Standard #3Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or

series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are

introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.

Learning Targets• Identify the key points presented in a text.• Draw conclusions about the relationships

among key points presented.• Classify the structure chosen by the author

for the text (e.g., sequential, order of importance, cause-effect, problem-solution, etc.).

• Recognize and explain how structure illustrates and advances the central idea.

Our Focus

I can analyze text structure and make connections among ideas, events, and concepts in a text.

What the Standard looks like in History/Social

Studies• Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.

What the Standard looks like in Science/Technical

Subjects• Follow precisely a complex

multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks, attending to special cases or exceptions defined in the text.

Making ConnectionsThe standard requires students to consider relationships between ideas, people, and events in the text. An easy way to think of this is that students are making connections between the nouns in the text. What does one thing have to do with another? How are two nouns related?

Commonly Used Text Structures

• Problem/Solution – a problem and (sometimes) potential solutions are presented

• Chronological – information is ordered according to a progression of time

• Order of Importance – information is ordered from most-to-least or least-to-most important

Problem/Solution

Chronological/Sequential

Commonly Used Text Structures

• Hierarchical – every entity within the organization is subordinate to another

• Compare/Contrast – ideas are presented by illustrating similarities or differences to other ideas

• Cause-Effect – focuses on causal relationships in which “A” precedes and causes “B”

Compare/Contrast

Cause/Effect

One Person / Big Event

. . . is when students make a connection between how one person was able to influence a larger event. Often found in historical text, these relationships are characterized in the Common Core as an individual influencing an event. Examples might include the relationship between Rosa Parks and the bus boycotts or the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Big Event / One Person

. . . is the inverse causal relationship of One Person/ Big Event. This is where students consider how a broader event influences an individual person or groups of people. An example might include the relationship between the Holocaust and Elie Wiesel.