Learning Center
reading
Elaborate on basic constructed responses
The first step to improving students’ constructed-response writing is to make sure they can infer the answer as a reader. The second step is to teach them the basic what-and-why structure. After this, push toward a polished constructed response that includes additional elaboration.
Color-code the constructed response
Highlight all four sentences of a basic constructed response. Use pink to highlight the first sentence and yellow to highlight the final explanation at the end. Then stroke all of the middle sentences that identify evidence from the text(s) using a green highlighter.
This is a good foundation, however, a strong response would have more of the student’s own thinking, more elaboration, more explanation—more yellow.
Whether students quote the “green” initial author evidence or paraphrase it, it should be followed by “yellow” elaboration. Evidence can’t stand alone. For every text detail the reader states, he must clarify why it is important.
Elaborate & explain more
Remembering that the elaboration sentences represent ideas that come from the reader’s Thinking Voice, teach students how to articulate their thoughts into words. Explicitly provide techniques for elaborating on evidence. These might include:
- Restating the evidence in more plain terms (e.g., In other words… This means…).
- Relating evidence with an example or simple scenario (e.g., This is like…).
- Emphasizing the significance (e.g., This is important because…).
In the end, adding in more of the reader’s thinking evolves a basic constructed response into a more polished one—which is the goal on standardized assessments.
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Balance evidence v. elaboration in reading responses
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