8th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 7 of 16
Predict, infer and summarize
Making and checking predictions, choosing a strategy when reading gets tricky, drawing local and global inferences from clues, and summarizing the main ideas of complex texts.
New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 8R1; 8R2 · inferring and summarizing
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
Example: You stop and say, “The author is trying to teach us about honesty.” What are you making? This is about the message of the whole story. An inference about the whole text is global. Answer: a global inference
In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 7 of 16 in 8th grade English Language Arts, after Forms, Patterns & Visuals and before Digital Citizens.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
After reading, you connect a story to something that happened to you. Which strategy is that?
making connections
Hint: Connecting links the text to your own experience or other texts.
Question 2
Why must the sap be boiled for hours?
In early spring, when nights are still freezing but days are warm, sap begins to rise in maple trees. Producers tap the trees and collect the clear, watery sap in buckets or tubing.
It takes about forty liters of sap to make just one liter of syrup, so the sap is boiled for hours until most of the water has evaporated. Once the syrup is thick and golden, it is filtered and bottled.
to remove most of the water
Hint: Look for the reason in the second paragraph.
Question 3
Which detail best supports that inference?
Noor read the letter twice, folded it into a small square and slipped it into her pocket. At dinner she pushed her peas around the plate and answered every question with one word. When her little brother asked her to play, she shook her head and stared out of the window.
She pushed her peas around the plate and answered with one word.
Hint: Which detail shows how she feels?
Question 4
What can the reader conclude?
In early spring, when nights are still freezing but days are warm, sap begins to rise in maple trees. Producers tap the trees and collect the clear, watery sap in buckets or tubing.
It takes about forty liters of sap to make just one liter of syrup, so the sap is boiled for hours until most of the water has evaporated. Once the syrup is thick and golden, it is filtered and bottled.
Making syrup takes a lot of sap for a small amount of syrup.
Hint: Compare the forty liters of sap to the one liter of syrup.
Question 5
While reading a story, you stop and say, “I think the author is trying to teach us about honesty.” What are you making?
a global inference
Hint: A global inference is about the text as a whole.
Question 6
Which is the best summary of the passage?
In early spring, when nights are still freezing but days are warm, sap begins to rise in maple trees. Producers tap the trees and collect the clear, watery sap in buckets or tubing.
It takes about forty liters of sap to make just one liter of syrup, so the sap is boiled for hours until most of the water has evaporated. Once the syrup is thick and golden, it is filtered and bottled.
Maple syrup is made by collecting sap in spring and boiling it until most of the water is gone.
Hint: A summary gives the main ideas in a few sentences.