3.9.D.ii
The Standard
features such as sections, tables, graphs, timelines, bullets, numbers, and bold and italicized font to support understanding
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading · The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students locate features in informational texts and use them to find or understand information. They explain how a feature adds to the words in the main text.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can name a feature and explain what information it adds. They combine details from a table, graph, timeline, or heading with the main text to answer questions.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat features as decoration and skip them while reading. They may read table rows or timeline dates incorrectly, or assume every bold word is a definition.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short article with a bold term and a table. Ask, “What does each feature help you understand? Use one detail from each.”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a short article and sticky notes, then have them label each feature and write what information it adds.
Ask, “Which feature helped you understand the article most, and what would be harder without it?”
Play text-feature bingo as students search classroom nonfiction books for headings, bullets, bold print, graphs, tables, and timelines.
Examine a school lunch menu or sports schedule, and discuss how sections, numbers, and tables help readers find information quickly.
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