Standard 2: Reading and Writing Process

Students will use a variety of recursive reading and writing processes.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will combine the main ideas with prior knowledge and/or another text to create an original insight.
• Students will support synthesis using textual details.

• Teachers model how to create an original synthesis using texts.
• Teachers model how to support synthesis with textual details.

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

• Synthesizing is the creation of original thoughts, perspectives, and understanding by reflecting on text(s) and merging elements from text and existing schema.

• “Original thoughts, perspectives, and understanding” needs to be a new idea, not one taken straight from the text; it is created by the student’s interpretation of the text(s).

• Though summary may be included in a synthesis, synthesis is not a summary.

• For more information about how summarizing and synthesizing go together, see Ohio State’s explanation.

• Literary Text Example: Students will read texts (e.g. stories, poems, novels) that deal with grief and demonstrate comprehension of the main ideas. Then students will use their understanding of the main ideas and synthesize them to form an original insight about how people effectively and ineffectively deal with grief.

• Informational Example: Reading multiple articles on the same topic that present different perspectives on the same issue. Then synthesizing the information to form an original claim using supporting details from all sources to support that claim.

• Because synthesis is the combination of text and personal perspective and insight, specific textual references must be made. Only details/ideas that pertain to this specific synthesis should be used.

• When supporting original claims from synthesized information, it is necessary to use textual evidence, or summary, from various sources or multiple parts of one source as support.

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.