TEKS Talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

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.

A response is appropriate when it is logically connected to the topic in question and uses sufficient text evidence as support. Students are expected to write responses that are pertinent to the lesson or concept being taught and that follow the specific purpose of the task. For example, students may be asked to write an argumentative essay after reading two articles that present opposite views of a topic.
paraphrased or directly quoted information from a source that supports an inference, thesis, claim, or analysis
Students are expected to use information directly from texts to support their responses. When responding to a text, students need to make sure that they are correctly interpreting the author's purpose and the text content. It is important that students understand that their responses must be based on actual ideas presented in a text and not on their personal opinions about the topic being discussed. That's why students need to link their own reasoning to the information contained in a text.

Research

1. Barth, A. E., & Elleman, A. (2017). Evaluating the impact of a multi-strategy inference intervention for middle-grade struggling readers. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 48(1), 31–41. doi: 10.1044/2016_LSHSS-16-0041

Summary: This study examines the effectiveness of multiple inference intervention strategies that were designed to increase inference-making and reading comprehension for struggling readers. The study focused on using text clues, activating and integrating prior knowledge, understanding character and author's purpose, and responding to inference questions. Details and lesson examples are available in the Appendix.

2. Olson, C.B., Land, R., Anselmi,T, & AuBuchon, C. (2010). Teaching secondary English learners to understand, analyze, and write interpretive essays about theme. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(4), 245–256. doi:10.1598/JA AL.54.4.2

Summary: This study reveals the results of a collaborative project with the California Writing Project and large, urban, low‐SES school districts where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. The article describes a longitudinal study related to the impact of ongoing professional development centered on strategies used to teach students to comprehend, analyze, and write interpretive essays about themes. Students showed significant improvement in comprehending and analyzing themes.