The legend “How the Chipmunk Got Its Stripes”
• Read the legend “How the Chipmunk Got Its Stripes” and the student retelling of that story. Using your knowledge of reading comprehension (e.g., literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, engagement of schema, self-monitoring), write a response in which you:
Using your knowledge of reading comprehension (e.g., literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, engagement of schema, self-monitoring), write a response in which you:
• Identify and discuss one of the student’s strengths relating to reading comprehension;
• Identify and discuss one of the student’s weaknesses relating to reading comprehension
• See Appendix B for the scoring rubric.
You are to prepare a written response of approximately 350 – 500 words. Your response must demonstrate an understanding of the knowledge of the field. You are expected to demonstrate the depth of your understanding by applying your knowledge rather than by merely reciting factual information.
Your response will be evaluated based on the following criteria.
• Purpose: the extent to which your response achieves the purpose of the assignment.
• Subject Knowledge: the appropriateness and accuracy in the application of the subject knowledge
• Support: quality and relevance of supporting evidence
• Rationale: soundness of argument and degree of understanding of the subject
Descriptions of each criteria.
Purpose
• Your response focuses on reading comprehension and explains both strengths and weaknesses.
• You cite specific evidence from both the passage and the retelling of the passage.
Subject Knowledge
• The application of subject knowledge is accurate and substantial, including the use of terminology.
• The distinction between inferential and literal comprehension is clearly stated.
• Areas where the student needs intervention are clearly identified and addressed.
Support
• You provide examples from the text and/or retelling that are both relevant and important to the discussion.
• Support is sound and the examples are of high quality.
• The examples and the discussion of the examples are clearly related and in context.
Rationale
• Your response is ably reasoned and relates each part of the discussion to the whole picture of the student’s comprehension.
• The choice of strength/weakness to discuss, the explanations given and the examples all show a comprehensive understanding of reading comprehension.
• The conclusions brings the threads of the discussion together.
Sample Solution
After reading the student’s retelling of the legend “How the Chipmunk Got Its Stripes,” it is clear that they have a strong understanding of literal comprehension as evidenced by their ability to accurately and succinctly summarize key plot points. For instance, when retelling how Tútskhooh (the chipmunk) got his stripes in the end, they wrote: “Tútskhooh was so happy that he hugged Bear tightly! When he did this, some of Bear’s paint rubbed off of him. That’s why chipmunks have stripes today.” This statement clearly conveys all essential information from the original story without any extraneous details being added or missing.
However, one area where this student could improve is inferential comprehension. While they were able to provide a summary for each event within the tale, there were several instances where explicit statements about character motivation or underlying themes were omitted. For example, when describing how Coyote tricked Tútskhooh into going home empty-handed after visiting Bear at his house for help with painting himself black and white again, no inference was made regarding Coyote’s deception and malicious intent towards Tútskhooh which could be interpreted as an example of revenge due to past grievances between them (Leeming et al., 2020). Additionally, while hints are provided throughout that suggest friendship amongst certain characters like when Burr offers shelter to Tútskhooh during heavy rains or Bird assists him with finding food during winter months – concrete evidence relating these interactions back to overall theme of companionship is not present.
Overall, based on the student’s retelling it can be concluded that their abilities in terms of literal comprehension are quite strong while room for improvement exists with regards to making inferences regarding implicit content within stories; this may involve teaching them techniques such as utilizing context clues from other sentences in order deduce meaning from seemingly ambiguous passages (Brinkman & Brinkman 2021).