension strategies. Literacy, 47(3), 150–156. doi: 10.1111/lit.12010
Summary: This study revealed that reading comprehension increases if students have the opportunity discuss the reading as a group. As students talk about the text, students use prior knowledge and experiences that connect the "gaps." Personal experiences are central to making meaning of the selected texts. Although the student participants were of elementary age, the strategy is applicable to older students.
3. Liang, L. A., & Galda, L. (2009). Responding and comprehending: reading with delight and understanding. The Reading Teacher, 63(4), 330+. doi: 10.1598/RT.63.4.9
Summary: Using DeCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie as their focal text, the author's describe the use of predicting and visualization exercises in the classroom. Students are asked to reflect on a personal situation in which they were been new and consider how that felt and what happened. This reflection serves as a springboard for students to make predictions about what will happen in the story's narrative structure. The visualization exercise focuses on getting children to visualize images from poetry, and then illustrate those images. Although the article is targeted for primary grades, it can be scaffolded for older students. For example, students could illustrate a poem through digital art or photography.
4. Zuckerbrod, N. (2019). The power of stories: Develop social-emotional skills and empathy using fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Scholastic Teacher, 128(3), 45+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A580773753/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=b300f1ba
Summary: The author shows the impact that fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have on students in Grades 3 through 6, especially when teachers choose texts that resonate with students. Teacher recommendations are provided, along with stories of how teachers help students make the connection from texts to personal experience and to the experiences of others.