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4  USE A GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
Have partners read both fiction and nonfiction passages. Students can ask each other questions that lead to drawing conclusions. Suggest that they use webs or charts to show the facts or details that support their
conclusions.
1  DISCUSS DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
Tell students a conclusion is a sensible decision they reach based on
details or facts in a story or an article. Explain when they draw
conclusions, they think about information in the text and what they
already know.
2  MODEL DRAWING A CONCLUSION
Model using your own experiences to draw a conclusion.
Think Aloud
MODEL The smell of peanuts and cotton candy filled the air.
I heard clapping, I even heard loud bellows that sounded like
elephants. I knew a circus was going on.
Discuss how you combined what you already knew with details (smell of
peanuts and cotton candy, clapping, loud bellows) to draw a conclusion.
3  ASK QUESTIONS
Read aloud a passage and ask questions that foster drawing conclusions. For example: What kind of person is the main character? How can you tell? Why do you think the character acts this way?
Draw Conclusions
When students move beyond the literal meaning of a text to draw conclusions, they
get more ideas from what they read and understand better the points an author is
trying to make. Use the following routine to guide students in drawing conclusions.
Keene, Ellin Oliver, and Susan Zimmermann. Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s
Workshop. Heinemann, 1997, p. 154. 1992, p. 238.
Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann,
Mosaic of Thought
“Inference is a mosaic, a dazzling constellation of thinking processes, but
the tiles available to form each mosaic are limited, circumscribed. There
must be a fusion of words on a page—and constraints of meaning they
impose—and the experience and knowledge of the reader.”
FOCUS ON RESEARCH
Research on Drawing Conclusions