Close reading: the strongest evidence
Reading · 8th grade
Evidence that fits and evidence that proves
By the end, Caleb will be able to tell evidence that only fits a claim from evidence that proves it, and explain why the strongest evidence is the kind that proves.
About 40 minutes to teach
Teach the idea
When you make a claim, some evidence can line up with it and still line up with a lot of other explanations too. That kind of evidence fits. It is consistent with your idea, but it cannot settle the question, because it could just as easily point somewhere else.
Evidence that proves is different. It fits only one explanation, or it rules the others out. The strongest evidence is the kind that proves.
Here is the test to run on every piece: who else could this fit? If the answer is lots of people, the evidence only fits. If the answer is only one person or only one explanation, it proves.
Often the strongest evidence is small and specific. A careful detail that many people could leave behind only fits. A mark that belongs to one person proves.
Proving something and deciding whether to print a name are two different questions. One is about what the evidence shows. The other is about what you choose to share.
Do it together
Caleb reads:The Night Fixer
742 words
Somebody in Ridgeline was fixing things at night.
It started in September. The bench outside the post office, which had wobbled for as long as anyone could remember, stopped wobbling. Someone had replaced its cracked back slat with a new board of pale cedar. A week later, the swing in the town park that had hung by one chain all summer was hanging by two again. Then the gate at the old cemetery, rusted shut since spring, swung open on new hinges. Nobody saw who did it. Nobody took the credit.
"The Night Fixer," said Nell Whitaker, and she wrote it at the top of her notebook in capital letters. Nell was thirteen. She was homeschooled, and she spent her afternoons at the Ridgeline Record, the weekly newspaper her aunt June edited from a narrow office on Main Street. "Aunt June, it's a front-page story. People love a mystery."
Her aunt didn't look up from her editing. "Then solve it. But remember the rule."
Nell knew the rule. It was written on an index card taped to Aunt June's computer: FITS IS NOT PROVES.
Nell started with the obvious suspect. Dale Lutz ran the hardware store, owned every tool in the county, and was out walking his beagle late every night. She laid it out for Marcus Bell, who was fourteen and took the paper's pictures.
"He has the tools," Nell said. "He's out at night. It's him."
"So is half of Ridgeline," said Marcus. "Everybody has a screwdriver. My dad's out at night. So's the nurse from the clinic, walking home from her shift." He shrugged. "That fits a lot of people."
Nell frowned and crossed out Dale Lutz. Then she went to look at the repairs themselves.
At the post office bench, she knelt in the dry grass and studied the new board. The cedar was sanded smooth, smoother than it needed to be, and the screws were set so neatly that she couldn't catch a fingernail on them. At the end of the board, near the arm of the bench, somebody had carved a tiny bird, no bigger than her thumbnail. It had a round body, a short beak, and a tail cocked straight up in the air.
A wren.
At the cemetery gate, she found the same bird cut into the top of the new wooden latch. At the park, it was on the underside of the swing seat, where only a child lying in the wood chips would see it.
On Saturday morning, Nell walked the length of the farmers market on Front Street, the way she had a hundred times before, but this time she looked at everything. Honey. Tomatoes. Knitted hats. At the last table, under a striped umbrella, a white-haired woman named Rosa Ruiz was selling wooden toys: little trucks, spinning tops, a Noah's ark with pairs of painted animals. Mrs. Ruiz had taught shop class at Ridgeline School for thirty-four years before she retired. Nell picked up a spinning top and turned it over.
There, on the bottom, was a tiny carved wren with its tail cocked straight up.
Mrs. Ruiz watched her find it. For a second, neither of them said anything.
"My mother's name was Wren," Mrs. Ruiz said at last, quietly. "I sign everything I make with her." She took the top from Nell's hand, set it back on the table, and straightened it so it lined up with the others. "Is there something you wanted to ask me?"
Nell opened her mouth, and then she closed it again.
Back at the office, she told Aunt June everything: the tools that fit everyone, the late walks that fit everyone, and the one small bird that fit only one person in town.
"So you've proved it," said Aunt June.
"I think so."
"Then the question is whether we print it." Aunt June leaned back in her chair. "She signed her work with a bird nobody would notice unless they were looking hard. She didn't sign it with her name."
Nell thought about the wren on the underside of the swing.
That Thursday, the Ridgeline Record ran a front-page story called "Thank You, Night Fixer." It described the bench, the swing, and the gate. It said the town was grateful. It did not print a name.
The next week, a new wooden bird feeder appeared beside the post office bench, shaped like a tiny house. On its roof was a carved wren.
1. Have Caleb read the story printed under the heading Caleb reads, with time to finish and no interruptions.
2. Ask Caleb what claim Nell is trying to prove. Then ask what two pieces of evidence Nell first used against Dale Lutz, and what Marcus said about them.
3. Have Caleb run the test question on those two pieces out loud: Who else could the tools and the late walks fit? Let Caleb answer. Then ask what Nell found on all three repairs, and who else that detail could fit.
4. Ask why the tiny wren is stronger evidence than the smooth sanding and the neat screws. Then ask: Aunt June agrees Nell has proved it, but still asks whether the paper should print it. What is the difference between those two questions?
5. When you are both ready, go on to the activity below.
Activity
Together: Fits or proves. While Caleb waits in another room, move one thing in the kitchen and leave three clues about who did it: one that fits everyone in the family, like a chair pulled out; one that fits a few people, like a light left on; and one that fits only one person, like a hair tie or a sock only one person wears. Caleb finds the clues and sorts them into Fits and Proves, asking of each one out loud, Say: Who else could this fit?
Then trade places.
Tip If Caleb mixes up fits and proves, go back to the one test question, who else could this fit, and try it on a single clue at a time until the difference clicks. If Caleb races ahead, ask Caleb to invent one new clue that would only fit one person in the story and one new clue that would fit half the town.
On paper
Worksheet
Who Else Could It Fit?
The worksheet, as it prints
Reading · Worksheet
Who Else Could It Fit?
Use the story "The Night Fixer" to answer each question.
Name: Caleb
Score: ____ / 8
1. Write the difference between evidence that fits a claim and evidence that proves it.
2. Write two pieces of evidence against Dale Lutz, and why Marcus says they don't prove anything.
3. What does Nell find on all three repairs?
4. Why is the wren stronger evidence than the smooth sanding and the neat screws?
5. Copy the two sentences Mrs. Ruiz says that explain the wren.
6. Write why Aunt June asks "whether we print it" even though Nell has proved it.
7. Write what the new bird feeder at the end suggests.
8. What would happen if Nell had printed her first guess, that Dale Lutz was the Night Fixer?
This took Arbor about a minute
Your child’s year, written like this
Caleb isn’t real. Arbor writes these for your kid: their name, what they love, and where they actually are in each subject.