Citing Evidence

CitingEvidence

Essential Questions

Learning Objectives

• Why is it important to cite evidence from a text when making claims or drawing conclusions?

• How does citing evidence strengthen your interpretation of a story or argument?

• In what ways can we use both explicit details and inferences to support our understanding of a text?

• How can analyzing a text’s details help us understand its deeper meaning or themes?

• Students will be able to explain the importance of citing evidence from a text when making claims or drawing conclusions.

• Students will analyze specific details from a text to uncover its deeper meaning or themes.

• Students will differentiate between explicit details and inferences and use both to support their understanding of a text.

Citing Evidence

Citing evidence means referring to specific information from the text to support your ideas, interpretations, or arguments. This could be a direct quote, a paraphrase, or a specific event or detail from the story. Why It’s Important: When you make a claim about a text, such as interpreting a character’s motives or identifying a theme, citing evidence shows that your idea is grounded in the actual text. This makes your interpretation stronger and more convincing. How to Do It:

• Find a relevant passage or detail in the text that supports your claim.
• Use quotation marks for direct quotes and include the page number or paragraph if applicable.
• Make sure the evidence directly relates to the point you are making.

Citing Evidence

Making Inferences

Making inferences means using clues from the text along with your own background knowledge to understand something that the author doesn’t directly state. Authors often leave things implied, and it’s up to the reader to “read between the lines.”Why It’s Important:Not everything in a story is spelled out explicitly. Authors rely on readers to interpret characters’ feelings, motives, and unspoken tensions. Making inferences helps you understand the deeper layers of a text.How to Do It:

• Pay attention to details like dialogue, actions, and descriptions.
• Think about what these details suggest or imply about the characters or situation.
• Combine what the text says with what you already know about human behavior, relationships, or other similar situations.

Drawing Conclusions

Definition:Drawing conclusions involves taking the evidence and inferences you’ve gathered and arriving at a logical understanding of the story’s message, themes, or characters. It’s like putting together pieces of a puzzle to form a complete picture of the text’s meaning.Why It’s Important:Drawing conclusions allows you to grasp the overall significance of a story or text. It helps you connect individual details to broader themes and lessons, enriching your understanding of what the author wants to communicate.How to Do It:

• Review the evidence you’ve cited and the inferences you’ve made.
• Look for patterns in the text, such as repeated themes or symbols.
• Consider the author’s purpose and message.
• Form a conclusion that explains what the text is saying about a larger issue or idea.

Assignment

When reading and analyzing texts, the ability to cite evidence, make inferences, and draw conclusions helps you engage with literature in a deeper way. Citing evidence ensures your ideas are rooted in the text, making inferences allows you to discover hidden meanings, and drawing conclusions helps you understand the bigger picture or moral of the story.Using the story you already read, The Monkey's Paw, answer the following discussion question and submit your response in Canvas:

• In The Monkey’s Paw, W.W. Jacobs uses foreshadowing to hint at future events, such as the warnings about the paw and the ominous atmosphere in the White family’s home. Do you agree or disagree with the idea that the foreshadowing in the story is so obvious that it gives away what will happen before it occurs? Why or why not? Use specific examples from the text to support your opinion.