13(B) Drawing Conclusions

Reading/ Comprehension of Informational Text/ Non-Fiction Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about expository text and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding
K	1	2	3	4	5
10(B) retell important facts in a text, heard or read	14(B) identify important facts or details in text, heard or read	14(B) locate the facts that are clearly stated in text	13 (B) Draw conclusions from the facts presented in the text and support those assertions with textual evidence	11 (B) Distinguish fact from opinion in a text and explain how to verify what is a fact	11(B) Determine the facts in text and verify them through established methods
Draw conclusions from the facts presented in the text Support those assertions with textual evidence

• What is the difference between a conclusions and an inference??
• drawing conclusions = use of facts and inferences to make a judgement or decision
• inferenc = to draw meaning from a combination of clues in the text with out explicit reference in the text

• Linda Hoyt - Read Aloud Think Together - Drawing Conclusions page 37

•  Here are a few activities that do not require reading materials for explaining the concept

Guess the Emotion

Divide the class into groups and give each group an index card with an emotion written on it. Instruct each group to come up with several “hints” that would describe a person who is feeling that emotion. For example, the group that has the emotion “angry” might list “red-faced” and “fists clenched” as two of the hints. Then have groups pair up and trade hints to see whether they can draw conclusions about how the person feels based on the given hints. This is a great drawing conclusion activity to teach students how to draw conclusions about characters in texts they are reading.

 

You Are What You Bring

Tell the class that you will be describing the contents of someone’s bag, as well as what the bag looks like. Explain that it will be their job to draw conclusions about the person based on what you say is in the person’s bag. You might describe a tiny pink purse lined with sequins and feathers with a tube of lipstick and a hand mirror, a bulky gym bag with a sweatband and a set of hand weights, or a knapsack filled with library books about Abraham Lincoln. After you’ve given them several examples, let them break into groups and come up with bags of their own. Encourage them to trade their descriptions with other groups and see whether the second group draws the same conclusions that the first group had in mind. Then discuss whether any of their conclusions lacked enough support to be probable.

Pictures

For students who are having trouble drawing conclusions from texts, it can be helpful to give them a different medium with which to practice this skill. Find some interesting pictures, either online or in some old photo albums, and ask students to draw conclusions based on what is happening in the pictures. They might draw conclusions about the relationships of the people in the pictures, the emotions that each person in the picture feels, or the setting in which the picture takes place. Then explain that reading a story is like seeing a snapshot in time, and that drawing conclusions about the picture the author presents us in the story can help us to better understand the story, just like drawing conclusions about the picture helped us better understand what was happening in the picture.

Situation Match

• In the situation inference activity, students use printed cards to match a situation to something that might have happened. Teachers print actions on half of the cards and matching situations on the other half. Use index cards or an online card game maker to create the cards.

  Actions such as "He heard the siren and suddenly pulled the car off the side of the road" must be matched with situations such as "The police officer's radar caught the car driving 30 miles an hour over the speed limit." Two students take turns flipping all the cards upside down and then turn over two cards at a time to find matching actions and situations.

Character Quotes

• The character quotes activity utilizes student knowledge of well-known story characters. During the matching activity, students must infer phrases a character might say based on knowledge of the character.

  Teachers can print out the character names and quotes. For example, a teacher may print Dorothy from the "The Wizard of Oz" and "Where is my little dog lost during the tornado?" on a piece of paper, and then cut the two apart. One half of the students receive character names and the other half receive the character quotes. Students circulate around the room attempting to match quotes to characters.

Mystery Box

• Items in a mystery box provide students with clues to help infer what activity someone might be doing. Teachers can use shoeboxes to create the mystery boxes. Students open the box to find such items as a straw hat, sunscreen, book, bucket, shovel and towel. After inferring and guessing what someone might be doing, students write guesses and place them in a container the teacher checks daily or weekly.

Receipt Inference

• Teachers can gather receipts from variety or discount stores that contain lists of 10 or more items. Students participate in partners or groups. Once given a receipt, students analyze the items to make inferences about the person who bought that particular list of items. For instance, a receipt containing newborn diapers, large diapers, frozen dinners and a teen pop star's CD might suggest that a father was shopping for the family. Students might infer the family had a new baby and toddler, based on the frozen dinners and diapers. The students might also say the family had a preteen or teenager because of the CD. Writing a story about the family adds creative writing to the activity.

• Draw Conclusions about a character or event using Aesop's Fables :  here is a link to a lesson that demonstrates this with "The Grasshopper and the Owl"  http://www.teachervision.fen.com/fables/lesson-plan/4883.html