by TeachThought Curricula
Curricula Format If you’d like to purchase printable reading response cards to use in the classroom, you can do so at our TeachersPayTeachers Store. You can find the resource show here–> non-fiction reading responses.
In the ELA classroom, literacy involves decoding a text and then analyzing it for meaning, implicit and explicit themes. It also requires examining the relationship of a text to a given perspective, author’s purpose, and related text and media.
Which is where these prompts come in.
The following analytical responses are intended to general and universal, useful for application for a range of texts. Here, the most specific form is non-fiction texts, including essays, articles, editorials, speeches, memoirs, biographies, and other informational texts.
How To Use These Prompts
Each prompt is designed to stand alone, so teachers can select one or several based on the text, the skill being emphasized, or the needs of individual students. A few approaches that work well:
As reading response stations: Print the cards and place them at stations around the room. After reading a shared text — for example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” — students rotate and respond to two or three prompts of their choice.
As differentiated journal prompts: Assign specific prompts based on where students need practice. A student working on identifying author’s craft might respond to: prompt 3 (“How does the author establish and develop the theme throughout the text? What tools do they use?”), while a student ready for more complex analysis might take on prompt 9 (comparing texts in terms of theme, tone, writing style, and idea organization).
As discussion starters: Use a single prompt to frame a Socratic seminar or small-group discussion. Prompt 5 (“Who is the audience? How do you know?”) can generate productive debate when applied to an editorial or political speech where the intended audience isn’t immediately obvious.
As assessment preparation: Because the prompts mirror the kinds of analytical thinking required on standardized assessments, regular use builds familiarity with close reading and evidence-based response without requiring separate test prep.
The prompts appear on the image below. If you’d like to download actual cards to use in the classroom (see the image above for an example), we’ve created a curricula set you can download here.
Content Area: English-Language Arts, Literature, Writing
Grade Level: High School/Grades 8-12
Non-Fiction
Self-Guided Reading Responses
15
- What did the author’s purpose seem to be? Why do you think that?
- What can you say about the theme? Explain how it’s implicit or explicit.
- How does the author establish and develop the theme throughout the text? What tools do they use? Which is most compelling and why?
- What is the author’s position on a given topic from the text? How do you know?
- Who is the audience? How do you know? How does that choice of audience affect the text?
- What is the overall tone of the text and how does the author establish it?
- What point of view does the author write from?
- What are the most relevant supporting details the author uses to argue their position?
- Compare and contrast this text and any related text in terms of theme, tone, writing style, and idea organization.
- How would you describe the author’s writing style? Explain using evidence from the text.
- How does the author’s expertise and/or credibility come through in the text?
- What is the general mood of the text, and how does the author create it?
- How is the plot, argument, or information organized? Explain using evidence from the text.
- Identify one element of the text that could be changed, then predict and explain the effect of that change on the meaning of the text.
- Create your own response. Be playful, fun, or creative.
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