1. ROUTINE 1:Read and Annotate Like A Detective!
Step 1: Number the paragraphs
Step 2: Use highlighters to help you create the most meaning as you read:
YELLOW Highlighter: Central idea
 PINK Highlighter – Supporting details
 GREEN Highlighter – Highlight strategies used by the author – figurative language, alliteration, repetition, etc.
 BLUE Highlighter –Vocabulary – important and/or unknown words
Step 3: – Create notes in the margin connected to your highlights
Question the author
Make connections to self, world, text
Infer what the author is saying
Reflect on why the author structured the text, used language and/or strategies
Interpret meaning of sections/sentences/words
The entire text should not be highlighted!!!! Good detectives focus on what is important!

2. ROUTINE 1 - Grading Criteria Detective Work Breakdown
Pts. %
Category
Detective Work Breakdown
 100
“Seamless” understanding of text.
1. Thorough - Highlighting and annotations are marked with detail, rigorous effort to convey meaning and understanding, including reader connections, reflections, questions, and possible interpretations.
2. Focus-. Highlighting is not excessive, conveys a sense of purpose with a focus on important concepts.
3. Comprehension. Text not taken merely at face value. Annotations reveal an effort to understand and question author’s techniques and meaning of the text. 85
Hit all the keys, but missed some deeper
understandings
1. Thorough - Selection and highlighted text gives impression that reader recognized the central ideas and supporting details, but other understandings seem to have escaped attention
2. Focus: Highlighting is not excessive and comments/notes demonstrate an understanding of the text.
3. Comprehension - Pattern of highlighting creates impression that comprehension does not go beyond the more overt, literal detail.
 70
You missed far more than you hit
1. Thorough - Selection of highlighting is inconsistent or incomplete: a little here; a little there. Though sparse, highlighting is sufficient to give impression that student has read entire text, though with limited understanding of central idea and supporting details.
2. Focus: Numerous instances of excessive and unfocused highlighting, lacking clear purpose behind it.
3. Comprehension - Annotations reveal only the most minimal grasp of understanding the text – literal meaning and no insight into purpose of strategies used or inferences made.
55%
Oh no! Your highlighter ran dry! Time to buy a new one!
1. Thorough - Incomplete and not thorough. Highlighting and annotating suggests that between much of the text was skipped or unfinished.
2. Focus - No attention to detail—gives impression of trying to create appearance that material has been read; random, scattered.
3. Comprehension – Little to no understanding of text is revealed through highlighting and annotations.