Common Core Standards: Text-Dependent Questions

What are text dependent questions?
Text-dependent questions are questions that ask students to cite evidence from texts and backup their claim without using prior knowledge or experience. These are the types of questions that can only be answered correctly by re-reading the text, and are therefore "text-dependent."

Why are common core standards focused on text-dependent questions?
Text-dependent questions will help to measure students' ability to meet close reading guidelines. Deemphasizing the ability to provide answers based on prior knowledge or personal experience will demonstrate students' ability to refer explicitly to the text, and provide pertinent evidence.

Example of a text-dependent question:
"The article describes the male emperor penguin as 'tough'. Give two pieces of information from the article that demonstrate how they are tough."

Example of a question that is not text-dependent:
"What is the main idea and three supporting details?"

How does Kurzweil 3000 support text-dependent questions?
With Kurzweil 3000, students can read and re-read text, and use built-in dictionaries, text extraction, and other study skills tools to ensure a thorough understanding of the text. They can easily highlight the responses to the text dependent questions, within the read text and extract them into a document demonstrating theircomprehension. Teachers can embed text-dependent questions directly into content, most notably using the Bubble Notes feature, to help students prepare for testing and assessments.

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Informational Text