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E4.4.G

Description: Evaluate details read to analyze key ideas.
Maps to Reading Plus skills: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3B, 3C, 6B

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

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

Description: Drawing Conclusions, Making Inferences from information in text

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-6

K-6

Grade level: 11
Word count: 2418 words
Author: Diane Lang
Synopsis: After a serious football injury, Sam gets a highly trained monkey that not only assists him physically but helps him emotionally.
Excerpt: Quitting her job to become his full-time caregiver, Mrs. Hayward erected a shrine to Sam in the living room, decorating the fireplace mantel and nearby shelves with his football and soccer trophies.

She tirelessly prepared his favorite meals, but nothing could alleviate Sam's dark moods as the family almost drained its finances to bring in physical therapists to rehabilitate Sam. Because he had lost all hope, his improvement was slow.

Question: Why did Sam's mom display his trophies in the living room?
  1. to demonstrate he had the ability to show determination and courage
  2. to remind him that he can rejoin his teams when he gets better
  3. to show visitors that he had been a star athlete before his injury
  4. to motivate him to do the same vigorous exercises he once did

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe how you arrived at conclusions about a selection's main idea and characters if information about these text elements was not directly stated.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2A: Determining Main Idea

2A: Determining Main Idea

Description: Determining Main Idea and Themes

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-11

K-11

Grade level: 11
Word count: 2375 words
Author: Diane Lang
Synopsis: Acceptance and compassion go a long way in helping people with Tourette Syndrome.
Excerpt: No excerpt is available for this question.
Question: What is the main idea of this selection?
  1. People with Tourette Syndrome need understanding and acceptance from friends, relatives, and the general public.
  2. Tourette Syndrome is a neurological disorder for which there are some medical treatments but no known cure.
  3. Children suffering from Tourette Syndrome should have a place to go to sympathize with one another.
  4. People with Tourette Syndrome can learn to control their repetitive movements and sounds.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: (Theme: relationships) Describe a character who struggled with society or family and how/if that struggle was resolved.

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?
  1. the deduction of his sister that he took the challenge of the Maroon Bowl
  2. the Gortex jacket with the tracking reflector left behind in the locker
  3. the signal from Jake's cell phone before the battery went dead.
  4. 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

2A: Determining Main Idea

2A: Determining Main Idea

Description: Determining Main Idea and Themes

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-5

K-5

Grade level: 11
Word count: 1987 words
Author: Kathy Menard
Synopsis: Left-handed people do have to make some accommodations in their lives in order to perform everyday tasks.
Excerpt: No excerpt is available for this question.
Question: What is the main idea of this selection?
  1. Although they are a minority, left-handed people can thrive and become successful.
  2. Left-handed people experience many inconveniences because the world is geared toward right-handed people.
  3. The myths and superstitions about left-handed people are unsupported by evidence.
  4. It is essential that parents and teachers help children accept their left-handedness from an early age.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Is it necessary for every selection to have a main idea? Develop an argument and use evidence from selections you have read to provide supporting evidence.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2C: Summarizing

2C: Summarizing

Description: Summarizing

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-8

K-8

Grade level: 11
Word count: 2348 words
Author: Kate Scoville
Synopsis: Though it is clear that food affects your body's health, have you ever considered that it may also affect your mood?
Excerpt: The implications of this study are very important. Besides being essential for brain and body health, eating fat is also important for promoting feelings of happiness. Doctors now believe the connection between eating fats and being happy may account for the reason why many people on low-fat diets experience depression.

Question: Why are the implications of the Belgian study important?
  1. The scientists found that fat is vital for a healthy brain and body as well as for a cheerful temperament.
  2. The scientists discovered that eating fatty junk foods can lead to heart problems and other ailments.
  3. Researchers realized that most people consume too much fat in their daily meals.
  4. Researchers determined that people on low-fat diets tend to be happier and healthier.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Create a news report based on a selection you have read. Report facts from the selection as well as additional facts you researched from reputable sources.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

Description: Analyzing setting, plot, and character

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-14

K-14

Grade level: 11
Word count: 2134 words
Author: Nancy McCloskey
Synopsis: Citizens selected for jury duty learn about the importance of protecting individual rights.
Excerpt: Assizes were made up of 12 local "free and lawful men" who, under oath, made decisions based on their personal knowledge of the true property owner or heir. They dealt with civil, not criminal, cases and were different from modern civil juries in that the jurors were "self-informing." This means that panel members used their pre-existing knowledge as a basis for their decisions.

Question: Based on this excerpt, assize jurors were different from jurors in civil trials today because they
  1. already knew the details of the case.
  2. heard cases involving property issues.
  3. were composed of 12 lawful men and women.
  4. based their decisions only on evidence presented during trial.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe a character with whom you empathize, and explain why you feel this way.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

Description: Analyzing Cause and Effect

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-12

K-12

Grade level: 11
Word count: 2299 words
Author: Peter Kupfer
Synopsis: Jobs was neither an engineer nor a programmer but was a visionary when it came to computers.
Excerpt: While working at Hewlett-Packard as a summer intern, Jobs met another electronics geek, Steve Wozniak, who would become his future business partner and co-founder of Apple. Jobs briefly attended Reed College, but he dropped out after one semester because he was concerned that college expenditures were eating up his parents' savings. He continued auditing classes at Reed while crashing with friends.

Question: Jobs dropped out of college because
  1. he was concerned about straining his family's finances.
  2. he did not have the patience to attend classes.
  3. he got a job as an intern at Hewlett-Packard.
  4. he was too busy running his own company.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Using your science book, give three examples of each of the following: single cause--single effect, single cause--multiple effects, multiple causes--single effect.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

Description: Recognizing Persuasive Devices

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: K-10

K-10

Grade level: 11
Word count: 1891 words
Author: Katherine Menard
Synopsis: Some people have proposed a "balanced" school calendar with breaks spread evenly throughout the year.
Excerpt: Those espousing this calendar base their arguments principally on perceived disadvantages of the traditional calendar. They emphasize that students forget much of what they have learned when they are away from school for lengthy summer breaks. Additionally, they assert that children get bored after the first few weeks away from class, so a long stretch of vacation can be counterproductive. Conversely, they indicate that too many consecutive weeks of instruction without a break can diminish motivation and cause burnout for both teachers and students.

Question: What are the two main arguments for advocates of the "balanced calendar"?
  1. Students forget much of what they have learned over a long summer break.
  2. Too many weeks of instruction without a break can diminish motivation and cause students to "burn out."
  3. Older students will be able to more easily find jobs so they can save for college.
  4. The cost of operating the schools would be less, thus saving taxpayers money.
  5. A balanced calendar would allow more students to take part in extracurricular activities.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Imagine you want to make a documentary about a non-fiction selection you read. Describe the steps you would need to take to make your documentary as accurate and unbiased as possible.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions