LA 12.1.6.i
Description:
Construct and/or answer literal, inferential, critical, and interpretive questions, analyzing and synthesizing evidence from the text and additional sources to support answers.
Maps to Reading Plus skills:
1A, 1B, 2B, 9B
Exemplars
1A: Recalling Explicit Details
1A: Recalling Explicit Details
Description:
Identifying explicit details including character, time, setting and speaker
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-4
K-4
Grade level: 11
Word count: 2496 words
Author: Diane Lang
Synopsis: A skilled snowboarder takes a big chance when he cruises the slopes in avalanche territory.
Excerpt:
As the pilot's words filled me with hope, I perused the steep chutes and precarious descents for signs of my brother. But, honestly, I suspected the worst. I knew avalanches most often kill by suffocation. There is air even in dense avalanche debris, but it is unattainable if the victim's mouth and nose are plugged with snow. Even if the victim can draw a breath, his exhalations will begin to make any available air less accessible by coating the snow surface around his mouth with ice.
Question:
Choose the sentence in this excerpt that gives the most likely explanation for why people suffocate in an avalanche.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Create a new graphic organizer that indicates a selection's main idea, characters, and supporting details, and how these three areas intersect.
Evaluator
Organization:
Certica Solutions
2B: Analyzing Relative Importance
2B: Analyzing Relative Importance
Description:
Determining Relative Importance
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-4
K-4
Grade level: 11
Word count: 2496 words
Author: Diane Lang
Synopsis: A skilled snowboarder takes a big chance when he cruises the slopes in avalanche territory.
Excerpt:
Still, with all his daredevil ways, I never believed he'd risk his life in unchartered territory. As I said, he was a creature of habit and had his favorite sanctuaries. But after the initial investigation and then the exhaustive rescue operations, and still no trace of my brother, I knew the rescue team was searching in vain. Evidently, Jake had decided to test his endurance and cruise the adjacent Maroon Bowl.
Question:
What was the most important clue leading to Jake's rescue?
- the deduction of his sister that he took the challenge of the Maroon Bowl
- the Gortex jacket with the tracking reflector left behind in the locker
- the signal from Jake's cell phone before the battery went dead.
- the ski pass scanned Friday at 12:04 p. m. at the base of the Highlands
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Imagine you are an attorney cross-examining the characters in a selection. What questions would you ask them to elicit the most important details about the plot?
Evaluator
Organization:
Certica Solutions
9B: Classifying
9B: Classifying
Description:
Classify
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-23
K-23
Grade level: 11
Word count: 2412 words
Author: Anton Chekhov
Synopsis: A wager between a banker and a lawyer yields an unexpected result.
Excerpt:
During the first year of solitary imprisonment, the lawyer, judging from his frantic short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom; from his cell day and night came the sound of the piano. He was sent books of whimsical character: novels with complicated yet preposterous love interests, stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on.
In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history; in the space of four years about six hundred volumes were purchased at his request.
Later, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his table and read only the New Testament; the banker found it peculiar that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred erudite volumes should have spent nearly a year examining one book, easy to understand and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and theology.
During the final two years of his solitary confinement the prisoner read an extraordinary amount, quite haphazardly: he would apply himself to the natural sciences, then he would devote himself wholeheartedly to Byron or Shakespeare. Notes came from him requesting, simultaneously, books on chemistry, a textbook of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology -- he read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken fragments of shattered wreckage, and in his desperate desire to survive was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history; in the space of four years about six hundred volumes were purchased at his request.
Later, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his table and read only the New Testament; the banker found it peculiar that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred erudite volumes should have spent nearly a year examining one book, easy to understand and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and theology.
During the final two years of his solitary confinement the prisoner read an extraordinary amount, quite haphazardly: he would apply himself to the natural sciences, then he would devote himself wholeheartedly to Byron or Shakespeare. Notes came from him requesting, simultaneously, books on chemistry, a textbook of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology -- he read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken fragments of shattered wreckage, and in his desperate desire to survive was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
Question:
Based on these excerpts, which two statements best describe the significance of books in this selection?
- At the beginning they represent entertainment and study.
- At the end they symbolize a descent into madness.
- At first they represent man's superior knowledge.
- At the end they represent man's foolishness.
- From start to finish they represent the knowledge of human history.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Classify the kinds of characters in a fictional narrative selection (narrator, protagonist, antagonist, anti-hero, foil, symbolic, etc.) and describe their functions. Use details from a selection you have read to illustrate and explain your classifications.
Evaluator
Organization:
Certica Solutions
1B: Analyzing Implicit Details
1B: Analyzing Implicit Details
Description:
Drawing Conclusions, Making Inferences from information in text
SeeReader
✓ standard met
Selection:
K-3
K-3
Grade level: 11
Word count: 1895 words
Author: Peter Kupfer
Synopsis: Laughter is a universal human action that people in every culture understand.
Excerpt:
Whatever its origins may be, laughter seems to be a uniquely human trait. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle asserted that laughter -- not speech, conscious thought, culture, or opposable thumbs, which give us the ability to grasp objects -- is the most important trait separating human beings from wild beasts. While many animals make sounds that resemble laughter, those sounds are not an expression of mirth or merriment. Laughing hyenas, for example -- despite their name -- do not really laugh. The high-pitched sounds they emit are triggered not by something funny but because they are excited or on the prowl.
Question:
Choose the sentence in this excerpt that best explains Aristotle's assertion that laughter separates man from beast.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Write a question about one additional fact you would have liked to learn from a selection you read. Answer the question by using the Internet or other research tools to find the necessary information.
Evaluator
Organization:
Certica Solutions