SKILLS & STRATEGIES
These skills are being taught/reviewed this week:
Compare & Contrast: when people compare things, they look at how things are similar; when they contrast things, they look at how things are different.
Context Clues - When readers come across a word they do not understand, they pause to try to figure out the meaning. To do this, they look for words in the sentence or sentences around the word for clues to the meaning of the unfamiliar word. This is called using context clues.
Argumentative Writing:
The following skills/strategies will be reviewed periodically throughout the year.
Acrostic Poetry: This kind of text structure deeply affects the meaning of the text, as the message or word contained in the first letters of each line both creates and emphasizes the theme of the poem.
Analyze Character: authors create a character through the character's conversations, actions, thoughts, and even how the character looks. How the characters talk and act towards a specific character is also a clue to that character's personality.
Argument: words presented with the aim of persuading someone to think or do something.
Author's Purpose: An author's purpose is the reason for or intent in writing. An author's purpose may be to entertain the reader, to persuade the reader, or to inform the reader.
Character Analysis: Authors create a character through the character’s conversations, actions, thoughts, and even how the character looks. How other characters talk and act towards a specific character is also a clue to that character’s personality.
Cite Text Evidence: In order to use text evidence, you have to isolate specific pieces of information within the text itself. This information is used to support an idea about the text, or it can be the idea itself. Text evidence is needed to create arguments based on the text (and your personal experience), and to make those arguments convincing or effective. Text evidence can be words, phrases, or sentences, as well as illustrations, pictures, and graphic devices.
Claim: a point about someone or something.
Clarify: Readers sometimes need to pause to figure out a word meaning or work out a confusing idea in the text. One strategy that readers can use to clarify is to reread the confusing text slowly. You can also use context clues, pictures, headings, or your own knowledge to help you figure out what the text means as well. If something is still confusing after rereading, it might be time to ask for help.
Compare & Contrast: when people compare things, they look at how things are similar; when they contrast things, they look at how things are different.
Connotation: the emotions that are associated with words; it can be something suggested or implied by a word or thing, rather than being explicitly named or described. Ex. The word home has a more positive connotation than residence.
Context Clues - When readers come across a word they do not understand, they pause to try to figure out the meaning. To do this, they look for words in the sentence or sentences around the word for clues to the meaning of the unfamiliar word. This is called using context clues.
Denotation: a word's explicit or direct meaning; the dictionary definition.
Draw Conclusions/Make Inferences: Information is sometimes implied or inferred and not stated directly. Writers often give you hints or clues to help you "read between the lines" and form a reasonable opinion about something you have read.
Fact and Opinion: A fact is a statement that can be checked in a reference source. An opinion is a statement that tells what a person thinks or believes. Signal terms such as think, believe, probably, and point of view can help you identify an opinion.
Figurative Language: language used for descriptive effect, often to illustrate or imply ideas indirectly. In other words, you must “figure” out the hidden meaning.
Genre: a category used to classify literary works, usually by form, technique or content
Hyperbole: an extreme exaggeration. Example: I must have called you a million times!
Idioms: phrases or expressions that have a different meaning from the actual, or literal, meaning of the words. (Example: Keep your eyes peeled for breathtaking vistas and wildlife such as moose, loons, black bears, and river otters.)
Key Ideas & Details: The topic is what the paragraph, section, or selection is all about. The main or key idea is the most important idea about the topic. Details are sentences that explain and tell about the main idea.
Making Judgements: a judgment is an opinion about the value of an action, character, or situation. When people make judgments, they are usually stating what is better or best, or worse or worst, of a group of actions, people, or situations.
Metaphor: a figure of speech that makes a comparison of two different things without using the words like or as. (Example: Love is a battlefield. You are a shining star.)
Mood: the state of mind or feeling that an author creates through details in the text.
An illustrator may support the story’s mood through the text details he or she chooses to illustrate, the choice of colors, and even the choice of materials. The mood often changes throughout a text.
Multiple-Meaning words: Certain words have more than one meaning. Learning how to understand the different meanings of words helps us when we read, speak, and write.
Onomatopoeia - is the use of a word that sounds like the noise or action it is describing.
Personification: when something that is not human is given human-like qualities. Example: The leaves danced in the wind.
Plot: the arrangement of events in a literary work, which often includes an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Point of View: Point of view refers to the way a narrator tells or narrates a story. A story can be told using first person or third person.
1st Person Point of View: the character is telling the story and is part of the action in the story. You will see the words "I," "me," or "we" in first-person point of view.
3rd Person Point of View: the story has an external narrator telling the story, and the narrator is not part of the action in the story. The words "he," "she," or "they" are used in this point of view. This point of view can either be omniscient where the reader knows what all the characters are thinking in the story or it can be limited to having the reader only know what is happening with one specific character.
Predict: predicting, or thinking about what might happen next, helps the reader to understand and enjoy a story more. To predict, a reader has to pay close attention to the text and use clues from the book or a personal experience to make an informed guess about how the book will go.
Prefix: a group of letters added to the beginning of a base word to make a new word. The prefix changes the word’s meaning. Recognizing common prefixes can help students decode a word and figure out its meaning.
Sequence: sequence, or time order, of events in a text is either indicated by the use of signal words or is inferred by the reader through the use of text details.
Setting: the time and place in which the events of the plot unfold. A narrative can be set at a particular point in the past or future, and it may be familiar or unfamiliar to readers. Either way, it is one of the most important elements in a story.
Simile: a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more vivid (Example: as fast as lightning, crazy like a fox).
Story Structure - the framework writers use to develop the events of the plot.
Suffix: a letter or group of letters added to the end of a base word. A suffix changes the word’s meaning and often its part of speech.
Summarize: When you summarize, you restate in your own words the most important ideas so far.
Text Structure: Writers sometimes use different styles of text structures to convey different meanings.The different types of text structures are sequence, chronological order, compare & contrast, description, cause & effect, and problem & solution.
Theme: the central message about life or nature that the author wants the reader to get from the story. Sometimes the author states the theme directly, but more often it is not stated directly. Usually the theme is the reason that the author wrote the story.
Poetic Elements
Line - a string of words in a poem, not necessarily a full sentence or phrase
Meter - a regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line of poetry
Open Form - poetic form without consistent meter, rhyme, or stanza length
Rhyme - the repetition of the same or similar sounds in a poem
Rhyme scheme - the pattern formed by the rhyming words at the ends of lines in a poem (Ex. ABAB, AABB, etc.
Rhythm - the pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line of poetry
Stanza - the basic unit of a poem, made up of a series of lines (like a paragraph in a text)