Spotlight on AMES: Say, Mean, Matter with Mr. Neely

A New Approach To TDA

Mr. Neely, assistant principal at Anderson Mill Elementary recently taught fourth grade and helped his students achieve success with text dependent analysis writing using a strategy called "Say, Mean, Matter." This year Mr. Neely offered his support in modeling this strategy with Mrs. Gablehart's fourth grade class to help prepare them for this year's SC Ready writing assessment.

This strategy helps students to think carefully about what the evidence says in the text that supports their claim, and then consider what the evidence means and why/how it matters. This approach helps students go beyond a basic answer with evidence and to go deeper with providing an explanation that shows evidence of their analysis.

In the four steps below you can see how Mr. Neely uses a TDA Traffic Light to help students read and understand the purpose of the prompt before diving into the Say, Mean, Matter strategy to help students begin to gather their evidence and formulate their responses.

Step One: Find the Purpose of the Prompt

with a TDA Traffic Light

In the short five minute video clip below you will see how Mr. Neely uses the Traffic Light anchor chart as a tool for helping students to find the purpose of the given prompt. Each color of the traffic light helps students understand how the prompt is intentionally written to provide them with key tools to help them organize their text dependent analysis response. See an example Mr. Neely provides for how you can use the prompt to help teach students how to write their introductory sentence.

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How You Can Use the Prompt to Write Your Introductory Sentence

You can use the prompt to help write your introductory sentence!

Here is an example:

Prompt Example: During a story, characters will often change from the beginning to the end. Describe how the main character changed throughout the story. Be sure to include evidence from the text to support your response.

Introductory sentence: The main character changed throughout the story in many ways. (The introductory sentence should relate back to the prompt.) Your caution sentence is often very helpful!

Now it is your turn to try! With someone sitting near you, highlight the prompt to analyze what it is asking of you.

Prompt Example: When you compare and contrast, you identify things that are similar and different. Compare and contrast the text about tornadoes with the text you read about thunderstorms. Be sure to include evidence from the text.

An introductory sentence tells the reader of your writing what you are trying to prove. Write an introductory sentence to show me that you understand the prompt about tornadoes and thunderstorms.

Introductory sentence: ________________________________________________________________________________________

Step 2: Read the Text and Write Your Intro. Sentence

After students read the text, Mr. Neely teaches them how to write their introductory sentence and state their claim in the video clip below. Below the video clip you will see the Say, Mean, Matter Template Mr. Neely created for students to use to guide them through the TDA process.

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Say, Mean, Matter Template

Step 3: Re-read the Text to Select Your Best Evidence

In the video clip below, you will see how Mr. Neely guides students to choose the best evidence from the text to support their claim in the introductory sentence and then he models for students how to add those into the Say, Mean, Matter template.

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Step 4: Use Say, Mean, Matter Structure to Analyze Your Evidence

In the video clips below, you will see how Mr. Neely guides students to consider what the evidence means and how/why it matters to strengthen their analysis and their argument.

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Step 5: Consider A Conclusion That is Clear and Effective

In the video below, Mr. Neely teaches students how to write a conclusion that reminds readers of their argument and is effective in summarizing their evidence. Following the video you will see the teacher example that Mr. Neely created during this lesson with students. Please note that Mr. Neely provided students with the opportunity to create their own analysis of the third evidence paragraph in their own Google Doc template using a gradual release of responsibility model (I Do, We Do, You Do).

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What Mrs. Gablehart and Her Students Have to Say...

In the video clips below you will see what Mrs. Gablehart and her students have to say about using the "Say Mean Matter" strategy as a support for their TDA writing.

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