From there, they can look closely to uncover the main idea. When it comes to drawing conclusions and making inferences, students should start by identifying the important parts of the text. William Golding might never explicitly call Jack a selfish egomaniac in Lord of the Flies, but there’s plenty of evidence to support that statement – you just have to find them. For example, when students make inferences about a character’s emotions, citing textual evidence helps support their inference. Textual evidence is vital when it comes to inferential thinking. Teaching Textual Evidence Starts with Drawing Conclusions The following tips will help you with teaching textual evidence, including how to find it, how to cite it, and how to explain it – regardless of which type of text they’re using. However, together they make up the overall ability to successfully use textual evidence in their writing. It’s worth breaking these skills down with your students. This is imperative in bringing it all together into a cohesive response. Finally, and perhaps most challenging, they must explain how the textual evidence supports their thinking from step one.They can do this by directly quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing the text. Next, they have to embed the textual evidence into their own writing while keeping a sense of flow to their writing.Then, they must go back to the text and find information within the text that helps support or prove their thinking.We might ask them to do this with fiction or nonfiction texts. First, after they read, they must make an inference or draw a conclusion about something they read.The truth is, when we ask students to “use” textual evidence, we’re asking them to do four different things: While students might be familiar with the term “textual evidence,” they might need a refresher on what exactly that means. You might think this is too obvious, but hear me out. I always end with my favorite analogy of a courthouse trial: Imagine if jurors decided a defendant’s fate without hearing any evidence from the lawyers? That’s ridiculous, right? While freedom might not be on the line for your students, it’s a great reminder that if they make a claim, they better be ready to back it up with evidence. Textual evidence aids in adding a sense of credibility to our thinking.Textual evidence provides a “double-check” on the accuracy of our answers and ideas.Textual evidence helps support the inferences we make, whether it’s about characters in a text or the world around us.Textual evidence is important in crafting strong arguments of all kinds, not just in school.Here are a few points of emphasis to help make teaching textual evidence more relevant: Therefore, students are more likely to buy in if they feel that the skill is relevant to them beyond academic success. Yet, students know that their ability to write an essay about the theme of freedom in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn likely won’t play an imperative role in their life beyond high school. Because you’ll have to do it on standardized testing. Students have already heard the classic reasons: Because you need it for your paper. I don’t just mean explaining why it’s important for writing in school, either. Teaching Textual Evidence, but Make it Relevantįirst, it’s worth taking a step back and making it clear why it’s an important skill. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room (or need) for teaching textual evidence this year, in your classroom, to your students.įear not! This article is here to help and is filled with tips for teaching textual evidence in the secondary classroom. But what if the pain point with students is that they are being asked to do something that they don’t really know how to do?īut they should have learned that last year, right? Maybe. Teachers are often frustrated when students fail to support their answers with textual evidence – let alone strong evidence. However, textual evidence can be a pain point for teachers and students. So, if you’re looking for tips for teaching textual evidence, you’ve come to the right place. This is true for various texts, from novels to articles, and different writing responses, from short written responses to full-blown research papers. We both know that finding, citing, and explaining textual evidence is a crucial piece of high-quality writing in the secondary classroom. Read this post to learn my favorite tips and how-tos that will help you turn your students into textual evidence experts in no time. The students still need explicit teaching on finding, citing, and explaining textual evidence. Teaching textual evidence can be a challenge in the secondary classroom.
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