Is it because they won't do it, or because no one has ever shown them how? I decided to lay it straight out to teachers how to show kids to use evidence from the text. Maybe no one had ever shown our kids a straightforward way to do it. Thus, the Comma-Quote strategy was adopted.
Copy the strategy below onto large posters to hang in your classroom. Then, teach the strategy using the lesson below, and reinforce, reinforce. It is best used across a grade level or a team. Then all teachers who come into contact with the students can reinforce it.
a) cite specific words and phrases from the textBe sure to explain how the evidence you chose supports your answer.
b) cite a passage from the text, using quotation marks to show that it is a direct quote.
- On page 12, the author said, "Xxxxxxxxx."
- I agree with the author when he/she wrote, "Xxxxxxx."
- An example from the text is on page 2, where it says, "Xxxxxxxx."
To teach the Comma-Quote strategy, you need to first do a lesson with your students on what "using evidence from the text" means.
I have written a model for eighth grade. The model is challenging, because MSPAP is challenging, but I wanted to show students how this skill is done, using appropriate material. Remember, my main audience here is kids who know how to read, and can handle it well. They are the ones who will learn the best from this lesson.
I wrestled with the idea of writing models for grades 3 and 5, but I did not feel that I could presume to know your students, and what you might need. I feel strongly that whatever you do with students should mate with your curriculum, and so you should write your own model, following my example and directions.
For the eighth grade model, I chose the hurricane article because we do a hurricane unit each September. Our kids live on a barrier beach, in a resort, and our school is even used as a hurricane shelter.
1) Select an article or a section of text that is appropriate for your content area and for your students. If teaching the model is going to be done across a grade-level at your school, care should be taken in selecting something that everyone can use. Consistency in teaching this model is very important. You do not want to have one teacher accepting something as "evidence from the text" and another teacher saying that the very same answer is not.
2) Develop a question that kids could easily answer without having even read the article. The best kind of a question that will lead into this is a personal response kind of a question, such as "Do you agree..." or "Would you like..." or "How would you feel..." However, other kinds of questions are suitable, too, especially if kids have recently had experience with an activity related to the article that they could draw upon to answer the question, without reading the text. (An example I can think of is when one of my teachers did an activity with kids making quill pens and dipping them into ink for writing. She later had kids read an article about education during Elizabeth times, and then asked the students to compare their school day to the school day of a student in Shakespeare’s time. One boy wrote a lengthy response to the question about how the students would have written with quill pens, and not once were quill pens even mentioned in the article!)
3) Write four different answers to the questions:
a) one that uses no evidence from the text.
b) one that uses specific words and phrases from the text (method A).
c) one that uses quoted sentences and/or portions of sentences from the text (method B).
d) one that is a blend of methods A and B.
Needed materials: Comma-Quote Strategy poster or overhead transparency,
overhead transparency of article
1) Show the Comma-Quote Strategy on the board or on an overhead transparency. It would be best if it were hung as a poster in the room, for students to refer to.
2) Read the strategy aloud to the students, and tell them that they are going to do an activity that will help them to understand the strategy.
3) Pass out copies of the article, with the question.
4) Pass out highlighters to the kids.
5) Point out where the dictionaries are in the room, and encourage kids to use them, if needed.
6) Read the question aloud, and tell students that as they read, they are to highlight places in the article that will help them to answer the question.
7) Allow students enough time to read the article.
8) Place a copy of the article on the overhead projector.
9) Read the question aloud, and then ask students to volunteer places that they found in the text that will help to answer the question. Accept only evidence that is correct; reject evidence that does not answer the question, and either solicit explanations as to why it does not, or provide them yourself.
10) Refer to the Comma-Quote Strategy, and tell students that you are now going to show them an answer that does not use any evidence from the text.
11) Place model answer 1 on the overhead, and read it aloud. Discuss how a student might have written that answer even though he/she did read the text. Hold a discussion about how you, as the teacher, would not be able to tell if the student had actually read the article, and therefore, you would not be able to give that student a reading score, because the student has not used any information from the article at all in his/her answer. As far as you know, the answer could have come entirely from a student’s background knowledge, and not at all from the reading.
12) Place model answer 2 on the overhead, and as you read it, ask students to look for places where they see specific words and phrases that came from the text. After you have finished reading the answer, solicit students to identify the evidence that came from the text, while you underline it in the answer. Hold a discussion about how this answer repeats portions of detail from the article, without copying whole sentences from the article. If specific words and phrases are short, and not merely sentences copied with one or two words changed, then there is not any plagiarism. The words and phrases are embedded within the student’s own answer.
13) Place model answer 3 on the overhead. As you read it, underline the sentences that are actually quoted from the article. After you finish the reading, hold a discussion about how the sentences and/or portions are punctuated. Then ask students to find the extensions--that is, the places where the student has explained in his/her own words what the quoted portion means, or its significance. This part is essential, because the danger with the Comma-Quote Strategy is that some students might feel that all they have to do is to write a series of quoted sentences for their answer, with no explanation at all of why the chose what they did.
14) Place model answer 4 on the overhead. Explain that this answer is the best of both worlds: a blend of methods A and B. For some people, it is a more natural style of writing an answer to a question--sometimes, some parts of the answer are easier to use specific words and phrases for, and other times, an entire sentence needs to be quoted and explained to do the job.
15) Wrap up the discussion by referring back the Comma-Quote Strategy poster and asking students if there are any questions they have about it.
To follow up this lesson, you should have copies of another article ready, with a question, and with highlighters available. Keep the Comma-Quote Strategy poster mounted on the wall.
If you are doing the follow-up on a separate day, review the strategy with the students. Pass out the copies of the article with question, and the highlighters. Point out the dictionaries again.
Depending on the level and/or ability of your students, you may want them to work in pairs or in groups. The point of the follow-up is to have students practice method A and method B with writing answers to a different article. You can have students write one answer using method A, and then another using method B. If students have time, or some are more able than others, they could also attempt the blending of the two methods.
Again, here is where a lot of teacher judgment comes into play. You could ask some students to read their answers aloud. You could ask some students to write their answers on overhead transparencies and then show them to the class. Or, you could collect all the answers, and then retype some of them (good and not so good) on overhead transparencies <note> without names, and display them to the class for discussion. The Comma-Quote strategy needs to be taught to all teachers within a building, if it is going to be effective. Then, all students need to be taught the strategy, using the same lesson plan, so there is consistency in how it is done within a school. Once all teachers and all students are aware of what evidence from the text is supposed to look like, then students need to be given multiple experiences in which they apply it, in all subjects. This is where developing and using "Reading to be Informed" pieces throughout the school can be effective. This strategy is effective in all types of reading, but it can be most easily applied throughout the curriculum, in all subjects, through RBI pieces.
All of what I have said here is so intertwined. It is nearly impossible for me to say that the Comma-Quote strategy will work, unless it is coupled with developing good reading pieces to use with kids, scored consistently, and appropriate feedback is shared. It is never a "one-shot deal." It is ongoing, and reinforcing good answers to reading questions needs to become a regular part of the regular curriculum, not a "this is for MSPAP" versus "this is what we do in regular school" kind of a thing. It should be regular school, because it is good reading and good writing, a skill students will need throughout school, not just on MSPAP.