Scaffolding Complex Text with Text
Dependent Questions and
Supplemental Support
Marsha Hamilton
Anna Dellinger
Our Background
Jones Elementary
-High population of
students in poverty
-ELL majority
Diane August
Scaffolding for English Learners
ELL Researcher
David Pook
Text Dependent Questions
CCSS
PARCC
Today’s Agenda
•Close read
•Complex text
•Question types
•Sample lessons (3rd, 5th)
•Question creation tool
•Benefits
What is a Close Read?
What is a Close Read?
All students reading rich complex text
Reread several times
Read for meaning on multiple levels
What is complex text?
Rich authentic text
Small amounts
Poems
Speeches
Jacket Covers
Song Lyrics
Planning for a close read
Pick a rich complex text
Create questions/choose standards
Text dependent and Supplementary
Create writing prompt/individual
accountability piece
Text dependent vs. supplementary
questions
A text dependent questions is any question that requires
evidence directly from the text, without calling on student
background knowledge.
A supplementary question is a question or set of questions
designed to support the answering of a text dependent
question.
Can be a natural process or pre-planned
“Your World” (Georgia Douglas Johnson)
Your world is as big as you make it.
I know, for I used to abide
In the narrowest nest in a corner,
My wings pressing close to my side.
But I sighted the distant horizon
Where the skyline encircled the sea
And I throbbed with a burning desire
To travel this immensity.
I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!
Close Read Lesson Plan
Text: Your World
Grade: 3rd
Standards: RL.3.1, RL.3.2, RL.3.3, RL.3.4, RL.3.5, RL.3.6
Text Dependent Questions:
•
•What
is the meaning of the word “abide” in the first stanza? Give evidence. RL.3.4
•Who is the narrator of this poem? Who is speaking? RL.3.6
•What does the author mean when he says “the distant horizon”? RL.3.4
•Compare and contrast how the narrator feels in the first stanza and the third stanza. RL.3.3, RL.3.5
•What does the narrator mean when he says “to travel this immensity” in stanza two? RL.3.4
•How is the word “battered” used in the last stanza? Use the second line of that stanza to help you
understand it’s meaning in the sentence. RL.3.4
•How did the narrator soar by the end of the poem? RL.3.1
•This poem is written from a bird’s point of view. What would it look like if it was written from a
person’s point of view? RL.3.6, RL.3.2.
ASSESSMENT: After completing this close read of complex text, you are now ready to write a short
summary explaining what this poem means.
Summary starter: In this poem…
Skills to embed into close, analytical reading:
L.3.1 Nouns: world, wings, breeze, horizon, nest, skyline, sea, Verbs: battered, cradled, soared,
encircled, pressing, throbbed, Adjectives: narrowest, burning, big, Pronouns: it, I, me, my, you,
your
Cheyenne Again
By Eve Bunting
One day he comes,
The Man Who Counts,
and says:
“A boy, aged ten.
He has to go!”
And when he comes again
he has with him
the tall policeman
in his White Man’s clothes,
the one called Taking Man.
He wears the hat and spurs
the gleaming silver badge,
that mark his work.
“Run! Run! Run fast,” my mother tells me.
“Hide!”
But, “No!” my father says.
“Young Bull must leave.
Now is the White Man’s world.
He needs to learn the White Man’s ways.
The corn is drying out. There will be food
in this place they call school,
Young Bull must go.”
And so they walk me to the train,
The Man Who Counts and Taking Man.
“You will speak English,”
says Taking Man.
“It will be better so.”
He shines his shining badge.
I do not want to be like him.
“This is the Sleeping Room,” they tell me at the
school.
So bare a place.
The beds in rows.
No huddle of my brothers, warm around.
No smell of smoke.
No robe spread on the ground.
I will be lonely here
They take away my buckskins
and my shirt.
The deerskin moccasins my mother made.
They cut my braids,
give me a uniform
of scratchy wool
the color of an ashen sky,
with buttons to the neck.
“No more Cheyenne,” they say.
“You have lost
nothing of value.
You will be like us.”
Close Read Lesson Plan
Dellinger
Text: Cheyenne Again
Day one: Stanzas 1-5
Standards: RL51 RL52 RL53 RL54 RL56
Text Dependent Questions
•Who has come to take the boy?
•What words or phrases in the second stanza show who the speaker is?
•What evidence in stanzas 3 and 4 indicate where the boy is being taken?
•In Stanza 2, how does the point of view of the mother differ from that of the father? Use
evidence to support your answer.
•What reasons does the father give in stanza 2 for Young Bull going with the white men?
•According to the boy, what is missing from the “sleeping room”?
•What symbolism can be inferred by the single line in stanza 5?
Day 2: Stanza 6
•In the first two sentences, what is being taken?
•What line in stanza 6 indicates the white man’s opinion of Cheyenne?
•In what ways is the boy forced to change? Use text evidence to support your answer?
•What is the theme of stanza 6? Cite specific evidence from the text.
ASSESSMENT:
Select either “me” or “they” to use as a character to complete a Bio Poem.
Compare/Contrast with other students’ Bio Poem
WRITING TASK:
Compare and contrast the “white man’s” culture to the Cheyenne culture. Write a
compare and contrast essay.
Creating questions
Text dependent question checklist
Benefits we’ve seen so far…
Exposes students to concepts/ideas they would not access
themselves (on their own)
Higher order thinking
Increases confidence
Challenges thinking
Differentiates for above grade level students