OST Academic Language

Describe the main events in a story or writing passage in your own words.

• Summarize

• Determine

• Analyze

• Identify

To state as fact; your opinion on a topic that can be supported by evidence.

• support

• claim

• impact

• infer

How the author organizes their ideas in a passage. Relates to sentence length, paragraph styles, etc.

• structure

• excerpt

• main idea

• claim

To justify your ideas with evidence from the text AND reasoning.

• determine

• construct

• infer

• support

To figure something out or find an answer.

• Determine

• Support

• Reasoning

• Contrast

To write about differences

• Compare

• Contrast

• Identify

• Describe

To write about similarities.

• Compare

• Contrast

• Analyze

• Identify

To tell or show; point out details & facts

• Analyze

• Infer

• Construct

• Describe

Analyze

• To break down and ask why something happened in a particular way; to provide your thinking about a topic.

• To make an educated guess based on evidence from the text.

• to create (as in write a response).

• To figure something out.

Identify

• to justify your ideas

• To recognize or figure out

• to create

• to state as fact