Text-Dependent Questions

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Text-dependent questions DO:

• Draw the reader back to the text to discover what it says.
• Require concrete and explicit answers rooted in the text.
• Involve analysis, synthesis and/or evaluation.
• Focus on difficult portions of the text in order to promote the highest levels of reading proficiency with grade-level text.
• Engage with word, sentence and paragraph considerations as well as larger ideas, themes or events.
• Promote analytical, written and spoken communication about text.

Text-Dependent Questions DO NOT:

• Elicit information from the text that is low-level, recall or literal.
• Require students to describe their use of reading strategies.
• Expect personal opinions from students.
• Draw upon irrelevant background information or prior knowledge.
• Prompt imaginative speculation.

Text-dependent questions focus on core understandings and therefore are:

• Reverse-engineered or backwards-designed.
• Crucial for creating an overarching set of successful questions.
• Critical for creating an appropriate culminating assessment.

Text-dependent questions generally assess the following categories found in the MCCR ELA/Literacy Standards:

• Themes and central ideas.
• Knowledge of high-level vocabulary.
• Syntax and structure.

The Role of Reading Strategies

• Strategies are no longer taught in isolation.
• Text-dependent questions require students to apply reading strategies but not directly refer to them when writing about or discussing text.
• The readers' comprehension of the text drives the use of strategies.