De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: My Cousin's Lesson [Pdf]

"My Cousin's Lesson" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a teenager who stole something from a store and was arrested. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining the theme or lesson learned and underlining the supporting text. This passage aligns with Common Core Anchor Reading Standards 1 requiring close reading, textual evidence, main idea, and summarizing.