Language Arts/English Curriculum Frameworks - Albemarle County ...

Following the modeling, students are given the opportunity to practice thinking aloud with a partner.
Alternatively, students might use a think aloud checklist and practice independently.
• Graphic Organizers
• Story Grammar (Story frame) - Students become more aware of a story structure through the use
of grammar. This graphic organizer identifies such story characteristics as setting, plot, and theme.
• Story Map – Teachers list major events in a story; students create questions based on the map.
• Venn Diagram
• Inquiry Charts (I-chart) – This matrix promotes critical thinking skills as students search multiple
sources to answer questions. Across the top of the matrix, list 3-4 key questions that relate to
concepts from a given unit of study. Along the left side of the matrix, a cell is identified for “What
We Know”. Below this cell, list 3 sources (i.e., textbooks, trade books, video, lecture). The last cell
along the left-hand side of the matrix is for “Summary”. Students begin filling in “What We Know”.
Then they search the multiple sources to answer the key questions, writing answers in the
corresponding box. After completing the research, students fill in the “Summary” boxes,
synthesizing the information from the multiple sources.
• Concept map
• KWL Plus – This graphic organizer identifies the following information about a given topic: “What I
Know”, “What I Want to Know”, “What I Learned” and “What I Still Want to Know/Where I Can Find
More Information”.
• Questioning Techniques
o Reciprocal Questioning (ReQuest) – Teachers and students take turns asking and answering
questions based on single sentences of text. The teacher models higher levels of questioning.
Continue through a passage sentence by sentence, taking turns asking and answering the questions.
Questions that occur later in the paragraph should reflect cumulative information from prior
sentences.
o Question-Answer Relationship – Students learn to identify 4 types of question-answer relationships:
1. Right there (The answer is in one sentence of the story.); 2. Think and Search (The answer is in
the story, but the reader must search different sentences.); 3. Author and You (The answer is not
© ASPIRE K-12, Albemarle County Public Schools, 2003
Appendix B
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