RL.7.1 - Make Inferences, Cite Textual Evidence

We zoomed in more heavily on inferring today. Inferring was a 'thinking code' I introduced earlier last week, but it definitely is a skill that needs more attention. I used this chart to anchor what it means to infer.

Textual evidence and background knowledge are essential for inferring. To help students remember to include both when writing about their inferences, I used these sentence stems as prompts. You'll see on the chart that it says "word-for-word support" and "paraphrased support" which are ways to cite text that I taught last week. Refer to this blog post for those anchor charts!

Students did a practice activity on the computer in which I sent them the following passage that I found on this website:
Screech! Karen stomped on the gas pedal the moment the light turned green. She looked over her left shoulder and zigged past a semi-truck. She zoomed ahead and looked over her right shoulder and thenzagged past a motorbike. She glanced at the clock on the console of her vehicle and darted into the parking lot. Whipping into a parking spot, she grabbed her suitcase and ran through the lot, up the escalator, and into the terminal. Her heavy suitcase was smacking and bouncing the whole way. As soon as entered the terminal, she heard an announcement over the loudspeaker, "Final boarding call for flight 205 to JFK..."Karen looked at her ticket and then at the line to get through the security checkpoint, which wrapped around several turnstiles and slithered like a lethargic snake. Karen sighed and then slowly walked to the customer service desk.

I asked two questions that required students to infer. They were:
1. Where is Karen?
2. Why does she walk slowly at the end of the passage?

Here are two student responses for question 1:
* I infer that Karen is at an airport. I think this because the text says she heard an announcement that said it was the final boarding call. From my background knowledge I know that airports will go on the loudspeaker and announce one last time before the plane takes off These are called boarding calls. Therefore, that is how I came to infer that Karen is at an airport.
* I infer Karen is at an airport. I believe this because in the text it says that she was rushing through the terminal and she had a suitcase with her. It also talked about her boarding a flight. From my background knowledge, I know that at airports they have terminals to separate flights and a suitcase is often something people bring to the airport to take on a plane. Therefore, I infer that Karen is at an airport.

Here is a student response for question 2:
* I infer that Karen is walking slowly at the end of the passage because shse probably missed her flight! I infer this because it says the line went all the way down the hall way and "Karen sighed and then slowly walked to the customer service desk". From my background knowledge I know that if someone sighs, it usually means you're disappointed and a line that goes down the hallway means it will take a while to get to the front. That's how I came to infer that Karen missed her flight!