Elementary Education Capstone

Abstract

This capstone project focuses on developing and implementing a literacy unit centered on textual evidence. The unit includes three lesson plans designed to help students understand how to find, analyze, and use textual evidence to support their ideas. Each lesson builds on the previous one, using a mix of direct instruction, guided practice, and independent work to gradually increase student confidence and skill in citing evidence. To measure student understanding, a variety of assessments were integrated throughout the unit. These included formative assessments, such as class discussions and written responses, as well as summative assessments that evaluated students’ ability to apply their learning in more structured tasks. The results of these assessments helped determine how well students grasped the concept of textual evidence and where additional support was needed. Overall, this capstone demonstrates how a well-structured unit on textual evidence can improve students’ literacy skills. It highlights the role of explicit teaching, interactive activities, and ongoing assessment in fostering critical reading and analytical thinking. The findings from this project contribute to best practices in literacy education and offer insights into effective strategies for teaching textual evidence in a classroom setting