Best Practices Highlight: Introducing Students to Reading for Evidence and the Small-But-Mighty "Because," "But," & "So"
September 23rd, 2024
Introducing students to Quill Reading for Evidence, the connectives because, but, and so, and the “why” for the practice doesn’t take much time, but is an often-skipped step that can be so worthwhile!
You can share why you see Evidence as valuable, or better yet, elicit from them how they think the practice may be helpful. For example, one teacher began with the following journal prompt: “Why is it important to be accurate, specific, and clear when we want to persuade? Give an example from your own experience.” After some students shared their answers to this prompt, the teacher introduced Evidence and explained how the activities would help them communicate with more accuracy, specificity, and clarity. We also have a 6-minute video that introduces the "what" and "why" of the tool that you can show to students--check it out here!
As always, the more students see how the practice is relevant to your course, and to academics, career, and even life in general, the more likely they are to put forth their best effort and get the full benefit of the practice.
It’s also important to introduce students to (or review) the specific connectives students will be asked to use in Evidence activities: because, but, and so. Explain the function of each and provide examples that are fairly simple and clear. Here’s a PDF you can project or print for students that does just this! Emphasize to students that they should give:
- a reason for because
- a contrast or change-of-direction for but
- an effect or result for so
You can also use a Quill Lesson to introduce the connectives themselves--Quill Lessons is our whole-class, synchronous instructional tool. Each Quill Lesson provides a lesson plan and interactive slides to teach a particular grammatical concept. Click here to see Quill Lessons that introduce and review but and so (along with and and or) or click here to see a Quill Lesson that introduces because.
Another option is to take advantage of some of these great Quill lessons on Nearpod:
(Note that, unfortunately, the data from students' Quill practice in Nearpod lessons will not be saved to their Quill account--as it is not actually assigned to them in Quill. However, you can find and assign the same activities to students in Quill, and have them complete them on Quill, in which case their data will be saved!)
It’s also great to have students practice completing sentence stems you provide—both orally and in writing. Basing stems on students’ interests or current happenings can be especially effective. For example, if it’s early in the school year, you might give students the following:
- I feel ____ about this school year because _________________
- I feel ____ about this school year, but _____________________
- I feel ____ about this school year, so ______________________
Other good getting-to-know because, but, and so stem ideas:
- Homework can be challenging for me…
- _______ is delicious…
- I love _____ (sport, hobby, activity)....
Some tips for creating your own stems:
- Make sure to anticipate how students will complete a stem. Ideally, there are multiple possible completions for each connective. Keep in mind that almost every stem works with because, but that’s not the case for but or so. Therefore, it can be helpful to first come up with a stem/sentence for so, and go from there.
- Make sure to include a comma before but and before so.
- Make sure the line after the connective comes directly after it (rather than pressing “Enter” and putting it on a new line). This helps students realize they should continue the sentence, as opposed to writing a new sentence.
There are some common mistakes students make early on with these connectives. Below are two examples of those, and the feedback you might provide:
Even if students have no introduction to the tool or the connectives, they will still get plenty of guidance from the feedback and “Hints” within the tool (see example below).
That said, ideally students start their work with Evidence activities feeling confident in their understanding of these connectives, and, more importantly, knowing why they are so foundational and worthwhile to use in their writing.
Support & Resources
If you need specific support or want to report an issue, you can live chat with our support team through the green message bubble on the bottom right corner of any page on Quill, or email us at support@quill.org.
We also encourage you to explore our other resources designed to support your implementation of Reading for Evidence, such as:
- 7 Best Practices for Integrating Quill Reading for Evidence
- Best Practices Highlight: Walking Students Through Reading for Evidence’s Onboarding Pages
- Quill Reading for Evidence's Alignment to the WordGen Weekly Curriculum
- Using Quill Reading for Evidence with English Language Learners and Students Who Need More Support
