Embedded Files
Type of Literacy Strategy:
Reading Comprehension (during reading, post-reading) & Writing (informal writing and formal)
Reading Level:
All Secondary Reading Levels; Based on how the Timeline is used in the class, students at lower reading levels or ELs might need a differentiated sheet with events already chosen
Prep Time:
2-5 minutes if using template
Anticipation Guides in Use -
- Choose a text to use and have years and events ready for students to create or use a timeline.
- Students create a timeline. On the timeline, there should be space above and below the horizontal timeline bar.
- Above the timeline bar, events should be written with or without dates as long as events are in chronological order,
- Then they should list the cause of each event on the bottom half of the timeline bar below the event is it referring to.
- If one cause leads to or is part of the cause for multiple events, lines should be drawn to each event a cause has impact on so that students can start to see the ramifications and causes of a larger scale idea like a time period or war.
How to Fit into a Social Studies Classroom:
This strategy works best when the documents/readings students are focusing on are narrative and expository texts. Cause and Effect Timeline is a graphic organizer that lets students “not only determine the sequence of events in a story or historical account but also to establish or infer the causes of those events” (Zwiers, 2010, p. 104). While this strategy can be done individually, teachers can mold the activity so that students can work with partners or small groups while filling out their Timeline or hold discussions afterward to confer and share inferences and ideas. Zwiers (2010) suggested that if students are sharing completed timelines with one another, they should use the specific language of “One possible cause might have been...because…” (p. 104). This gives students freedom to share their own ideas about causes and the events they impact as well as giving other students the opportunity to either add on in agreeance or share their own inferences and causes of events with the start of the script.
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