Literary Texts
The universal or general message that is communicated by the writer.
What is theme?
The way an author structures and puts together their ideas into writing.
What is text organization / text structure?
The paired questions of the test require you to infer and conclude how passage one relates to passage two.
What are similarities (BOTH) and differences (ONE TEXT ONLY)?
The use of this word in revising questions means that there is an unnecessary item in a sentence or paragraph that needs to be deleted.
What is extraneous?
The RLA STAAR exam requires that you be strong in four parts of language arts and reading to prove your level of skill.
What are reading questions, editing questions, revising questions, and constructed responses?
The author's use of language that is interpreted by its suggested meanings OR by their actual meanings
What is figurative and literal language?
The author's main position or overall big idea that is presented before the body of the text.
What are claim and central idea/thesis?
The steps: go back and check context, look it up, and match the best choice are an important strategy that will need to be used for most of your reading passages, since each set of questions has at least one of these.
What are vocabulary questions?
The questions that require you to correct language conventions and the other set of questions require you to improve the clarity of a piece of writing.
What are editing and revising questions?
The essay (ECR) is worth up to five points and is 18% of your total STAAR RLA score and you must have all five of these areas achieved to earn the top score.
What are thesis/claim, cited evidence and effective explanation, organization, language conventions, and clarity?
The core elements that you should pay attention to when reading and understanding poetry.
What is S(Structure) S(Sound) I(Imagery/mood) F(Figurative Language) T(Theme)?
The inclusion of visual items such as bullets, boldface words, subheadings, diagrams, tables, and photographs, not only enhance the writing, but are often times tested as well.
What are text and graphic features?
The choices that are wrong have one or more of these in them that make them incorrect, and they often fall into three categories when it comes to bad answer choices.
What are false details (X), OT(off-topic), NoE(no evidence), and WL(wrong location)?
These can be used to combine sentences, but you should avoid these common mistakes.
What are semicolons, coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, appositives, and what are comma splices and run-ons?
The level of effort and quality you put into your ECR, SCR, and comprehension questions (ALL of them) will have a direct impact on this.
What are the level of class you earn next year, whether or not you will have summer school, intervention classes, or electives in eighth grade?
The ___________ has a direct or indirect effect on characters in a story and can be physical, social, or psychological and always involves place and time.
What is setting?
The author's inclusion of the audience in their argument, in addition to having a defensive position for their claim, and by using data and expert quotes, makes their argument more believable.
What are direct address, counterargument, and strong evidence?
The strategy before reading that involves identifying/highlighting: text features/graphics, data, dates, names, quotes, dialogue, repetition, emotion, uncommon punctuation, etc.
What is pre-viewing/pre-reading?
The annotation page for a revising and editing passage is used to keep track of where the mistakes are found, and it can be used for another purpose if it can be done in a minute or less.
What are sentences, and what is determine the mistake?
The road to success on STAAR begins when you do this, otherwise you might risk doing worse than last year.
What is plan, so you are not planning to fail?
The different possible perspectives of a narrator in fiction.
What are first-person (I, me), third-person limited (he, they; one character's view), or third-person omniscient (them, he; ALL characters' views)?
The text structure of a text or section of a text is directly connected to the reason the author used it, and in addition to description, cause/effect, problem/solution, chronology/sequence, and compare & contrast, two additional structures are tested.
What are author's purpose, pros & cons, and classification/categorial?
The summary styles B-M-E, central idea, claim, and the supporting details are tested differently depending on the genre.
What are fiction, poetry, drama, and informational texts, and argumentative texts?
The revising questions are context-based and involve the use of labels when determining the best answer, and the editing questions require you to focus on C-U-P-S.
What are OT, ON-T, WL, unclr, clr?
What are capitalization, usage/tense, punctuation, and spelling?
The confidence of having a plan and being prepared for the exam when you face it and knowing how to strategize and lock in to select the best choices and respond in the most effective way--all in the given amount of time provided.
What are ALWAYS READY and PLAY THE GAME?