The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, Grades 3-5. Leslie Blauman

they are when the story begins and when it ends.

      Compare/contrast: This requires students to identify and analyze what is similar (compare) and what is different (contrast).

      Develop and interact: As stories unfold, events and characters change; these changes are the consequence of interactions that take place between people, events, and ideas within a story or an actual event such as “the Twitter Revolution” in Iran, where events, people, and ideas all resulted in a variety of changes and developments as a result of multiple interactions between people, events, and ideas like social media. To “develop” is to otherwise change, increasing or decreasing in importance, growing more complex or evolving into something different altogether.

      Key details: In the context of literature, key details relate to story grammar elements, that is, character, setting, problem, major events, and resolution, and how they interact.

      Key steps in technical procedures: Whether in social studies or science, the idea here is that some steps or stages are more crucial in any series of steps or stages than others; one must be able to discern this so they can understand why they are so important and how they affect other people or events or experiments.

      Major events: These are the most important events in a story and typically relate to how the main character resolves a problem or handles a challenge.

      Sequence of events: The order that events in a story or text occur or the order that specific tasks are performed.

      Setting: The place or time that a story, novel, or drama takes place. Usually students answer and can describe where it takes place (there may be more than one setting in texts) and when it takes place — this can be a specific time period or can be the past, present, or future.

      Steps in technical procedures: Whether in social studies or science, the idea here is that some steps or stages are more crucial in any series of steps or stages than others; one must be able to discern this so they can understand why they are so important and how they affect other people or events.

Planning to Teach: Reading Standard 3

      Whole Class

      Small Group

      Individual Practice/Conferring

Grades 3–5 Common Core Reading Standards

Craft and Structure

Reading 4: Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

      Literature

      3 Determine the meanings of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.

      4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean).

      5 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

      Informational Text

      3 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

      4 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.

      5 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.

      Source: © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.

      Grades 3–5 Common Core Reading Standard 4

      What the Student Does

      Literature

      3 Gist: Students determine what words and phrases mean in text. They discern if the language is literal or nonliteral.

      They consider:

      • Which words or phrases on this page (in this chapter) seem most important?

      • What does the author’s word choice here make me think of?

      • Which words or phrases help me understand what’s happening?

      • Which words or phrases get me to “read between the lines” and infer meaning?

      • How can I use words I do know to figure out the meaning of words I don’t know?

      4 Gist: Students determine what words and phrases mean in text. They recognize that specific words refer to significant characters in mythology (e.g., Herculean, Trojan Horse, Achilles’ Heel); these words often provide insight into characters or descriptions.

      They consider:

      • Which words or phrases on this page(s) seem most important?

      • What does the author’s word choice here make me think of? How can I connect that to the event here?

      • Which words or phrases help me understand the literal action?

      • Which words or phrases get me to “read between the lines” and infer meaning?

      • How does the language in this section set a tone? How does the tone help me understand what the characters are thinking right now?

      • Are there any words from Greek mythology that are used to describe characters?

      • What do these mythological words mean in the context of this text?

      5 Gist: Students figure out what words mean and how context affects the meaning of words and phrases, by examining if meaning is literal or figurative, especially metaphors and similes.

      They consider:

      • What words or phrases tell me the most about characters, actions, events, or the setting?

      • Which words or phrases help me understand the meaning of this portion or the text as a whole?

      • Which words or phrase are figurative language and why is the author using them?

      • What types of figurative language are used?

      • How can I use the surrounding sentences to help me determine the meaning of the figurative language (especially similes and metaphors)?

      • How does the language in this section set a tone? How does the tone help me understand what the characters are thinking right now?

      Informational Text

      3 Gist: Students determine what words and phrases mean in texts relevant to third-grade topics or subject areas.

      They consider:

      • What is the topic of this text? How does knowing the main topic help me figure out the meaning of this sentence or section?

      • How can I use the text and surrounding photos and caption to figure out what this word or phrase means?

      • How can I look at text features