This power point is from the PD presented at St. Clair County RESA by Victoria Les, ELA Consultant.

1. Passage Based Writing
(Formerly known as Text Dependent Analysis)
November 27, 2018
Victoria Les
St. Clair County RESA

2. Where Do You Stand?
Place a sticker on the chart to indicate your level of
understanding regarding Passage Based Writing on
the M-Step

3. Stand-up! Hand-up! Pair-up!
• Introduce yourself to your partner:
 Your name
 The School/District you’re from
 The Grade Level and subject(s) you teach
 Tell the story behind your name…
(In other words, why did your parents select the name you were given?)

4. Before we begin…
Passage Based Writing
1. Use the sticky notes at your table to record your understanding of Passage
Based Writing by explaining what a student is expected to do when
responding to a Passage Based Writing Prompt.
2. Write down any questions you have about Passage Based Writing.
3. Take 5 minutes to discuss your understandings and questions with an elbow
partner to gain additional understanding.
4. Share your discussion with the rest of your group.
5. Prepare to share your discussion with the entire group.

5. What’s New From MDE?

6. Passage Based Writing
What Is It?
 It’s an Essay, so it has the typical structure of an essay: Introduction, Body,
Conclusion.
 But it is Passage Based. This means that you must support your ideas
with specific details from the passage you are writing about.
 It involves Analysis of the passage, so you must closely examine the
small parts while reading to see how they relate to the whole.

7. Michigan’s NEW Text-Dependent Analysis
Essay/M-Step Spring 2018
“The biggest issue students will likely have is with the TDA essay prompt
and figuring out what in heck they are supposed to do. Working with the
prompt is a skill teachers can teach and students can learn. I did some
additional research to hone in on exactly why students seemed to be
scoring so poorly in other states…the TDA essay includes reading
standards. It is a reading analysis before it is a writing test.”
--Deb Wahlstrom,
2018

8. Grade 7/8 Sample Passage Based Writing
Carefully read the passage. Then complete the task that follows.
Public Transportation is the Way to Go
…
The author claims that public transportation offers many advantages to
commuters. Write an essay analyzing how the author supports this claim.
Use evidence from the passage to support your essay.

9. Passage-based Writing Learning Path
1.
Identify and
define a
passage-
based writing
essay.
2.
Identify core
vocabulary
related to
passage-
based writing
essays.
3.
Figure out the most
important thing
students need to
know: What the
question is asking.
4.
Work through the
passage.
Demonstrate
marking the text with
an eye for what the
prompt called for.
5.
Sketch out how
the ideas for the
written paper
might come
together.
6.
Write the draft
of the passage-
based writing
paper.
LEARNING GOAL
Teach students how to
work with passage-based
writing essays.
Students cannot make the jump
from #3 to #6 without support and
practice.

10. Let’s Focus on Number 3:
 Figure out the most important thing students need to know:
What the question is asking.
 TO --- Prompt #1
 WITH --- Prompt #2
 BY --- Prompt #3 (Opinion/Argument)
 BY --- Prompt #4 (Narrative)

11. Passage-based Writing
To get there, give students DELIBERATE and PURPOSEFUL PRACTICE
 Choose several prompts and model for students how to unpack them. Unpacking
the prompt just means figuring out what the prompt is asking the student to do.
 Remind students that the prompt is going to tell them how the analysis should be done.
They don’t get to choose, but they do need to follow directions. The prompts will be
very, very specific.
 It is important to mark the prompt while you work. This will help you organize your
thoughts as you bring your ideas together.
 Read the prompt over and over and over again if you need to.
 Use whole words rather than abbreviations when you mark the prompt.
 If this feels hard, that is normal. It feels challenging for just about everybody,
but by practicing, you can do quite well learning to analyze. It’s a skill. A thinking skill that gets easier and
easier the more you do.

12. Let’s Focus on Number 4:
Close Reading
A Close Look at Reading Informational and Narrative Text

13. “Close Reading is a thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on
significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise
understanding of the text’s form, craft, meanings, etc.”
(Beth Burke, NBCT)
Close Reading Requires You To…
 Use short passages and excerpts of appropriate text complexity
 Dive right into the text with limited pre-reading activities
 Focus on the text itself
 Reread deliberately
 Read with a pencil Notice things that are confusing
 Discuss the text with others
 Think-Pair-Share or Turn-and-Talk frequently
 Small groups and whole class
 Respond to text-dependent questions

14. Four Main Questions
1. What does the text say?
• Michigan Anchor Standards
• Definition of Summary
• Guiding Questions
• Scaffolding: Guided Highlighted Reading
2. How does the text say it?
• Michigan Anchor Standards
• Guiding Questions
• Scaffolding: Guided Highlighted Reading
2. What does the text mean?
• Depth of Knowledge Taxonomy
• Profundity for Informational Text
• Abstracting – Levels of Meaning to
Generalization
• Metaphorical Thinking
3. What does the text mean to me?
• Application of concepts and

15. Let’s Practice…What does the text say?
Guided Highlighted Reading:
• In line #1, find and highlight what the stranger wishes to do.
• In line #2, find and highlight where he could eavesdrop.
• In line #3, find and highlight the alternative to bars and churches.
• In line #5, find and highlight what early-rising men do not like to do.
• In line #6, find and highlight what conversations are limited to.

16. Let’s Practice…How does the text say it?
Guided Highlighted Reading:
• Look through the passage and find and highlight evidence that this is
formal first person.
• In line #2, find and highlight how the author says the stranger will be
quiet.
• In lines #5 and #6, find and highlight the sarcasm.
• In line #4, find and highlight how the author tells us that there are
people in the restaurant.

17. Let’s Practice…What does the text mean?
What does the text mean to me?
Theory
Concepts
Topic
Concepts
Topic
Principle
Generalization
Facts/Facts/Facts Facts/Facts/Facts
Access does not insure connections.
Privacy is protected by perfected taciturnity.
Conflict of cultures limits connections.
Patterns of culture limit connections.
Connections are limited access.
Connection, Pattern, Culture, Conflict, Relationship,
Communication, Access and Population
Places to Eavesdrop
New England Culture
Limited Conversation
Stranger can eavesdrop on local population in bars
and churches.
Some New England towns have no bars.
Church is only on Sunday.
Alternative is roadside restaurant.
Early-rising men do not talk much to strangers.

18. Two or more concepts with a verb in between
create a generalization!
Concept Concept
Patterns of culture limit connections.

19. Metaphorical Thinking
“A Picture is worth a thousand words, but a metaphor is
worth a thousand pictures.”
--Daniel Pink

20. Passage-based Writing Questions
 There is no one right way to have students work with text-dependent analysis
questions.
 Providing for the differing needs of students means providing and scaffolding
supports differentially – not asking easier questions or substituting simpler text.
 Listening and speaking should be built into any sequence of activities along
with reading and writing.
 “Re-read it, think it, talk it, write it”
 The standards require ALL students to read and engage with grade appropriate
complex text regularly. This requires new ways of working in our classrooms.

21. What does this look like in the classroom?
 Classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text on the page
 Students develop habits for locating evidence in both conversations, as
well as in writing, to demonstrate analysis of a text
 Teaching elements of well-written essays
 Development of text-dependent analysis questions on a consistent basis

22. 6 Steps to Passage-based Writing Success
Step 1 – Read for GIST
Step 2 – Read the Prompt to Learn the Question
Step 3 – Close Read the Passage
Step 4 – Re-read the Questions
Step 5 – Organize Thoughts
Step 6 – Compose Response

23. 7th Grade Passage-based Writing
Letter to Her Daughter from the New White House
by Abigail Adams
Rally Table
 Read the passage for the GIST
 Read the prompt; Take turns marking the prompt to analyze what it is asking
 Close read the passage, marking places where there is evidence to respond to the
prompt
 Organize your thoughts: Create a two column organizer. Title one column “Evidence
from the Text,” and a second column “Meaning or Reason for Choosing This
Evidence.”
 Compose Response: Turn the prompt into a statement.

24. Application and Reflection
Consider the following questions. Discuss at your table and share final
Thoughts on sticky notes. Place sticky notes on the chart provided.
1) What resources and structures are necessary at a
classroom/school/district level to support the shift toward evidence-
based reading and writing?