RI.11-12.3
Description:
Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events, and explain how specific individuals, ideas or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Maps to Reading Plus skills:
1A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 3C, 5A
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
3A: Predicting Outcomes
3A: Predicting Outcomes
Description:
Predicting Outcomes
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:
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.
Poisoned by carbon dioxide emissions, most victims begin to lose consciousness within four minutes, which is a good thing, as they will use air at a slower rate. Brain damage may set in after eight minutes. Within 25 minutes, half of buried victims will die. If Jake were buried within the ice, the chances that he was alive were non-existent.
Poisoned by carbon dioxide emissions, most victims begin to lose consciousness within four minutes, which is a good thing, as they will use air at a slower rate. Brain damage may set in after eight minutes. Within 25 minutes, half of buried victims will die. If Jake were buried within the ice, the chances that he was alive were non-existent.
Question:
According to this selection, if Jake was buried beneath the avalanche, he
- would have only the slightest chance of survival.
- would survive if his exhalations were slow and measured.
- would need a pocket of air to remain alive for a day.
- would be better off if he became unconscious for a few hours.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Based on the selection's conclusion, what other sequence of events could have generated the same outcome? Demonstrate how these interactions, while different from the author's original plan, make the same conclusion feasible.
Evaluator
Organization:
Certica Solutions
5A: Examining Text Structure
5A: Examining Text Structure
Description:
Examining Text Structure
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:
"Hey! Over there, about 30 degrees to the left of the snowslide -- footprints!" The helicopter glided westward and sure enough there were footprints leading to a rough structure tucked in between a stand of evergreens.
Question:
In the last part of the selection, which sentence signals a major change in the action?
- About 30 degrees to the left of the snowslide -- footprints!
- Over there; he shouldn't die, he saved me.
- The two men were taken out by stretchers.
- That's a good omen for us, young lady.
Writing
✓ standard met
Writing prompt:
Explain an author's use of description in a selection, and how the description shaped the way you viewed and understood the person, object, or event described.
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
- already knew the details of the case.
- heard cases involving property issues.
- were composed of 12 lawful men and women.
- 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
- he was concerned about straining his family's finances.
- he did not have the patience to attend classes.
- he got a job as an intern at Hewlett-Packard.
- 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