Writing Text-Dependent Questions About Beaver Dams
Ms. Ferrer is writing questions for a grade 3 informational passage about how beavers build dams. The passage explains that beavers use sticks, mud, and stones; that they build in moving water; and that a dam slows the water so a pond forms. It does not mention what beavers eat or how long they live. Ms. Ferrer drafts four questions: (1) What materials do beavers use to build a dam? (2) Why do beavers build dams in moving water? (3) What do beavers eat? (4) Put these steps in order: beavers pile sticks, mud fills gaps, water slows, pond forms. She wants every question to be answerable from the passage and to require students to go back to the text. She also wants at least one question that asks students to explain a cause-and-effect relationship rather than just recall a fact. Her colleague says question 3 is fine because students can infer from science class.
1. Which question fails the text-dependent requirement, and why?
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Question 3 fails. The passage does not say what beavers eat, so the question cannot be answered by reading this text. A student could answer from science class, but that would test outside knowledge, not comprehension of the passage. The colleague's word 'infer' is misleading here: an inference must be grounded in details from the text, and there are no food-related details to ground it. Using question 3 would let a student score without reading, and it would undermine Ms. Ferrer's goal that every question require a return to the text.
2. Revise question 3 so it becomes text-dependent and still about beavers, using only the passage content.
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A strong revision is: 'According to the passage, what happens to moving water after beavers build a dam?' This keeps the topic of beavers, but the answer must come from the passage's cause-and-effect chain: the dam slows the water, so a pond forms. It is text-dependent because a student must locate the sentence about moving water and the sentence about the pond. It also requires more than recall of a single fact because the student must connect the dam to the change in water. A simpler acceptable revision is: 'Why does a pond form behind a beaver dam?'