English Language Arts and Reading.7.6.A

The student is expected to

describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected texts;

TEKS Talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.

Have students respond to a single prompt or multiple prompts about the connections they are making to a text they are reading. Have students explain to a partner connections they have made and share the text that prompted the connections. Encourage partners to ask questions to further discussion of the text.

Possible questions to ask students:

  • What does this text remind you of?
  • Can you relate to the characters in the text?
  • Does anything in this text remind you of anything in your own life?
  • What does this remind you of in another book you have read?
  • How is this text similar to other things you have read?
  • How is this text different from other things you have read?
  • What does this remind you of in the real world?
  • How are events in this text similar to things that happen in the real world?
     

Further Explanation

This assessment directs students to demonstrate how they have interpreted the explicit and implied ideas expressed as they describe personal connections made while reading.

When students describe personal connections to something read, heard, or viewed, they are using details to demonstrate how they have interpreted the explicit and implied ideas expressed. Personal connections are formed by students' reactions to an idea. Personal experience can, and often does, influence these reactions. Students should be encouraged to share their reactions orally or in writing.
connections that a reader makes between a piece of reading material and the reader's own experiences or life
a text that a student identifies and chooses to read for independent reading

Research

Dallacqua, A. L. (2012). Exploring literary devices in graphic novels. Language Arts, 89(6), 365–378. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ981296

Summary: This study examine how students engage in reading self-selected literature that uses visuals/graphics. The process includes intra mental reading. The study reveals that when students openly discuss the literature, mental cognition increases and students are able to make meaning from the text. The findings also reveal that students question the text, draw multiple interpretations of the meanings, and are able to create hypothetical scenarios.