Just the Facts

Purpose

Students read a text passage (any subject area), select specific facts to promote comprehension, then share/compare facts before making an inference.

Materials

• Text passage
• Just the Facts template (English/Spanish)
• Just the Facts – Assessment Question template (English/Spanish)
• Note cards or notebook paper (if not using templates)

Instructions

1. Students read a selected passage or text associated with the content.
2. Individually, students record a cool fact, an interesting fact, a wow fact, a useful fact, a new fact, and a most important fact/detail from the text.
3. Using Musical Mix-Freeze-Group, students get a thinking partner.
4. Students justify why they chose their selected facts/details.
5. Students select one or more facts from their partner’s ideas and write an inference.
6. Observe students’ thinking and clarify/verify as appropriate.

Classroom Management

• Model the strategy with a previously read text.
• Role-play the movement and discourse strategy Musical Mix-Freeze-Group, and make sure everyone has a partner.

Differentiation

• Promote access to text by providing auditory, summarized, or electronic text in manageable chunks.
• Promote access by providing visually supported text, partnering with a supportive peer for read-alouds, and/or allowing text-to-speech supports.
• Promote response access by partnering with a supportive peer, allowing students to dictate responses to a scribe, providing thinking stems for each response box, and/or using speech-to-text or word prediction support with a digital version of the Just the Facts template.

Think It Up!

• Have students think more deeply about the concept by responding to a Think It Up prompt as an exit ticket or journal entry:
  • Connect all six facts, and draw a conclusion about the text’s main message.
  • Cut apart your partner’s facts and sequence the fact cards in the appropriate order.
• Encourage students to use lead4ward’s Thinking Stems (English/Spanish) to frame their responses, if needed.