TDA Toolkit
Pennsylvania’s approach to text dependent analysis (TDA) goes far beyond preparing students for an item type on a state assessment. TDA represents a cognitively complex expectation that requires students to draw on deep comprehension, evidence-based reasoning, and the ability to analyze how meaning is constructed within and across texts. Because of this complexity, there are significant curriculum and instructional implications for teaching the underlying knowledge and skills students need to craft analytic responses.
The TDA Toolkit outlines the literacy research that supports the use of text dependent analysis as a driver of deeper learning. It clarifies how analytic writing aligns with college and career-readiness expectations, demonstrating the ways in which responding to a TDA prompt strengthens students’ ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage with complex texts. The toolkit also highlights key considerations for instructional planning and curriculum design, helping educators integrate analysis focused reading and writing experiences into daily practice.
All resources created by Jeri Thompson, a senior associate at the Center for Assessment, for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
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Introduction
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Research
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Text Dependent Analysis Instructional Resources
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Learning Progressions
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Narrative Text: TDA Close Reading Lesson Plans (Grades K-8)
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Narrative Text: Samples of Annotated Student Responses to TDA Prompts (Grades K-8)
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Narrative Text: TDA Replacement Units (Grades 3-8)
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Informational Text: TDA Close Reading Lessons (Grades K-8)
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Deconstructed Standards
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Video Modules
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Introduction
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This toolkit provides teachers, curriculum coordinators, and school leaders with the information and resources needed to understand the underlying expectations of text dependent analysis. It also includes instructional materials to support the effective implementation of text dependent analysis in the classroom.
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Research
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Text Dependent Analysis (TDA)
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The resources below were developed to support educators in teaching the essential components of analysis and in preparing students to craft effective responses to text‑dependent analysis prompts.
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Learning Progressions
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The Text Dependent Analysis (TDA) grade-span Learning Progressions (LPs) are designed to be used as an instructional tool. The TDA LPs are structured in grade spans (K-2, 3-5 and 6-8) with four levels, Beginning, Emerging, Developing, and Meeting. The levels describe the typical path seen in student responses as the student moves toward demonstrating more sophisticated understanding of analysis. The LPs include descriptions of student work which characterize each level from the beginning TDA writer to one who is meeting the expectations of text dependent analysis essay writing. The TDA LPs can be used by teachers to identify student strengths and needs based on what a student can do at a specific point in time. This informs the teacher's instructional decision-making about moving student comprehension, analysis, and writing to the next level.
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Narrative Text: TDA Close Reading Lesson Plans (Grades K-8)
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These textdependent analysis close reading lessons serve as example pathways for teaching comprehension and analysis of the narrative elements found in literary texts. Each plan guides teachers through lesson planning, instructional delivery, and modeling how to craft a response to a TDA prompt.
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Narrative Text: Samples of Annotated Student Responses to TDA Prompts (Grades K-8)
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Narrative Text: TDA Replacement Units (Grades 3-8)
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Successfully analyzing text, at any grade level, requires more than a lesson that guides students in responding to a text-dependent analysis prompt for one particular text. Students need to engage in a series of coherent units throughout the entire year that systematically promote deeper learning and analysis of the reading/literary elements.
These Replacement Units are intended to supplant ineffective units that do not move beyond superficial understandings, knowledge, and skills of English language arts. This is not to suggest that the selected texts in current units of instruction are not complex or appropriate. In fact, there are many high-quality texts in anthologies and other resources that are currently used in classrooms, schools, and districts.
Replacement Units provide teachers with a way to reshuffle the text so students can dive deeply into comprehension and analysis of a small set of reading/ literary elements using a variety of texts and demonstrate their ability to respond to a TDA prompt in writing.
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Grade 3 Replacement Unit
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Grade 4 Replacement Unit
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Grade 5 Replacement Unit
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Informational Text: TDA Close Reading Lessons (Grades K-8)
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The text-dependent analysis close reading lessons are designed to be example pathways for teaching comprehension and analysis of the reading elements found in informational texts. These plans guide teachers through the planning and teaching of each lesson, and model responses to TDA prompts.
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Deconstructed Standards
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Teaching students to successfully demonstrate comprehension and analysis requires deconstructing the underlying knowledge, skills, and patterns of reasoning for the relevant grade-level standards. This set of grade-level deconstructed standards supports all curriculum and instruction and is a resource for teachers as they lead students to analyze texts.
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Grade 7 Deconstructed Standards
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Grade 8 Deconstructed Standards
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Video Modules
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Video Recording (Introduction to Text Dependent Analysis Modules)
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Video Recording (Module 1)
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Video Recording (Module 2)
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Slide Presentation (Module 2)
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Video Recording (Module 3)
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Slide Presentation (Module 3)
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Video Recording (Module 4)
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Slide Presentation (Module 4)
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Video Recording (Module 5)
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Slide Presentation (Mocule 5)
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Video Recording (Module 6)
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Slide Presentation (Module 6)
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Video Recording (Module 7)
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Video Recording (Module 8)
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Slide Presentation (Module 8)
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Video Recording (Module 9)
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Slide Presentation (Module 9)
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Video Recording (Module 10)
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Slide Presentation (Module 10)
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Video Recording (Module 11)
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Slide Presentation (Module 11)
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Video Recording (Module 12)
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Slide Presentation (Module 12)
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Video Recording (Module 13)
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Slide Presentation (Module 13)
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Video Recording (Module 14)
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Slide Presentation (Module 14)
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Video Recording (Module 15)
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Slide Presentation (Module 15)
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