Identifying Key Ideas and Supporting Details Part Three: Students at Work

After stating the lesson objective and modeling the process, Ms. Hoard’s 6th grade students work on their own and with partners to navigate new text. Ms. Hoard brings the focus brought back to the text and asks students to determine what sort of information was inferred within the text.

Things to watch for:

• Students work independently, and then share findings with a partner
• Teacher circulates to check in with students as they work
• Whole class discussion of key idea and details to ensure students were focusing on the correct things
• Ms. Hoard helps students work to summarize and shorten their key idea sentences
• Ms. Hoard helps students consider a structural feature of the text, specifically that the first sentence often contains information about the key idea
• Using the coffin inscription as an example, Ms. Hoard helps student relate information from the text to their personal experience.
• She encourages them to think beyond the text by asking what can be inferred from the passage.

More classroom videos with Jodi Hoard:

• Identifying Key Ideas and Supporting Detail, Part One: The Setup
• Identifying Key Ideas and Supporting Detail, Part Two: Modeling

Reading Standards for Informational Text 6

Key Ideas and Details:

• Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.1)

Literacy in History/Social Studies 6-8

Key Ideas and Details:

• Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1)
• Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2)

Ms. Hoard’s students are working to understand more about life for everyday people in Ancient Egypt. Her resources include:

• The Life of Meresamun (PDF)
  Museum information from a special exhibit at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
• Ms. Hoard’s graphic organizer (PDF)
• Completed graphic organizer (PDF)

Strategies that can be used to support this lesson:

• Inferential Reading
• Selective Highlighting
• Structured Notetaking
• Summarizing
• Text Structure
• Question-Answer Relationships (QAR)