Activities

1. Given a 6^th grade level informational text, independently read the text and give a retelling.
   
   
2.  Make a flip book with reading comprehension strategies.

3. Given a 6^th grade literary non-fiction text or informational text, independently read the text and annotate the main idea of each paragraph.
   
   
4. Given a 6^th grade informational or literary non-fiction text and a list of multiple choice questions, independently read the text and then answer the questions.

5. Given a 6^th grade informational or literary non-fiction text, independently read and annotate text to show thinking and a use of a variety of reading strategies.
   
   
6. Independently read a grade six level biography, and create a story board from a meaningful scene.

Answer Key/Rubric

1. Given a 6^th grade level informational text, student independently reads the text and gives a retelling of the text.  Student closely reads text.  Student accurately retells main points of text.  If student omits main point of text, student can recall text with questioning or a prompt from the teacher such as, “What else can you tell me?”  Student retell is accurate and complete.  Retell includes:

• Main “gist” of the story
• Key events
• Important details
• Correct sequence of events
• Use of words, phrases and clauses directly from the text
• Student’s own words or the text is paraphrased
• Inferences
• Student’s opinion, observations, connections, or evaluation of the text

2. Student makes a flip book with reading comprehension strategies.  Student’s flip book is accurate and complete.  Student’s flip book contains most of the following ideas and strategies or similar strategies.

• Students understand that reading is thinking.   Students understands their minds should be saying the words from the text and their brains should also be interacting with the text by questioning, clarifying, predicting, reviewing, evaluating, connecting and visualizing.
• Questioning-Proficient readers ask questions as they read along.  These readers look for the answers to their questions as they read.  They understand though that not all questions they ask will be answered. 
• Clarifying-Proficient readers recognize when they find the answer to a question they posed earlier.  Strong readers look for information after they ask a question so they can clear up their confusion or get answers that will help them further understand the text.
• Predicting- Proficient readers think about what might happen next.  They use the text to help make logical predictions.  They read on to find out if their prediction will occur.  These readers can detect when the author is giving a hint about future events, foreshadowing.
• Reviewing-Proficient readers stop periodically and think about the events that have happened or information they have read.  They summarize or combine this information into meaningful and useful chunks. 
• Evaluating-Proficient readers make judgments about the information, events or people they have read about. 
• Connecting-Proficient readers ask how the information connects to other things they have seen in the world, in print or to themselves.   They remember information and events and connect or link it to other relevant information later in the text. 
• Visualizing-Proficient readers make a picture or a movie in their mind of the text as they read. 

3. Given a 6^th grade literary non-fiction text or informational text, student independently reads the text and annotates the main idea of each paragraph.  Student correctly annotates the main idea next to each paragraph.  Student thinks about what the paragraph is mostly about and writes a sentence or two in the margin that captures the main idea of the paragraph.
   
   
4. Given a 6^th grade informational or literary non-fiction text and a list of multiple-choice questions, student independently reads the text and then answers the questions.  Student correctly answers the multiple-choice questions.  For explicit questions, student goes back to the passage and underlines where the answer to the question is found.  For implicit questions, student underlines the clues the author gave and annotates the thinking used to draw his/her conclusion.  If the multiple choice question requires the student to use information from several places in the text to answer the question, such as main idea, the student has several places in the passage underlined that support the answer given.   
   
   
5. Given a 6^th grade informational or literary non-fiction text, students independently read the text and then annotate the text to show their thinking and their use of a variety of reading strategies.  Students read and write thoughts about the text in the column as they read text.  When students are done reading text and annotating, they will “code” thoughts with:

• Q for Questioning-Student asks a question about the text. 
• Cl for Clarifying-Student writes the answer to an earlier asked question when the text helps to answer the question or clear up confusion. 
• P for Predicting-Student writes a prediction about what they think is going to happen.  Student makes a logical prediction based on what the text has told them thus far.  Student recognizes foreshadowing.
• R for Reviewing-Student makes notes to sum up what has been learned periodically.  Information is combined, or summarized or put into meaningful chunks. 
• E for Evaluating-Student makes a judgment about the about the information, events or people they have read about. 
• Conn for Connecting-Student explains how the information in the text connects to other things he has seen in the world, in print or to his experiences.   Student also notes when information or events in the text connect or link later to other relevant information in the text. 
• V for Visualizing-Student has a quick drawing of what is seen in the text or the movie he/she is making in his mind.  

Annotations make sense and show comprehension of the text.  Student uses a variety of strategies.   For example, if student only uses the questioning strategy, he/she is not adequately interacting with the text and likely does not comprehend the text well.  Student is not recognizing when confusion is being cleared up or when his/her questions are being answered because he/she is not clarifying and only asking questions.  If a student overuses any strategy, he/she may not have full comprehension of the text.  If student fails to make evaluations, he/she probably only has a literal understanding of the text.  If a student has a good understanding of the text, he/she will have been interacting with the text as he/she read, using many reading strategies and will have a variety of annotations.

6. Student independently reads a 6^th grade level biography, and creates a story board from a meaningful scene.  Student closely reads article.  Student accurately selects a meaningful scene.  When creating storyboard, student adds illustrations that reflect the meaning from the biography.  Student adds words that reflect the original meaning from the biography.  Student’s storyboard is accurate, events are sequential and scene is complete. Storyboard includes:

• Main “gist” of the section of text in the storyboard
• Key events for the section of storyboard
• Important details
• Correct sequence of events
• Use of words, phrases and clauses directly from the text
• Student’s own words or the text is paraphrased