These are high-utility academic vocabulary found in many content texts. They often have more than one meaning that shifts with context.
What are academic vocabulary words and phrases?
100
This type of text should constitute roughly 70% of the readings that you bring to students.
What is informational text?
100
This is the stage of the writing process after the pre-writing and drafting stages. During this stage, writers read through their text asking themselves: "Does this make sense?" "Could I say more?" "Is what I am trying to say clear?" "Do I have an obvious introduction, body, and conclusion?"
What is Revision?
100
This timed activity is used by teachers at various points of the lesson to activate schema, check comprehension, or reflect on learning. It is a good trick to get reluctant writers engaged in putting a pen to paper.
What is a Quick Write?
100
This term refers to students' ability to read and comprehend historical images, political cartoons, graphs, charts, and maps.
What is visual literacy?
200
These are domain-specific, archaic, or overly academic words that teachers should work with students to define, but not make the focus of our instruction.
What are tier-3 words?
200
These are two or more texts about a similar theme. It is very important to use these texts with your students as often as possible.
What are paired texts?
200
This stage of the writing process follows revising the text. Authors read through their writing, looking for mistakes in usage and conventions.
What is editing?
200
The purpose of this type of essay or text is to compel the reader to agree with the author's claim by way of logical reasoning and strong use of evidence.
What is an argumentative or persuasive essay?
200
This the name of the short period in US History that directly followed the Civil War.
What is Reconstruction?
300
This is a vocabulary graphic organizer that teachers use to help guide students' study of the definition, synonyms, antonyms, and sentences associated with the word.
What is the Frayer Model?
300
What a teacher is analyzing when he or she evaluates a text's grade level, structure, language features, purpose, background knowledge demands, and relevance to readers and task.
What is text complexity?
300
In part 1 of the writing test, students will need to recognize the high emphasis need for a variety of sentence structures in a passage. What is another term for sentence structure?
What is syntax?
300
This activity re-purposes the essay rubrics as instructional tools, as teachers and students use the rubric to evaluate poor, average, good, and great writing.
What is the Study of Models?
300
Create a unit around this founding document and its many revisions. By connecting this text to principles of US government, related periods of US History, and current events, students will be prepared for success on well over 25% of the test.
What is the US Constitution?
400
This teacher trick makes vocabulary words prominent in the classroom on a consistent basis. Students are encouraged to arrange and rearrange the organization of the word lists and to get up a grab a word in order to read the definition. This helps teachers and students remember to speak and write new vocabulary as often as possible.
What is an interactive word wall?
400
A technique teachers use before reading that requires students to scan the text and make observations and predictions. (This is similar to what consumers do before renting an movie or a book.)
What is previewing the text?
400
What should students be concerned about when they see this high emphasis mistake? "We spent the hour in the waiting room reading old magazines, eating stale cookies from the vending machine, and we wiggled on the hard plastic chairs."
What is Parallel Structure?
400
This is the last stage of the writing process. Experts consider this stage essential, but it requires a lot of teacher planning and labor.
What is Publishing?
400
This literacy strategy helps students better comprehend a text and historical period by writing in response to text and learning using a range of perspectives and purposes.
What is RAFT?
500
This interactive vocabulary activity requires teachers to step back and coach students as they work in pairs or groups to sort the vocabulary words into categories of their choosing. Students categorize words before reading and then are invited to re-categorize words after reading.
What is List-Group-Label?
500
This is a strategy teachers use to teach students how to infer.
What is "it says, I say, and so".
500
What medium emphasis standard is being assessed when students are asked to consider how language functions in different contexts and how to select words for meaning or style.
What is word choice?
500
These scaffolds are designed to help students learn the craft of academic sentence structure and language.
What are Writing Frames?
500
This tool is used by teachers to strategically plan instructional units and lessons for each cycle and semester. Teachers use use literacy, numeracy, and content standards to guide the development of these tools.