CCSS RL.6.1: How to teach it + Lesson and activities

Despite its numbering, this standard should be the last you teach in your CCSS RL “Key Ideas and Details” unit. This standard essentially asks students to make evidence-supported claims based on a text. The problem is that students won’t know what to make claims about until they learn to read for plot, character, and other literary elements first introduced in RL.6.3 and RL.6.2. 

For this reason, I recommend starting with those lessons (linked to below) and then introducing evidence types and claims (using those earlier skills as concepts to make claims about).

Sequence

Before this standard, teach these:

• RL.6.3: Plot and Plot-character interaction
• RL.6.2: Theme and Summary

‍How to teach CCSS RL.6.1

There are 2 components to RL.6.1: types of evidence and using that evidence to analyze the text. From CommonCoreStandards.org (emphasis my own):

Cite textual evidence to [2nd component] support analysis of what the text says [1st component] explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

‍How to teach explicit and inferred evidence for CCSS RL.6.1

This one is pretty easy. 

• Explicit evidence = copy and pasted from the text
• Inferred evidence = a guess with evidence.

Plot and dialogue are two great examples of when to use explicit evidence. Something happens; someone says something: these can be copied and pasted from the story to help explain the story.

On the other hand, theme and character motivation (why a character says or does something) require inferred evidence. If you’ve already taught RL.6.2 (and this is why I recommend doing so before RL.6.1), then your students will understand that a theme is a guess based on the plot — which serves as evidence. 

How to teach claim-evidence-reasoning for CCSS RL.6.1

This one is more complicated. “Claim evidence reasoning” (or CER) is a structure to help students express basic analysis. Students who can construct a clearly reasoned and supported claim are equipped with a powerful tool of self-expression: they can share what they have learned (claim), the material from which they have learned it (evidence), and the rationale connecting that material to their claim (reasoning).

This may be the first “critical thinking” structure students encounter in their schooling, so they need a lot of examples to work with and a lot of practice. That’s what I’ve tried to provide you in this resource.

How to use this resource

This digital worksheet/escape room is designed to serve as a lecture guide, guided practice, and a template for freer practice. Review the input with students, possibly complete a game together, then allow them to complete a game on their own, and finally let them create their own game.

Here are two videos of me talking through it:

Using this resource to teach explicit and inferred evidence

Using this resource to teach claim-evidence-reasoning structure