Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

Appendices

State Standards

Reading

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.

Distinguish one's own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters.

Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

Writing

Students will be able to write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

1. Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
2. Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.
3. Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order.
4. Provide a sense of closure.

Language

Students will determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

1. Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).
2. Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).
3. Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrases.
4. Use glossaries or beginning dictionaries, both print and digital, to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

1. Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps).
2. Identify real-life connections between words and their uses (e.g., describe people who are friendly or helpful).
3. Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, and wondered).

Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g. After dinner that night, we went looking for them).