When Kids Get Stuck at the Beginning of a Prompt

You've seen it before.  A student - okay - maybe a couple of students - look at you with that wide-eyed-deer-in-headlights look and say "I don't know what to do!"  Or they push the paper away and stare out the window.  Text Dependent Analysis.  So hard.

Until they get it.

And you sigh, because you thought this one, they could figure it out by themselves.

One of the challenges of helping students with text-dependent prompts is that we all know there will come a time when they're going to have to figure it out on their own.  Like state testing.  And let's be real, sometimes in life!

But some kids just can't get past GO.  And you know once they do, they'll be fine.

But right now?
They're stuck.

What's a teacher to do?  I created these, with some help from released items from several different states.

Model this for your students so that they can hear your thinking.  Show them how, even without reading a passage, you know what you're being asked to do.  And how knowing that helps guide what you're looking for, as you read and annotate.

If you'd like to use these too, click here to download them.

Let me know how you used them with your students!