Texts Sets for Introducing Novel Studies (Among the Hidden)

We are starting our new novel, Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix (one of my favorites!), and I wanted a unique pre-reading activity to introduce the book.  If you haven't read this book, it is a must read!  It's about a boy, Luke, who lives in a society which enforces a population law that only allows two children per home.  Luke is a third child, one of the Shadow Children.  One day when Luke is gazing longingly out the window, because he can't go outside for fear of being discovered, he finds another "third child" in one of his neighbor's home.  His new friend would love nothing more than to leave the house and let the world know who she is...  But does Luke dare to do the same?  From there it is a very suspenseful tale and I'm not going to give any more away!  As you can tell for such a good book, I had to have a good hook!

Cue my most recent professional development!  One of our county's reading gurus came to our school to tell us all about "text sets" and how to implement them in our classroom.  Now I know the term "text sets" has been around for a while and I have always heard a few different meanings for the phrase but this PD showed me text sets in a whole new light.  Maybe it's a Common Core thing, but Florida is just starting to semi-embrace CC (we're just calling it something else) so forgive me if you already know this!

The purpose of this text set is to attempt to not just introduce a topic, but issues within the topic, and have students form opinions based on their evidence from many different sources/forms of media.  For our pre-reading activity I used video clips, articles, and maps.  One of the things that the presenter kept mentioning was that we DO NOT teach during this lesson.  This is all about the students teaching and thinking for themselves.  Using this graphic organizer (go ahead and grab it, it's FREE!) they fill out each square after each new piece of evidence and write down all their thoughts, then finally form their opinion.  I cannot take credit for this organizer.  The presenter showed us her version but I created my own and swapped the order of some of the boxes.

Step One: Introduce the Topic and Purpose Question
My topic was about population policy.  I started off by just asking some general family questions of the kids.  Who was the second child in their family?  Who was the third?  Who had more than three siblings?  Were their parents a third child?  Then the "hard hitting" questions came out.  What if I said every family could only have two children?  Who would still be here?

It was very interesting to watch the faces of the third children.  I asked them if there was any way that could ever be a rule, only being allowed to have two children, and they were very adamant that it could not!  Then I introduced my Purpose Question: "Is it ever okay for the government to "manage" your family and tell you how many children you can have?"  Unanimous "no" ladies and gentlemen.

I introduced the graphic organizer (which I printed on gray card stock and laminated so they would last me longer) and the purpose behind it and told them to only fill out the box I told them to when I tell them to.  You can actually go in any order you want but I started from the top and went left to right.

Step Two: This Makes Me Feel/Think
Our first source was a three minute video clip about what exactly is China's One-Child Policy.  It was very informative and gave the background as to how it got started and looked into one "invisible child's" life not being able to fully exist.  It was very moving.  After watching the clip I told them to read the directions and fill out the first box.

Step Three: Stop and Jot
For the last three boxes the students would be using articles that I prepared for them on a key ring.  Each pair of students grabbed one article and read it together.  I only had two articles, one that showed the benefits of China's population policy and one that was against it.  After they read their article and discussed their thoughts and opinions with their partner, they had to read the directions and fill out the Stop and Jot square based on what they just read (not the video).

Step Four: R.E.S.P.O.N.D.
You can have the students swap articles if you would like, but I had mine tell each other what they read about.  They did know this ahead of time to help them prepare key points and the main idea.  They were also allowed to reference back to the article.  After teaching each other about the other side of the issue, students chose one way to respond to what they just learned: R - rephrase, E - explain, S - summarize, P - pose a question, O - opinion, N - note your thoughts, or D - describe.  Again, this section is only writing down their thoughts and feelings based on what their partners just taught them.  They never read the other article, just learned about it from their table mates.

Step Five: Citing Textual Evidence
This is where it all comes together.  Now that students have seen the video, read the articles, made connections, etc. they write down their final answer to the Purpose Question in the last box using text evidence to support their opinion.  It was interesting to see some of their unanimous "No's" go to "well maybe..."

My kids absolutely LOVED this pre-reading activity.  They couldn't wait until we started the novel after they found out that this is what it would be about.  As I stated in the beginning, I did very little teaching during this time.  A couple kids had questions about what words meant and what not and we did end up having a whole group discussion on the two articles at the end but by that point they already knew everything.  I wasn't teaching them anything new.  It was very satisfying to watch my fifth graders be such independent learners and thinkers!

You could use text sets and the graphic organizer for SO MANY subjects!  The Reading and Writing Project has tons of digital non-fiction text sets already set up for you by subject to get you started.  It is an amazing way to cover citing evidence, differentiating reading levels, text features, social skills/communication, in-depth knowledge on any subject, and so much more!  I keep thinking of different topics I would love to use this with!  What are your thoughts and suggestions?  I would love to hear any ideas you have in the comments sections :0)

Happy Friday y'all!

Silent Tea Party: A Pre-Reading Activity

I'M BACK!!!!!  It's been a crazy month with LOTS going on but I'm back now!  I was saying to my mom and a co-worker yesterday that I feel like I'm doggy paddling through this year, barely keeping my head above water sometimes...  My mom's reply, "At least your head's above water and not under!"  Always the optimist mom :o)  Must be where I get it from and thank goodness, otherwise I would not have made it this far in life y'all!

On to why we're really here!  I found this amazing pre-reading activity around midnight (because I'm the QUEEN of finding amazing lessons at midnight the night before I want to do them) and knew I had to create it for our new novel we're reading, Holes by Louis Sachar.  It's called a Silent Tea Party and requires students to read different quotes from the novel you'll be reading and, using those quotes, students must analyze and infer answers to pre-reading questions about the novel.  I was amazed by some of the student's insight and answers!

Students travel around the room and "meet" other people in class by shaking their hand.  The first handshake indicates that they would like to swap quotes.  The second handshake says, "Here is your quote back.  Thank you for letting me look at it!"  I tell them that there is NO talking because I want to know what THEY think about their new quote, not what their partner thought.  I came up with 20 different quotes so that no two students had the same quote.  As students read the quotes, they need to figure out which question the quote will help them answer.  They will write down their answer and what quote helped them to come up with that answer.  Here the video that I got the idea from!  She also explains it WAY better than I ever could, lol.


I created one for my Holes Literature Unit that is in creation as we speak/read and will be available soon but here is a little example of what my students answered when they did this activity.

From this quote alone:

My students answered part of this question:

With these different outlooks:

• All said it was a boy because it said "his last day"
• One student said he was 9-10.  This was very telling because when I asked him why he thought that, he said "because he's in school."  It was interesting to see that he thought a main character could only go as high in age as he was.
• Another student said he was probably in middle school because he has a "math teacher."  In elementary school you just have a teacher, but in middle school you start to get specific subject teachers.  I had never thought about it that way!
• Then I told them my thoughts on that particular quote.  I asked my students (fifth graders) to raise their hand if they had learned about ratios yet in school.  No one raised their hand.  They then realized if they hadn't learned about ratios yet, then our main character must be older than fifth grade but still in school so younger than 18.

I absolutely LOVED this as a pre-reading activity because it front loads students with background information going into the novel and requires them to analyze and synthesize new information.  I also like that it can be used for ANY novel.  Once my kids got the hang of how to answer the questions using text-based evidence, they started to see more possibilities than what they had originally answered.  The video talks about using this for complex text but I noticed that you can make a simpler text complex just with this activity alone!

Sorry I have been away for so long but I am glad to be back!  I really appreciate you all sticking by me and the wonderful words of encouragement and wisdom from everyone, especially some of my BBB's, you know who you are!  Without y'all this wouldn't be possible.  So thank you and until next time... Which won't be in another month, I PROMISE!

Must Have Mondays: Types of Questions Stoplight

This week's "must have" is a very simple creation that I started doing after I was ready to pull my hair out.  Every week when my students had to do their cold read, I would have a particular student (it never failed) come up to me and run his fingers through his hair, stressed out saying, "I looked everywhere!  I can't find that answer!  It's NOT in there?!"  My response?  "You're absolutely right.  That's an inference question.  The answer is in your brain."  Now this boy was actually one of my smartest students but every week this stumped him!  I had to do something or I was going to turn into one of those teachers on TV y'all, lol.

 

So I came up with the Types of Questions Stoplight sign.  I taught it to my students and reviewed it every time we did a reading comprehension passage.  It worked wonders!  A miracle worker I tell ya!  Once my kids got the hang of the strategies, their scores went up because they were really decoding the questions and finding out what the author was actually asking them to do.  And all I wanted was one kid to stop asking me the same question every week, haha!  Who knew???

 

The spotlight method is very simple and I'm sure I can't be the only teacher that does this in one form or another.  There are three types of questions:  red light, yellow light, and green light questions.

Red light questions = STOP and think.  Your answer will not be stated explicitly in the text.  You will need to use clues from the text and your brain to come up with your answer.

Yellow light questions = SLOW DOWN and search!  You might need to look in multiple places to find the information that will make your answer.

Green light questions = GO back in the text and find your answer.

You'll notice along the sides of the poster we having graffiti looking writing.  As we introduce or review skills, we write down where they would fall on the Types of Questions Stoplight.  For example: drawing conclusions and inferring falls into the red light category whereas setting would be green light or cause and effect would be yellow light.  Now some skills can fall into all three (ex. context clues) it just depends on how the question is asked and what information is given in the text.

Once my students get their paper they read the questions first and label each one in either G, Y, or R.  This helps them understand how much time should be spent on each question and which ones they can go back and underline to prove, etc.  I always tell my students that sometimes your labeling might be wrong and that's okay!  You won't know until you read if it should be a different color.

Now I'm not saying this is the end all be all.  There are always hiccups but usually once my kids get this strategy down and actual implement it, they very rarely ever make below a high B.  And that student never had that weekly problem once he learned this strategy.  Life is good again!

What is a "must have" for you in your classroom or life?  Link up below and let us know!  Don't forget to leave some comment love on two other bloggers posts :o)

Notice When You Lose Your Way

Does anyone else feel as if this is week 27 as opposed to week 7 of school?  It might just be our school but I have honestly never felt this stressed and slammed before, add in trying to plan a wedding... HA!  Needless to say, blogging has sadly been put on the back burner (even though my mind has still been going a million miles a minute with ideas).

We continue our journey through the Comprehension Tool Kit with the mini-lesson: Notice When You Lose Your Way.  The kids were so funny with this one!  You should have seen their eyes when they realized that myself and other students felt the same way they did sometimes and we all lose our way while reading.  We made this anchor chart of reasons why we lose our way and how we can fix it when it happens.  Not necessarily how to fix that specific problem but the problem in general.

 

We followed this up by reading a scientific article (because that is when I lose my way, lol!) and read a chunk at a time and used three different strategies that we came up with from the chart above.  Also a great way to show the students that reading is cross curricular.  I continually refer back to this chart and it has a place of honor on our wall so students can always refer to it when necessary.  I am finding, as with most things, that the more I refer to the anchor chart the more they talk about it while they read.  During our guided reading groups they are the first to admit when they've lost their way and which strategy would be the best to fix it, without my support!  Loving it!!! 

 Sabra

Comprehension Toolkit and a Feature!

First things first... the fun stuff!  Today Dana from Fun in 1st Grade is featuring my blog on her New Blogger Tuesday section!  I am very honored that she has given me this opportunity, especially since I have found so many new blogs through this post.  Head on over there and check her out!

Now onto the educational (but still fun) stuff.  This year our county has implemented Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis' Comprehension Toolkit.  I have used it a few times in the past and really liked it but this year we will be doing a new lesson each week.  I still use CAFE but I do that mini-lesson during our novel study.

Last week's lesson was Monitoring Comprehension: Follow Your Inner Conversation.  They do provide you with picture books for some of the lessons which is really nice except that they are the same picture books for third through fifth grade so that by the time they get to me, most of them have heard it.  Since a good amount of my kids had already read that book, I chose another one: Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco.  I love this book for multiple reasons and it works great with this lesson!



It's about a little girl who is having trouble in school, how her peers treat her and how she overcomes it.  It has a nice twist to the ending and a good life lesson, especially for the beginning of the year.  This is one of my favorite lessons because I love to watch the kids who are incredibly verbal try to hold it all in and write it down as opposed to shouting it out.  They scribble furiously across their sticky notes and never seem to have enough, lol.  At the end of the lesson when we discuss what we all wrote and share it with our shoulder partners they are always the first to say, "THAT'S WHAT I WROTE TOO!!!!"



The kids love getting to use the sticky notes during our novel study and use them to reference back when they are writing in their literature response journals.  If your school does not have the Comprehension Toolkit I highly suggest that you invest or write a grant for it, definitely worth it so far!

Sabra

Guiding Readers Ch. 6 - Guiding Fluent Readers

This is it!  It's officially my turn to host a chapter for our book study with Beth from Thinking of Teaching!  This is my first time hosting and I'm so excited I get to talk to you about this chapter because this is what goes on in my classroom.  All the other chapters were enlightening (this one was too) but this is what I can really take back to my classroom next year and use with the majority of my kiddos.  Fair warning, this is a crazy long post so make sure you've got yourself a snack.

Lori Rog describes fluent readers as "being in a stage that will last for the rest of their lives."  I had never thought about it that way but it's true!  Now you are just guiding them through and not helping them get to another stage of reading but just a more sophisticated text.  One of the main challenges for the readers and teachers at this level is the "fourth-grade reading slump."  For some reason, after third grade many students lose interest in reading.  I thought it was because they had to focus so much on writing (at least in Florida) since they get tested earlier on in the year for writing, that they lose that wave they've been riding.  I didn't realize it was an actual thing though but apparently this phenomenon does exists and no one know why it happens!  Add on to that that boys score lower than girls in literacy assessments and are less likely to read by choice and you've got yourself a challenge my friend.

I always did like a challenge!  I am very lucky in that my interning teacher my senior year taught me to always start the year off with a read aloud that is a series, that way when you snag the kids that are less enthused about reading and they want to continue the story, they can!  There is nothing worse than when a kid gets excited about reading and can't find another book they like as well.  I have had a much success with this, especially with the boys.  The two books I have found they most enjoy are: The 39 Clues: Maze of Bones and The Lightning Thief (try them, you won't be sorry).  I also do the 40 Book Challenge with my kids (from the Book Whisperer) and they really enjoy being able to pick their own book choices and learning about the different genres.  Okay, I'm getting off topic but I had so many text-to-self connections in this chapter and I want to share them all!

You definitely still want to conduct small-group instruction for readers at or beyond grade level for multiple reasons.  You can help them grow in their developmental stage and grow into more sophisticated text and metacognative thinking.  At this stage though, the guided reading groups can be larger (8-10 students), can meet less frequently, and can blend with literature circles or reader's workshop (that's what I planned to do, so glad she confirmed it!). 

When you are matching the reader to a text, it is more difficult now because it depends on the student's background knowledge, vocabulary, interest, and independence.  You'll also find figurative language and descriptive prose that students will take literally when they shouldn't.  The concepts are more abstract and require the reader to read between the lines to interpret them.

Features of the Guided Reading Lesson for Fluent Readers
Before Reading (every student will need a Reader's Toolkit and clipboard for writing)

• Book introduction
• Focus on background knowledge

During Reading (make them aware of how their thinking evolves & changes as they read)

• Silent reading of short sections of text
• Sticky notes to track thinking and record strategies

After Reading

• Plenty of discussion of the text & the reading process
• Oral-reading fluency practice built purposefully into the lesson
• Revisiting text for critical reading, higher-level thinking
• Examining writer's craft and literary elements
• Writing in response to reading

As you can tell, the students at this point are getting the reading process, it's the thinking about what they read that is the main focus here.  The first reading, as before, is meant to get the gist of the passage.  The subsequent readings are for greater fluency, deeper thinking, and more-sophisticated responses.  They begin focusing on critical reading, analyzing author's purpose, bias, point of view, and the writer's craft.  Make sure you have some guiding questions or prompts but in general the students should be generating natural and authentic conversation about the text.

Okay, on to some Lesson Routines! 

• Coding Connections - Text to Self (T-S), Text to Text (T-T), and Text to World (T-W)
• 3-H Questions - Types of Questions = Hand, Head, and Heart

This reminded me a lot of what I use in my classroom!  Except we say:

Green Light ? = GO back and find the answer in the text

Yellow Light ? = SLOW DOWN and search!  You need to look in more than one place to get your answer.

Red Light ? = STOP and think.  You will need to use your brain and the clues the author gave you to figure out the answer.  It's not spelled out in your text.

As we learn/review skills we place them next to the light/category they fall under.  Like "Who, What, When, Where" is all Green light questions, but "Another Title" would be red light.  I like going over the types of questions because once we taught this, I never again had a student come up and tell me, "I can't find the answer!"

• Asking Questions - come up with example questions that would be considered head questions, heart questions, and hand questions.
• The Inference Equation - What you read + What you know = What you infer
• Clicks and Clunks - When the text flows and you "get it" it clicks.  When you come to a part that you don't understand or doesn't make sense, it's a clunk.  Show examples of how you might hit a clunk while reading and the strategies you use to make it click!
• Rainbow Strategy Spots - use different color sticky notes for different strategies (example: wonder = yellow, connection = pink, etc.)
• Word Solving Strategies - "The brain is not a rule-follower, but a pattern finder."  Use the patterns you know from other words to solve unfamiliar words.  A color-coded list of anchor words representing the most common prefixes and suffixes can be found here (it was just a document off of google, not sure who the creator is but if anyone knows please let tell me and I will give them credit): Nifty Thrifty Fifty.
• Robot Reading and Opera Reading - using different voices to get out of that monotone robot voice.  Have students use an opera voice when they read the next time.  Some of my student's favorites are: Arnold, Texas Twang ;), Darth Vader, squirrel, and Jamaican. They came up with those on their own too! LOL
• Active Bookmarks - Strategy based bookmark that requires the reader to reflect on a different action or reading process.  I recreated these from Lori's book!

• Comprehension Shuffle - a great tool to use for ANY grade!  After reading a section of the text have students select a card at random and answer the comprehension skill on that card.  You can choose which skills to give them based on what your focus it.  Lower grades might only use 4-5 while upper grades will use more.  Directions and all materials you will need are included as well!  Click here to get your copy from the Positive Engagement Project.

The Reading-Writing Connection

I found it very interesting, and spot on, when it said teachers walk a fine line between setting standards for correctness and encouraging risk-taking and experimentation in their writing.  If you want students to write longer stories with more umph to their writing, you need to expect missing letters, punctuation, misspelling, etc.  Agreed!  Let them get "a little messy" and once they've got their idea down, then go back and perfect it.  Don't let that great idea slip away just because of perfectionism the first time.  Let me tell you, my perfectionism requires me to change my product at least 3-5 times before I'm happy with it and I def had some mini-me's in class last year, lol.  And if it is something that they put a lot of heart and effort into, they will also want to make it perfect... eventually.

I loved the lesson routines for this and can't wait to try them!  Like "Notice It! Name It! Try It! and "Gift of a Word."  I'm really excited to incorporate their Literature Response Journals into this reading-writing connection as well.  When they're just writing me a letter about how they feel about their book, they don't realize how many bases they are really covering.  They don't realize how much they are learning and growing!  After the second half of the year I will move from the journals into Kidblog :o)  I also think I'm going to try my hand at Classroom Journals.  I just heard about them and I am in love with the idea!  So I will be creating those shortly to share with y'all.  I'm going to include the Daily 5 (well really 3 - Read to Self, Word Work, and Writing Response) into our routine this year while I'm doing guided reading and after reading this chapter I really felt like a lot of these lesson routines can be included in that along with the must-do's  I'm very excited!

Okay, if you're still here after all of that, I commend you!  You're a trooper!  Make sure you grabbed all the freebies.  In case you missed it, there were about 4 throughout this post, lol.  So now I want to hear from you!  How are you incorporating the reading-writing connection?  Are you like me and pulling a little bit from everything you love or do you have a hard and fast method that you treasure?  Are you as excited as me?!?!  Thanks again for joining me today, it was my first time hosting and I really enjoyed it and appreciate your feedback/love :o)

Sabra

Reader's Toolkit (*FREEBIE*)

Yesterday I gave my review and thoughts on Guiding Readers Chapter 2 and mentioned at the very end about Lori Rog's Reader's Toolkit.  So of course after reading what she had to say about their effectiveness, I had to make my own!  Her Reader's Toolkit is a little bit different in that she spiral binds it (like a book) to hold a little golf pencil.  Really, there are so many different ways to create them and I would love to hear your thoughts and see your Reader's Toolkit!

To create my Reader's Toolkit I simply took a colored file folder and cut it in half.  I also trimmed off the tab so that all edges were straight.  On the inside left I placed three different sizes of sticky notes (you could put anything you want) and I might add some paper clips later on if the lessons call for them.  On the inside right I glued a chart reminding students when it is appropriate to use sticky notes, because let's face it, those suckers are expensive and I don't want kids getting too "sticky happy" throughout the whole year! ;o)  As you can tell, I'm being my regular OCD self and I rounded the corners on the chart once I saw the pictures, LOL.  The back is left blank and to be used as a sticky note holder if for some reason they cannot take their text with them.

If you click on the images below you will be able to download both the front cover and sticky note reminder chart.  I only made 15 of these for my guided reading groups instead of one per student.  Writing down our thoughts while we're reading is definitely a skill (and great strategy) and one I will be teaching to the whole class but reinforcing a lot with my small groups.

 

Do you have your own version of a Reader's Toolkit?  If so I want to hear (and see) all about it!  And totally off topic... Have y'all seen Craft Wars?!?!?!  I AM LOVING IT!!!!!

Sabra