Big Times: Elephants!

Close Reading Transcript

Learning Intention:

I am learning to analyse the features of informative texts to comprehend their meaning so that I can understand what I read and make inferences about ideas.

Success Criteria:

• I can identify key information in a text
• I can examine how texts are organised
• I can consider why author’s make choices about how to organise information

1st Reading:

• Read the title, what do you predict the article will be about?
• What is the subject of the article?
• What are three things you learnt about elephants from reading the article?
• Who is the article intended for?

2nd Reading:

• How has the information been organised?
• What is the purpose of the subheadings?
• Can you think of subheadings that could be used in place of those in the article and that summarise the information in each section?

3rd Reading:

• Why does the author compare the size and weight of elephants to the size and weight of an average-sized eight-year-old child?
• Why has the author used rhetorical questions, such as:

How big is big?

What do these guys eat to grow so big?

And just how many types of elephants are there?

• How do the photos and the illustrations support the ideas in the article?
• Can you find any words that have been repeated multiple times in the article? Why do you think those words have been repeated?

General follow up questions for each reading:

• How do you know this?
• What evidence do you have to support that?
• Why do you think this?
• What examples can you find in the text?