The response skills strand focuses on the student's reaction to a piece that is heard, viewed, or read.
Students are expected to interact with oral, visual,
and/or written works; discuss and write about the works; and use text evidence to demonstrate their understanding.
Through the student expectations within the response skills strand,
students learn to respond to a variety of sources in many ways�
from drawing a picture in response to a text to retelling or summarizing a text to writing a composition about a text. A
response is an essential way for students to make meaning and demonstrate that they have a deep understanding of the piece
they heard, viewed, or read. At
every grade level, students make connections between their personal knowledge and experiences and the events, characters, or message in the text.
Students also learn to develop increasingly complex written responses to texts. At the lower elementary grades,
this might initially take the form of a discussion or drawing and later develop into a brief written response.
As students' written responses progress through elementary and middle school, the focus shifts from written responses that demonstrate a clear understanding of the
work and later expands to making comparisons across texts and within and among genres.
At all grade levels students will support the responses with evidence from the text.
Teachers must ensure that students respond appropriately to an increasingly challenging variety of sources.
For more detailed information on specific student expectations in the response skill strand, be sure to view the detailed explanations below.