6.8.D.ii
The Standard
features such as introduction, foreword, preface, references, or acknowledgements to gain background information
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 examine pages before and after the main text to find useful context. They identify what each feature reveals about purpose, sources, author background, or contributors.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can locate information about the author’s purpose, sources, context, and contributors outside the main text. They can explain which feature supplied a specific piece of background information.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat every opening page as part of the main text. They may also assume references and acknowledgements serve the same purpose or skip them because they appear optional.
How to Assess It
- Give students a title page, preface, and references page. Ask: “Which page would best help you learn why the author wrote the book, and what detail supports your choice?”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups a nonfiction book and sticky notes to label pages that reveal purpose, context, sources, or contributors.
Ask students to write which opening or closing feature they would read first before a research project and explain why.
Play Feature Match by pairing cards showing sample pages with cards naming the background information each page provides.
Compare the opening notes and source list in a cookbook, biography, or field guide to decisions a real reader might make.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
- 5.9.D.ii
features such as insets, timelines, and sidebars to support understanding; and
- 2.9.D.ii
features and graphics to locate and gain information; and
- 8.8.D.ii
features such as footnotes, endnotes, and citations; and
- 3.9.D.ii
features such as sections, tables, graphs, timelines, bullets, numbers, and bold and italicized font to support understanding; and
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