1. Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools
Writing in Response to Text

2. Research Says….
“If we ask young children to write in response to their reading from the beginning, they will be able to use this tool in response to reading and to expand their own thinking about texts.”
Fountas and Pinnell (2006)

3. Higher Order Thinking

5. Text-Based Questions…
Should be grounded in the text
Should be worth thinking about and asking
Should always require students to draw evidence from the text in support of their ideas

6. Instructional Implications
Quality, thoughtful questions require purposeful planning
Students will have to reread, examining specific passages, sentences and words
Connections, that students make should always lead them back to the text
Inferences should always be based on information given in the text

7. It Starts With Modeling
For students to understand how to respond to a text-dependent question we must first model the process.
Response cannot be reduced to a “formula” (ie. Restate the prompt). Students are asked to go much deeper.
Gradual Release Model or Model-Prompt-Do

8. Gradual Release Demonstration Shared Demonstration Guided Practice
Teacher shows through modeling and think aloud
Shared Demonstration
Interactive between the teacher and students. The students collaborate with the teacher while the teacher demonstrates
Guided Practice
Students take responsibility while the teacher monitors and provides scaffolding where needed
Independent Practice
Students work independently

9. What is the Question / Petition
Not all tasks are formed as a question. A petition is a statement that you are answering. For example: Explain what the character did in the first paragraph.
Students must understand the academic language of the question in order to answer correctly and completely.
Most text dependent questions, especially in higher levels, consist of multiple “steps”.
Students need to indentify what the question is asking them to do.

10. Amazing Lasers- Level K
Academic Language
The author says laser are amazing. What is another word to describe lasers? Explain why you chose this word.

11. Amazing Lasers- Level K
Academic Language
The author says laser are amazing. What is another word to describe lasers? Explain why you chose this word.

12. Lost at the Shopping Mall- Level F
What do you think Dad will do the next time he goes to the shopping mall with Sally and Jon? Use part of the story in your answer.

13. Harry the Tow Truck- Level J
Explain how the people in the cars feel and why they feel this way. Use a detail from the story to help explain your answer.

14. A Great Sense of Smell- Level Q
Describe Sophie and Ella’s friendship. Use at least two details from the book to support your answer

15. Black Beauty Encounters a Steam Train- Level U
Explain how Black Beauty feels about the trains when she first sees them. Then, explain how this story would be different if it were told by the cows in the field. Use two specific details from the story to support your answer

16. Amazing Lasers- Level K
What am I suppose to do?
The author says laser are amazing. What is another word to describe lasers? Explain why you chose this word.

17. Amazing Lasers- Level K
What am I suppose to do?
The author says laser are amazing. What is another word to describe lasers? Explain why you chose this word.

18. Lost at the Shopping Mall- Level F
What do you think Dad will do the next time he goes to the shopping mall with Sally and Jon? Use part of the story in your answer.

19. Harry the Tow Truck- Level J
Explain how the people in the cars feel and why they feel this way. Use a detail from the story to help explain your answer.

20. A Great Sense of Smell- Level Q
Describe Sophie and Ella’s friendship. Use at least two details from the book to support your answer.

21. Black Beauty Encounters a Steam Train- Level U
Explain how Black Beauty feels about the trains when she first sees them. Then, explain how this story would be different if it were told by the cows in the field. Use two specific details from the story to support your answer.

22. Find the Evidence
Go back into the text to find support for the answer.
Skim and Search
Evidence must be in the text. Evidence from outside the text cannot be evaluated.
As text difficulty increases the questions will require students to look for evidence in multiple points of the text.

23. Judge the Evidence
Once students have located what they believe is evidence, they must return to the question and judge if this piece of evidence supports what the question is asking.
Does this (the evidence) “prove it” (my answer)?

24. Answer the question / petition
The first sentence(s), the topic sentence, of the response should be strong.
Use part of the question / petition in your answer mixed in with evidence.
In higher levels students will have to “flesh out” their response with additional evidence.

25. Amazing Lasers- Level K
The author says laser are amazing. What is another word to describe lasers? Explain why you chose this word.
Another word to describe lasers could be helpful. I chose this word because of all the ways that people can use to help them in their jobs. Doctors can use lasers to help heal people faster. When they operate lasers can make smaller cuts. Lasers help store clerks to ring up what you buy by using the bar code. The bar codes help them know what it costs. Librarians keep up with what books are checked out using bar codes too. That helps them know where all of the books are.

26. Lost at the Shopping Mall- Level F
What do you think Dad will do the next time he goes to the shopping mall with Sally and Jon? Use part of the story in your answer.
I think Dad will not let Jon and Sally away from him. He said I will stay with you. Jon said that they will stay with Dad too.

27. Harry the Tow Truck- Level J
Explain how the people in the cars feel and why they feel this way. Use a detail from the story to help explain your answer.
The people in the cars did not like to wait. They said they wanted to get home and to hurry up. They honked their horns too.

28. A Great Sense of Smell- Level Q
Describe Sophie and Ella’s friendship. Use at least two details from the book to support your answer
Sophie and Ella are very good friends. Sophie stayed at Ella’s house on the weekends. They enjoyed each other’s company. They like to do things together like going fishing the next day.

29. Black Beauty Encounters a Steam Train- Level U
Explain how Black Beauty feels about the trains when she first sees them. Then, explain how this story would be different if it were told by the cows in the field. Use two specific details from the story to support your answer.
When Black Beauty saw the train for the first time she was very scared. She ran to the other side of the meadow to get away from it. She thought the train was extraordinary. The story would be different if it was told by the cows because the cows did not move when the train came by. The cows were very calm and did not pay attention to the train. If they told the story they would not think it was a very important thing that happened at all.

30. Other Instructional Suggestions
Help students to become active readers
Create a purpose for reading
Practice summarizing chunks of text
Ask questions while reading and clarify within the text
Practice visualizing what they read based off of the text
Help students to become self-evaluative
Show students how the scoring rubric can help structure their response