CCRA.R.1: Reading Closely, Making Inferences and Citing Evidence

Overview

Lesson Procedure

55-60 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5 minutes

1. Warm-Up5 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Read this sentence: 'The umbrella by the door was dripping, and a trail of wet sneaker prints led from the mat to the refrigerator.' Write one thing the sentence says and one thing you can figure out from it. Underline the words that let you figure it out."

   Take three answers. Sort them on the board into two columns, Says (an umbrella is dripping; prints lead to the refrigerator) and Figure out (it is raining or just rained; someone came in from outside and went straight for food). Ask which words made each inference possible. Tell students that the "figure out" column has a name, inference, and that the underlined words are evidence. Diagram 2 shows the same sentence as a three-step chain.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   Three terms for the whole period.

   • Explicit: stated in the words on the page. Two careful readers will agree on it.
   • Inference: a conclusion the text does not state but supports. A logical inference follows from specific details; a guess does not.
   • Textual evidence: the exact words that support a conclusion, quoted and located ("line 12," "paragraph 3").

   How the anchor grows from grade 6 to grade 12. Each grade-level standard below carries CCRA.R.1. The core never changes; what rises is the quality and amount of evidence and, in the history and science strands, what readers attend to in the source.

   Progression of CCRA.R.1 in grades 6-12

   Grade-level standard	Band and text type	What this band adds
   RL.6.1	Grade 6, literature	Cite textual evidence for what the text says explicitly and for inferences drawn from it
   RL.7.1	Grade 7, literature	Several pieces of evidence for one point, not a single quotation
   RL.8.1	Grade 8, literature	The evidence that most strongly supports the analysis: students choose among quotations
   RL.9-10.1	Grades 9-10, literature	Strong and thorough evidence: enough quotations, well chosen, to settle the point
   RL.11-12.1	Grades 11-12, literature	Strong and thorough evidence, plus deciding where the text leaves matters uncertain
   RI.6.1	Grade 6, informational text	The grade 6 expectation applied to nonfiction: evidence for stated facts and for inferences
   RI.7.1	Grade 7, informational text	Several pieces of evidence for a point about a nonfiction text
   RI.8.1	Grade 8, informational text	The strongest evidence from a nonfiction text, chosen and defended
   RI.9-10.1	Grades 9-10, informational text	Strong and thorough evidence from nonfiction
   RI.11-12.1	Grades 11-12, informational text	Strong and thorough evidence, including where a nonfiction text leaves matters uncertain
   RH.6-8.1	Grades 6-8, history/social studies	Specific evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources
   RH.9-10.1	Grades 9-10, history/social studies	Adds attention to the date and origin of the information
   RH.11-12.1	Grades 11-12, history/social studies	Adds connecting insights from specific details to the source as a whole
   RST.6-8.1	Grades 6-8, science and technical	Specific evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts
   RST.9-10.1	Grades 9-10, science and technical	Adds attention to the precise details of explanations or descriptions
   RST.11-12.1	Grades 11-12, science and technical	Adds attention to the distinctions the author makes and to gaps or inconsistencies in the account

   Model text. Spoon River Anthology is a book of short poems in which the dead of an invented small town in Illinois each speak about their own lives. In this one, a farmer known as Fiddler Jones looks back. Two words to gloss before reading: beeves (an old plural of "beef," meaning cattle raised for meat) and drouth (an old spelling of "drought"). Cooney Potter, in line 11, is another farmer in the town. Read the poem aloud twice.

   1The earth keeps some vibration going
   There in your heart, and that is you.
   And if the people find you can fiddle,
   Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
   5What do you see, a harvest of clover?
   Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
   The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands
   For beeves hereafter ready for market;
   Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
   10Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
   To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
   Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
   They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
   Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”
   15How could I till my forty acres
   Not to speak of getting more,
   With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
   Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
   And the creak of a wind-mill—only these?
   20And I never started to plow in my life
   That some one did not stop in the road
   And take me away to a dance or picnic.
   I ended up with forty acres;
   I ended up with a broken fiddle—
   25And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
   And not a single regret.

   • Explicit: what the poem states

     What does Fiddler Jones say, in so many words, happened whenever he started to plow?

     Result: Lines 20-22 state it directly: "I never started to plow in my life / That some one did not stop in the road / And take me away to a dance or picnic." A reader does not need to infer this; it is on the page. Why people kept asking him is a separate question, and answering it takes an inference.

   • Logical inference from two details

     Cooney Potter and Fiddler Jones look at the same "pillar of dust / Or whirling leaves" (lines 11-12). What can a reader infer from how differently they see it?

     Result: To Cooney Potter the dust "meant ruinous drouth," a farmer's worry; to Jones it looked "like Red-Head Sammy / Stepping it off" in a dance (lines 13-14). The inference: Jones sees the world in terms of music and dancing, not crops. It is logical because it rests on the contrast the poem sets up, not on a guess.

   • Choosing the strongest evidence

     Claim: "The speaker believes a person's nature is set from within." Which is stronger evidence: line 23, "I ended up with forty acres," or lines 1-2?

     Result: Lines 1-2 are stronger: "The earth keeps some vibration going / There in your heart, and that is you." They state the belief directly. Line 23 reports a result and says nothing about what a person's nature is, so it is on topic but proves nothing about the claim.

   • Where the text leaves matters uncertain (grades 11-12)

     Does the poem tell us whether anyone else paid a price for Jones's choices?

     Result: No. The poem names no family and no debts, so a careful reader says the question is left open instead of inventing a wife who went hungry. Saying "the text does not say" is itself a claim that needs checking: reread the whole poem before making it.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   A different kind of text. Gilbert White (1720-1793) was an English clergyman who recorded the plants and animals around his village for decades. His letters to other naturalists, including the lawyer and naturalist Daines Barrington, became The Natural History of Selborne, published in 1789. This letter is dated April 12, 1772, and describes a pet tortoise White watched while staying near Lewes, in Sussex, in the autumn of 1771. Because it is a primary source written by an eyewitness, students should notice two things: what White saw himself, and what he reports from others or concludes on his own.

   Words to gloss: hybernaculum (a winter shelter or burrow), hepaticas (low woodland flowers), assiduous (steady and hard-working), solicitude (worry or concern), alacrity (eagerness), benefactress (a woman who does someone good), sagacity (good judgment), abject (lowly), torpid (sluggish). Paragraph 1 is the body of the letter and paragraph 2 is its postscript (P.S.).

   1While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the first of November I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock [...]. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn before it retires: through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only [...] but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude!

   [...]

   2P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepatica.

   1. Explicit. Ask: "How does the tortoise dig?" Students should quote, not paraphrase from memory: it "scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind." Teacher note: this is plain description, the explicit layer.
   2. The author's attitude, inferred. Ask: "How does White feel about the speed of the digging? Which single word tells you?" Teacher note: "ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock." The word "ridiculously" shows amusement; the comparison to an hour hand shows the slowness is almost invisible.
   3. A term the text defines for you. Ask: "White calls the tortoise 'totally a diurnal animal.' What does diurnal mean, and where is the proof?" Teacher note: the rest of the sentence, "never pretends to stir after it becomes dark," explains it: active by day only.
   4. Several pieces of evidence (grades 7 and up). Ask pairs to find two details that support this inference: "White had watched this tortoise before the autumn he describes." Teacher note: he calls it "the old tortoise, formerly mentioned," and he is writing from the village "from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you." Each detail alone is a hint; together they show an earlier visit and an earlier letter about the same animal.

   Close by asking which of these four answers came straight off the page and which needed an inference. Steps 1 and 3 are explicit; steps 2 and 4 are inferences, each tied to quoted words.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read the original story below on their own, then complete a three-column Says / Means / Because chart with three rows: one detail about Lena, one about Mr. Okafor, and one about the apron in the last paragraph. In each row, Says is a quotation with its paragraph number, Means is the inference, and Because explains how the words lead to it. Grades 9-12 add a fourth row: one question the story leaves open, with the evidence that shows it is open. Quiz questions 14-18 also use this story.

   1Every school morning at 7:40, Mr. Okafor unlocked the hardware store on Bell Street, and every morning Lena was already on the bench outside, her backpack on her knees. She never came in. She watched him flip the sign from CLOSED to OPEN, and then she walked the last two blocks to school.

   2On the first cold day in November, the bench was empty. Mr. Okafor looked up the street twice before he turned the key.

   3The next morning she was back, wearing a gray coat with the sleeves rolled three times at the wrist. "My brother's," she said, when she saw him looking. "He's taller."

   4The following morning, Mr. Okafor carried a thermos out to the bench and set it down with two paper cups. He said nothing about it, and neither did she. She drank one cup of cocoa before she left, rinsed the cup at the outdoor faucet, and stacked it upside down beside the thermos.

   5In December a sign went up in the store window: HELP WANTED, SATURDAYS. Lena read it for a long time. That afternoon, on her way home, she wrote her name and her brother's phone number on the back of a bus transfer and slid it through the mail slot.

   6On Saturday, Mr. Okafor handed her a canvas apron. It was new and still creased from the package, and her name was already stitched on the pocket in blue thread.

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Write one explicit fact from "The Bench on Bell Street" and one inference, each with a paragraph number. (2) Rewrite this weak citation so it is specific: "The story says she was cold." Look for students who quote exact words and give the location.

   Teacher note on the 1772 letter: White compares the tortoise's fear of rain to that of "a lady dressed in all her best attire." The comparison reflects the humor of its time. Point out that it tells us about White's way of writing, not about women, and that the excerpt omits a clause about the tortoise's mating and a short Bible quotation, both marked [...].

   For homework: students read the original article below, which reports invented observations made for this lesson. Its paragraphs are numbered 1-6.

   1For three weeks in October, a student volunteer named Theo Brandt kept a notebook at the edge of the Linden Park parking lot. He sat on the same bench from 4:00 to 5:00 each afternoon and wrote down what the park's crows did with the walnuts that fell from the trees along the lot.

   2On 14 of the 21 afternoons, Theo saw at least one crow fly up with a walnut and drop it onto the pavement. He counted 63 drops in all. Most walnuts landed in the lanes where cars drive, not on the grass or in the parking spaces.

   3Theo also noticed that a dropped walnut was often left where it fell until a car had passed over it. Then a crow would land, walk to the walnut and pick at the cracked shell. Twice he saw a crow leave a walnut on the pavement, fly to a lamppost, and wait there until the next car came.

   4On the four rainy afternoons, Theo saw no drops at all. On those days the crows stayed in the oak trees at the far end of the lot.

   5Theo did not band or mark any birds, so he could not tell how many different crows he was watching. He thinks it could have been as few as five. He also could not see the north end of the lot from his bench.

   6At the end of his notes, Theo wrote one question he still could not answer: do the crows choose the driving lanes because cars crack the shells, or simply because the pavement there is hard and open?

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Read this sentence: "Marcus checked the clock again, tapped his pencil on the desk and looked at the classroom door for the third time." Which statement is an inference rather than something the sentence states explicitly?

   AMarcus checked the clock again. BMarcus tapped his pencil on the desk. CMarcus is impatient for something to happen. DMarcus looked at the classroom door three times.

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In "Fiddler Jones," what do lines 3-4 say decides that a person must fiddle for the rest of his life?

   AOther people discovering that he can play BA promise he made to his own father as a boy CThe money he can earn playing at dances DA broken plow that ends his farming work

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Lines 5-10 offer two ways of seeing the same field: as "a harvest of clover" and cattle "ready for market," or as "a meadow to walk through" and the "rustle of skirts" at a dance. What is the most logical inference from this contrast?

   AThe speaker thinks a clover crop is worth more than corn. BPeople see the same land through what they care about most. CThe speaker wants to sell all of his cattle at the next market. DThe town of Spoon River has no farms left near the river.

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Lines 17-19 describe "a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos / Stirred in my brain by crows and robins / And the creak of a wind-mill." What can a reader infer from these lines together with line 15, "How could I till my forty acres"?

   AJones bought several instruments with the money from his farm. BA town band practiced near his farm and kept him awake every night. CFarm sounds turned into music in his head and kept him from work. DHe disliked the noise of the birds and the windmill.

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Near the end, Jones says he ended up with "a broken fiddle" and "a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, / And not a single regret" (lines 24-26). Which inference do these lines best support?

   AHis life had losses, but he would not have lived it differently. BHe regrets giving up farming but hides it with a joke. CHis fiddle broke because he played it too hard at dances. DHe became wealthy from music and then lost his money late in life.

6. Question 6 of 20 · Short Answer

   Write two or three sentences supporting this claim about "Fiddler Jones": "The speaker cared more about enjoying life than about getting rich." Use two quotations from different parts of the poem, with line numbers.

   Show model answer

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to paragraph 1 of Gilbert White's letter, what does White say would have made the tortoise work faster on its burrow?

   AA softer patch of ground beside the flowers BHarsher weather and frosty mornings CMore food left out by the old lady DA light rain falling in the mornings

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why was the burrow still unfinished when White left Sussex, according to paragraph 1?

   AThe ground was frozen too hard for the tortoise to dig. BRain kept driving the tortoise into a corner. CThe old lady moved the tortoise to a new part of the garden. DWarm, sunny middle hours kept calling it out of the hole.

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   White writes that if the tortoise is "attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass," because when it walks "elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night." What does White mean by "weather-glass" here?

   AA glass case that keeps the tortoise dry during storms BA thing that warns of coming rain by how it behaves CA window through which White watches the weather DA cold frame that protects the hepaticas in winter

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    White notes that the tortoise "has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart," yet it shows "as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire." What does this contrast suggest about White's reaction?

    AHe thinks the shell is too weak to protect the tortoise. BHe believes the tortoise is ill and should be kept indoors in winter. CHe is surprised that an armored animal fears something so harmless. DHe wants readers to keep tortoises away from carts and roads.

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    What does paragraph 1 state explicitly about when the tortoise eats nothing?

    AThrough the height of the summer and on rainy mornings in spring BOnly on days when strangers come into the garden CWhenever the old lady is away from the house DWhen it is first awakened and in autumn before it retires

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Read the postscript (paragraph 2) together with paragraph 1. What is the most logical inference about the tortoise's burrow?

    AThe tortoise gave up on the burrow and slept on open ground. BThe tortoise finished its burrow at the spot it had begun digging. CThe old lady dug the rest of the burrow for the tortoise in November. DWhite returned to Sussex to watch the tortoise go underground.

13. Question 13 of 20 · Short Answer

    The last sentence of paragraph 1 says the tortoise "distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude!" Which part of this claim does the letter give evidence for, and which part goes beyond what White could observe? Quote the evidence.

    Show model answer

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In "The Bench on Bell Street," what does paragraph 1 state explicitly about what Lena does each school morning?

    AShe helps Mr. Okafor sweep the store before school. BShe watches him open the store and then walks to school. CShe buys a newspaper and reads it on the bench before school. DShe waits there for her brother to pick her up.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In paragraph 2, Mr. Okafor "looked up the street twice before he turned the key." What is the most logical inference?

    AHe was afraid that someone might rob the store. BHe was checking whether a delivery truck had come yet. CHe had forgotten which key opened the front door. DHe noticed that Lena was missing and looked for her.

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Lena returns in a coat "with the sleeves rolled three times at the wrist" and explains, "My brother's. He's taller." Which inference do these details best support?

    AThe coat is too big for her because it belongs to someone else. BLena rolled the sleeves to show off the coat's lining. CHer brother will soon come to the store to ask for his coat back. DLena bought the coat secondhand from the hardware store.

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In paragraph 4, Lena "rinsed the cup at the outdoor faucet, and stacked it upside down beside the thermos." What does this detail most strongly suggest about her?

    AShe did not like the cocoa and poured it out. BShe wanted Mr. Okafor to know that she was leaving early. CShe is careful to leave things the way she found them. DShe planned to take the thermos home with her.

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    In the last paragraph, the apron is "new and still creased from the package," and her name is "already stitched on the pocket." What can a reader infer from these details about Mr. Okafor? Support your answer with two quotations, each with its paragraph number.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student writes four versions of the same citation for an essay on "Fiddler Jones." Which one is the most specific?

    AThe poem says somewhere that he never had regrets. BNear the end, Jones talks about how he felt about his life. CThe poem shows that Jones was happy with his choices. DJones says he had "not a single regret" (line 26).

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    In a class discussion of "The Bench on Bell Street," a classmate says, "Lena is poor." Write what you would say in reply, in two or three sentences. Cite evidence, and say how far the story supports the claim.

    Show model answer

These are the grade-level standards that carry anchor CCRA.R.1 in grades 6-12, plus closely related anchors.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.