Monday
Monday: Right There in the Text
Rocket drops a folder on the Signal Desk. "The corkboard changed overnight. Someone moved every card."
Raven looks up from her notebook. "Someone? Or something? What do you notice about the string?"
Rocket squints. The red string that joins the cards now sags toward the porch floor.
"It sags," he says. "So the cards slid down. Nobody moved them. The pins slipped in the damp."
Nova hovers over the board, her light tracing the string. "You just did two things," she says. "You said what you saw. Then you said what it means."
"Evidence first," Raven says, writing it down. "Then the claim. This week The Signal runs on proof."
Rocket grins. "Evidence Hunters. That is the headline."
Learn it: evidence is what the text says
Evidence is the words of the text itself. When you make a point about a passage, you cite evidence: you point to the exact line.
Some evidence is explicit. The text states it in plain words, and you can put your finger on it.
Raven thinks aloud: "The text says the string sags toward the floor. So I know the cards slid down. That line is my evidence."
A point without a line is only an opinion. A point with a line is a case.
- Read the question and find its key word.
- Scan the passage for that word or a word close to it.
- Put your finger on the line that answers the question.
- Quote the words, then say what they show.
Read it
On Tuesday morning, Raven arrived at the Signal Desk before anyone else.
The porch was quiet, and the reading lamp was still off.
She noticed the corkboard first. Every pinned card had slipped at least a finger's width lower than the day before.
The red string that joined the cards drooped in loose curves.
Raven did not touch anything. She opened her notebook and wrote what she saw.
"Cards lower. String loose. Pins still in the board, but tilted."
When Rocket arrived, he announced a mystery before he had set down his bag.
"Someone rearranged our cards," he said. "A prank."
Raven pointed at the pins. "Look at the angle. They all lean the same way, down and left."
Rocket leaned in. "If a person moved the cards, the pins would point every which way."
"Right," said Raven. "And the porch was damp last night. The pins in that old board slip whenever it gets damp."
Nova drifted closer, her light making the string glow. "What else is lower?" she asked.
Rocket looked around the porch. The Press Day sign on the post had slid down its nail too.
The jar of pencils had tipped against the lamp. The folded issues had slumped in their stack.
"Everything slipped," he said slowly. "Nobody touched it. The weather did."
Raven wrote one more line: "Case closed by evidence." Then she pushed every pin back in firmly.
Rocket pinned a new card to the top of the board. It read: "Say what you see. Then say what it means."
- Read the question.
- Tap your answer.
| Statement | True or false? |
|---|---|
| Raven touched the cards before writing anything down. | ? |
| The Press Day sign had also slipped down its nail. | ? |
| Rocket first thought the cards were moved as a prank. | ? |
| The pins had fallen out of the board. | ? |
- Read the question.
- Tap your answer.
- What happened first?
- Tap the cards in order.
Each time a line states something a person could see, tap the table once.
Count your taps. Those lines are the explicit evidence in the passage.
Strong start, Evidence Hunter. Tomorrow the text will not say everything outright, and you will read between the lines.