Citing Evidence from the Reading
Besides the hour-long writing prompt, most states target a read-write prompt on standardized tests, too. This is where students need to write an extended response to a reading passage. It’s not uncommon to see steady growth in the area of your writing-prompt scores and simultaneously see a lack of growth in the read-write assessment. The Test Lady™ requires students to cite different examples from the reading to support their thinking.
No matter what the read-write prompt is, students are required to go back into the text for proof and support. However, the number of students who actually flip back and forth in the reading is few. Here are two ways to motivate
students to go back into the text:
- During your next discussion on a current reading assignment, have each student simply “put his finger on the passage that supports his thinking.” If the question was, Do you think Little Red Riding Hood was naďve? then they might put their finger on the passage where it explains she didn’t know it was a wolf dressed up as her grandmother.
- When students are writing responses to questions about their reading, require that they identify a page number and/or paragraph number where they pull their evidence from. Little Red Riding Hood can easily be described as naďve. In the beginning of the story she wanders off the main path within the woods (p. 3) because she is so caught up in her own singing. Then when seeing “Grandma,” her first instinct isn’t "Something’s wrong." Rather, she does a full scale physical description of her eyes (p.7), ears (p.8) and teeth (p.9). Requiring students to cite a page, paragraph, or line (poems) to support their thinking is establishing the habit of going back into the reading.
