(suspenseful music) - Oh, hey there, guys.

It's Detective House here today, and today we're gonna be text detectives as we look for clues inside of a text to learn to support your answers.

How many times has your teacher asked you a question, you answered it, and then you were asked that dreaded question of how do you know?

Just like a scientist has to use evidence to support his or her hypothesis, teachers often want you to prove your answer too.

And sorry, kiddos, "Just because," isn't going to cut it.

You have to learn how to be a text detective and look inside that text to support your answer and prove that you are in fact correct.

So, how does one become a text detective?

Well, my friends, it's as simple as looking back into that text with a keen eye, finding a clue, and then using one of my handy-dandy sentence starters to start your answer.

Some examples of sentence starters are, "On page 32, it said."

"In paragraph four, it said."

"I know because."

"The author said."

"For example."

And, "From what I read, I know that."

Now, let's practice.

Listen to my short story about a girl named Millie Hilly, and listen for clues that you can use to answer the question at the end.

Her desk was filled with papers, broken crayons, and bits of trash.

She kept a small collection of pebbles she found on the playground in her pencil box, and she never had a pencil when she needed one.

The cover of her journal was torn and the pages inside were curled over each other and stuck together by drops of orange juice that dropped out of her juice box that she had stuck inside her desk last week.

No matter how hard she tried, Millie Hilly could not get organized or keep her desk tidy.

She could never find her supplies for lessons, and there was always an avalanche of torn papers spilling out of her desk in the afternoon when it was time to go home.

The question is, what is a character trait of Millie Hilly?

Let's use some evidence from the text to support your answer.

Let's be a text detective.

For example, you could say, "From what I heard, Millie Hilly is quite messy, because the text said that her desk was messy and filled with papers."

Or you could say, "I know that Millie is unorganized, because the text said that she never had the supplies she needed for lessons."

So the next time your teacher asks you to prove your answer, I want you to remember what Detective House said and be a text detective, and go back into that text to find details to support your answer.

Thanks for joining me today, and I hope to see you back here tomorrow for some more learning with Arkansas Rise and Shine.