Explicit ELA: P.A.T. / M.A.T. — Making Connections Graphic Organizers

Explicit ELA: P.A.T. / M.A.T. — Making Connections Graphic Organizers

Help students move from answering isolated comprehension questions to analyzing, comparing, and connecting ideas across texts with the Explicit ELA P.A.T. / M.A.T. Making Connections Organizers.

Designed to work across all grade levels, these reusable graphic organizers can be paired with any literary or informational texts. Teachers can simply adjust the complexity of the reading selections while keeping the same thinking framework.

What is P.A.T.?

P — Personalities

Students analyze characters, character traits, behaviors, and relationships.

A — Author’s Purpose

Students determine why the author wrote the text.

T — Theme

Students identify the lesson, message, or deeper meaning of a literary text.

What is M.A.T.?

M — Main/Central Idea

Students determine the most important idea communicated in the text.

A — Author’s Purpose

Students analyze the author’s reason for writing and the choices that support that purpose.

T — Tone

Students examine the author’s attitude toward the topic and use details from the text to support their thinking.

Built for Making Connections

Each organizer includes a BOTH TEXTS section in the middle so students can move beyond analyzing each text separately.

Students are prompted to consider:

• What do both texts have in common?
• How are the texts connected?
• What ideas, themes, character traits, purposes, or perspectives overlap?
• What can I infer when I think about both texts together?
• How does one text deepen my understanding of the other?

This creates a natural progression from:

Analyze Text 1 → Analyze Text 2 → Compare → Connect → Infer → Synthesize

Skills Supported

This resource can support instruction and practice with:

• Character Traits
• Character Analysis
• Text Evidence
• Theme
• Main Idea
• Central Idea
• Author’s Purpose
• Tone
• Making Connections
• Inferencing
• Comparing Texts
• Paired-Text Analysis
• Synthesis
• Supporting Ideas With Evidence

What’s Included

• Multiple full-color P.A.T. organizer designs
• Multiple full-color M.A.T. organizer designs
• Space for students to write the titles of both texts
• Author’s Purpose choices
• Character-analysis sections
• Theme response areas
• Main/Central Idea sections
• Tone analysis
• Text-evidence spaces
• A dedicated Both Texts / Making Connections section
• Reusable formats that work with any text set
• 
  

No passages are included, making the organizers easy to use with your existing curriculum, novels, short stories, informational texts, paired passages, test-prep materials, intervention resources, or teacher-created selections.

Great For

Whole-group reading • Small groups • Intervention • Paired-text lessons • Close reading • Test preparation • Independent practice • Literature circles • Reading centers • Enrichment

One framework. Any text. Deeper thinking.



Explicit ELA: P.A.T. / M.A.T. gives students a repeatable structure for turning reading comprehension into analysis, evidence, connections, and synthesis.