By the time my students get to me in 8th grade, they should have a great foundation for inferring. I mean, they’ve been doing it since first grade. Even though this is the case, I feel like they still have issues with the concept. Since I have seen it year after year, I have to wonder WHY.
Do they just not understand what it means to infer?
Do they not get the purpose of inferring?
Do they lack a framework for inferring?
Have they never had a lesson that would make the concept stick?
Is the text too complex?
Do they not have enough background knowledge to make the inference?
I really don’t think there is one answer. More than likely, it’s a combination of all of these things that are dependent on the individual student. Since the struggle is real, I always start my year teaching this concept because I want them to be able to infer like a boss by May. Below are 7 strategies I use to model, teach, and reinforce inference in my middle school ELA classroom. These are tried, tested, and middle school approved ideas, y’all!
1.The Hook
Like I said before, middle school students have been doing inference for years, so it should not HAVE to be introduced. But, I have also learned I can not assume anything, so I start my unit with a fun and engaging investigative activity that requires them to develop their own meaning.
How it works:
On each table I have a station set up with a tissue box that contains something random inside: sponge, spaghetti noodles, pom poms, dried corn, blades of grass, corn starch, legos, peeled eggs, etc.
Students are placed in groups of two or three and given an investigation sheet.
They spend about 2 minutes at each station: 30 seconds to feel what’s in the box and the remaining time to talk about it with their partners and write down predictions and correlating clues. Pro tip: Tell your students they are only allowed to stick their hand in the box one time.
After the students have rotated through the stations, do a BIG reveal for each box. I did this with a Google Slide so I did not have to take the items out of the boxes.
If students got it right, I asked them “how did you infer, or figured out, what was in the box?” I said this exact phrase each time someone got something right. This helps connect the word infer with determining meaning/understanding based on prior knowledge and clues. Repetition is key here!
At the end of the activity, I give them an exit ticket that asks, Based on what we did today, what do you think it means to infer? After the repetition of the activity, combined with how they made it relevant, the students are able to come up with their own definition.
2.Mini Lesson & Quests
The next day I usually have my students recall what they learned the day before with the mystery boxes. This little recall is helping for priming the pump for today’s lesson.
The usually takes about 30 minutes to complete and talk through the notes and class activities. We focus a couple of minutes on the definition of inference. I want them to move past “making an educated guess” which is what 99% of my students say they do when they infer. I tell them I do not want them guessing at anything. We are going to take clues and combine it with our life experiences to FIGURE OUT the answer.
In addition, I like to discuss WHY authors write in a way that requires a reader to infer. I have my students turn and talk about why authors might not write everything out for us.
In order to make the practice part of the lesson engaging, I include relevant examples.
To start with, we look at something they are familiar with-images. I put an images on the board and they have to infer what the animals are thinking based on what’s going on in the picture.
Then we look at a text message to figure out information about the person sending the text based off the clues.
Finally, the favorite activity! I made up an Amazon review, and the students have to infer how many stars the buyer would have given the item based on the review they left.
With all of these class activities, I really emphasize the background knowledge they have. For each one I ask, “What do you already know about this topic before we infer.”
After we practice as a class, I have 5 quests set up around the room. The students travel with their table friends to each quest, read the short passage, and answer the 3 inference based questions based on the clues in the passage. Again, as I move around the room and guide them in their inference journey, I ask them about what they already know so we can get that background knowledge activated.
At the end of the quest time, I have the students get the answers from a spot I call the ‘solution station’ (basically, I have the answers taped inside a manilla folder. I have one folder for each group) They check their answers and then they can ask me any questions they have via the best thing ever invented, Classroom Q (there is a free version!)
3. Digital Stations!
There are three stations the students work through that mimic what we did during whole class practice the day before:
1. Inferring Based on Images: I use images I found on Times Magazine Image of the day. Students fill out a graphic organizer that requires them to fill out: What I see… I infer… Because….and I wonder… I encourage my students to list everything they see. I tell them to pretend they are looking at it with a magnifying glass, and write down all the details from the image. This will help with the infer (what they can figure out) and because section of the graphic organizer. I like the final piece, I wonder since it gives them more of an opportunity to infer and make predictions.
2. Inferring Setting Based on Clues: This is the best activity for activating prior knowledge. I provide a paragraph that is full of clues about a setting (beach, ice cream shop, pep rally, theme park, etc) and they determine the setting based on clues. It’s simple, but a good skill to practice.
3. Inferring Character Traits: With this activity, I gave the students 3 scenarios. They have to read the paragraphs and determine the character traits based on the clues given. Then, they had to write a paragraph about a friend and family member. From their paragraph, I had to be able to infer the character traits. I found a lot of my students had a hard time with this. For one, they just wanted to come out and say something like, “my best friend Alea is funny.” I would make them rewrite it so they showed me Alea was funny without telling me. It was a struggle for a lot of them, but it eventually clicked (after 3-4 rewrites).
4. Inferring Product Rating based on Amazon Reviews: Just like the mini lesson, this one was a class favorite! I wrote 5 reviews and they had to determine if it was a positive or negative review, highlight clues in the review, and then infer what the rating would be based on the review.
I made Google Slides for each station and the students worked through them at their own pace. It makes grading and corrections super easy!
4. Inferring with a Short Story
My next step is reading and practicing as a class. In order to increase engagement, I use the super creepy short story, “The Landlady”. It’s seriously strange and students have to infer like crazy to understand what is happening. Even my hard to reach boys are all about this story.
I read it aloud and stop at key points to have the students talk at their tables in order to make inferences about the characters and motivations. At this point, I don’t confirm or deny their inferences. I just want them to talk about it and write down what they think and why.
After we finish the story and make all of our inferences, I show the short 20 minute movie that stays pretty close to the story. Y’all- It’s strange, all types of weird, and they LOVE it. Seriously!
After the clip, we check back on our inferences to see if we were correct. Personally, I think the creepiness of this story makes an impression and makes the concept stick.
5. Inferring with a Short Film
“Soar” Short
I use the movie, “Soar”, for this activity since it does not have dialogue. It’s just music and lends itself perfectly to inferencing.
Students work in partners and watch the clip. I have different stopping points for them. At the stopping points, they have to infer what the character is thinking. To add another layer, they work together to come up with their inner dialogue based on what is happening in the clip.
This activity requires them to combine clues from the movie with their past experiences, and throws a little bit of writing in there! It’s super engaging!
You can use any short film without dialogue, but if you want to use “Soar”, the link is below.
Link to movie: “Soar”
6. Connecting to Class Novel
Throughout all of these inferencing activities, we are reading a class novel for about 20 minutes a day. While reading the novel, I am focusing discussions and questions that require inference. I have a list of question stems that I pull from for the class discussions.
Questions stems are included as a bonus in the bundle linked below!
From there, we do an assessment and I determine how needs a little more guidance (more guided practice with me) and who is ready for enrichment (write a mystery story that requires the reader to infer and write a 10 question inference quiz to go with it).
The assessment I use is a Google Form so it’s super simple to analyze the data and get them into the appropriate groups. I just added the assessment to the inference bundle. Check out the link below.
I hope I gave you enough information to recreate some of these activities with your middle schoolers and to get you started with tackling the inference beast.
Resources to Help You
I know how precious your time is though, so here are some ready to use resources for you! #yay #planningdoneforme!
Bundle of Resources on TPT
All of these inference resources-
PLUS inference and text evidence bell ringers, quests, and Assessments!
