Day 3 - 'Fish is Fish'

In this lesson, we continued to learn about multiple perspectives of book characters using the book called, ‘Fish is Fish’. Instead of reading the book aloud, I paired students with a partner and each partner was to read the book’s script together. The students read the parts only for their chosen character, the fish or the frog. Students were required to try to put themselves in their character’s shoes as they read the script and try to feel what it’s like to be the character. As they read through the script, students were required to fill out a ‘Fish is Fish’ Venn diagram, writing down the perspectives of each character.

I think this lesson was somewhat successful. It showed students that again, different book characters can have different perspectives but it also taught students that they can compare these perspectives using a Venn diagram to help them see how similar or different they are. Students can even find perspectives that are the same among the characters. Although the lesson plan has great intentions, I think about half the students were on board. As I observed students while they were reading and filling in their diagrams, I was noticing that many of them were doing just fine. There were others who told me they didn’t know how to fill in the diagram because they had never seen one before. Others were able to fill in the chart but were writing about what happened in the story instead of the actual perspectives of the characters. After the lesson, I looked over their diagrams and saw that there were still some students who had the wrong idea about the task. It was hard for me to tell what the problem was. Was it the directions of the task that was confusing or did they still not know how to depict a character’s perspective? Thankfully, I had used an exit card after the lesson which asked the students, “Which character’s perspective can you relate to? Why?” As I read through them, I was thankful to know that most of the students whom I thought were lost, actually showed understanding of perspective as I read their exit card.

As I think more about the Venn diagram confusion, I was surprised to see that at least some students knew how to use one. The proper use of a Venn diagram was something that I overlooked while I was planning the lesson and never thought to include it as an objective. I never stopped to think that maybe students wouldn’t know how to use one. I just assumed that they would know. So, I was glad to see that some students had no problem filling it in. Some of them even knew about the overlap section and how you can put information that both characters have in common. As I already mentioned, some students were confused on how to use one because they had never seen one before. Because of this, I had to and give extra support and explain to several students how to use it and what it was for.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I will definitely have to teach them what a Venn diagram is and how it is used. How can I expect them to use one if they’ve never been exposed to one before? It will be a good idea to model an example of how to fill it out as well. I will also have to make sure to model how to fill in perspective information so that they are not just writing summary statements about what happened in the book but rather how the characters felt and viewed objects or events. More guidance on the right path will I think, help them stay on track with the learning goal that different perspectives can be compared among book characters and recorded using a Venn diagram.

Day 2 - 'Seven Blind Mice'

My second literacy lesson was very successful as we continued to learn about multiple perspectives. This time, we used the book called ‘Seven Blind Mice’ to help students understand that book characters also have different perspectives and see things differently. To help understand this concept better, I used the analogy, “Walking in someone else’s shoes”. We practiced taking off our shoes and visualizing what it would be like to be a mouse. We visualized how certain objects looked to us, what scared us, where we lived, etc. I really wanted to teach them how to walk in someone else’s shoes so that they could better understand why certain book characters see and feel about different things the way they do. ‘Seven Blind mice’ was fantastic because not only did it reveal seven different perspectives among book characters, but it taught my students that different perspectives will influence the way objects are seen and described. As I read the book aloud, I stopped after each mouse’s perspective was revealed. Students had the task of using a perspective chart to record the individual mouse’s perspective through either a drawing or by writing about it. The directions were not too specific, just that they write or draw about what each mouse saw as it was portrayed in the book. In the end, they had seven different recordings for each of the seven mice. This activity helped students to further think about each of the character’s perspective and compare it to other perspectives in the book.

Thinking about the lesson and based on their perspective charts, I had no evidence that any students struggled with the concept. However, I noticed that some students perhaps understood the concept more clearly than others. As I looked over their perspective charts, I noticed that some students drew their illustrations using a deeper knowledge of perspective. For example, in a drawing of the green mouse and how it perceived the object to be a snake, the student drew the mouse looking upward to the snake and the mouse was much smaller than the snake as well. Here, the student clearly understood perspective and that from the mouse’s perspective, indeed the snake should be much larger than the mouse and therefore, it should be looking upward if it would be looking at all. Many other students drew the mice smaller than the objects or even the same size of the objects. After seeing this, it was hard to know what they knew about the mice’s point of view. I asked myself many questions such as, “Do the students really know how to walk in a character’s shoes? How do students think these objects appeared in the eyes of the mouse? Did they think the mouse seen them as something much smaller, bigger or the same? So, although I knew that they understood the concept of perspective from yesterday and even tried to predict an author’s perspective, I was wondering if they learned how to see the perspective from a book character’s eyes. I wondered if they really could walk in the character’s shoes.

My objective for the task was for students to record the different perspectives or the things that the mice saw the object to be. It did not include for students to accurately portray the perspective itself. In other words, I didn’t expect for students to illustrate HOW the mice viewed the object or what it looked like FROM the mouse’s view. Although it was not required, I was happy to see that some students made some very accurate illustrations showing me that they were able to visualize and walk in the mouse’s shoes to help them see what the object looked like from the mouse’s perspective.

I think that for future lessons, I will instruct students to do this as well. This way, students aren’t merely just drawing pictures, but they are using critical thinking skills too. It will be important that I model this so that they know what is expected of their illustrations. And I will have to explain my thought processes to show them how I developed my picture. Furthermore, I will continue to give the students the option of writing or drawing but if they choose to write about the mice’s perspective, they will be required to not only tell me WHAT the mouse saw but, explain HOW the mice saw the objects. This is something I will have to model beforehand as well. Hopefully, the adjustment of this lesson plan will help future students practice walking in a character’s shoes as well as practice their critical thinking skills.

Day 1 - Multiple Perspectives

My first literacy lesson on multiple perspectives went very well. The students learned the meaning of perspective and that different people have many different views or ideas, causing them to see the big picture differently. This lesson was a lot of fun for the students and based on their feedback in class, I think they understood the concept well. Their task was to use a small piece of a picture, which was given, and illustrate the big picture that they think it belongs to. After they finished, I had individual students share their drawings with the class, they used language that hinted to me their knowledge about the concept. Students said things such as, “This is the way I saw it”, “I thought about it differently than April”, and “Me and Sam saw the same thing.” I would also take the time to ask students the question, “What was your perspective?” Students knew how to respond appropriately by answering things like, “When I looked at the picture, I thought it belonged to a turtle.” “My perspective was cool…I thought it was a crown on a king.”

This feedback was very useful as it showed me they really had a grasp on the meaning of perspective. We were further able to analyze perspective as I showed them what the picture piece actually belonged to. The picture piece came from the book, “Zoom”. In this book, each page that you flip shows how the small picture piece fit into a larger picture. It’s literally like you are zooming out further and further until you see the ultimate, big picture. The students absolutely loved this book and they wanted a chance to make predictions about the author’s perspective as well as give their own. Since many students were so interested in thinking like the author, I gave them time to predict what he was thinking before we flipped the pages and share aloud with the class. This practice extended beyond my overall lesson objectives. Nowhere in my plans did I intend for them to predict an author’s perspective. It was nice to learn that my students were able and willing to think critically on their own.

This lesson also taught me that my students have such a creative imagination and have very good drawing skills as well. I was impressed with some of the things they came up with and their ability to portray their thoughts into an illustration simply amazed me. By no means did they try to ‘play it safe’ with their ideas. Most students really took the time to think outside of the box and made sure to accurately portray them into their drawings. Most of them included fine detail and covered up the entire page with illustration. Some students even had text in their drawings. Their work was another example of them performing beyond my lesson objectives.

Out of the entire lesson, I think there was only one student who struggled with the concept. When it was time for students to make their illustration, the student seemed lost and confused, I restated the directions to him the best that I could and told him to try his best. After the lesson, when I was looking at all of the drawings, I noticed he turned in a blank piece of paper. I’m not sure what he didn’t understand, whether it was the concept itself or if it was just the directions that confused him. I think that for students like him, I may have needed to explain the directions of the task more clearly. I think I should’ve used a visual model of how to take a piece of the picture and illustrate it into a much larger picture. I should’ve modeled how to draw my picture as well as modeled all of my thought processes as I went along.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I would definitely keep all of the components since for the most part, they were very successful. Although, as I already stated, I will have to make sure that I model how to do an illustration using a small picture piece. I will make sure that students see how I’m doing it and also hear my thought processes at the same time. Perhaps this will make the directions more clear and ALL students will know how to do their own drawing. Another thing that I may change for future lessons is extend the objectives by having students think about the author’s perspective while going through the Zoom book. I thought it was fantastic that the students not only thought of their own perspective but took the time to try to think of someone else’s. This activity could really enhance student learning as it helps them to practice critical thinking skills, something that they will need to have later on in the unit. This is definitely something that could be practiced with future students.

Lit Lesson Three Reflection

Visualizing with Setting Emphasis

I don't think many students struggled with this lesson. There was no note taking so it made it different for the students who were struggling previously. After reading a few paragraphs from Charlotte's Web and having students visualize their barn, sharing with their partner of what their barn "looked like" was difficult. I changed this then to have students draw what their barn "looked like." This made sharing and comparing easier than simply describing. During the quick write to music (it worked!) all students were engaged. Even the few who struggle with note taking got some ideas down on paper.

When first thinking about the quick write idea (describing a setting while listening to instrumental music as inspiration) I thought the idea would flop with students. I was sure to model this, and was very serious about it. In the second group, they started having conversation as I was writing to music, so I stopped the music and made sure I had everyone with me before continuing. Their reactions to it were great- during my writing, I asked if everyone visualized what I had visualized, and of course, they had not. Some had really great ideas. When we moved on to their own quick write, I played it once, then again. In the second group, after I played it the first time, their ideas EXPLODED in the classroom. After getting them to quiet down, I explained they could continue writing, maybe hear something different this time, or draw their setting. When students shared what they came up with, I was floored. They had such a good time with it, and everyone had multiple ideas, different ideas from their peers. Some students thought of a Christmas setting, while others thought African, some thought rain forests, some though dancing- the list goes on. I was so excited by this that I want to continue this maybe longer than I had anticipated in my unit. Perhaps I will even have music playing on certain days of our writing workshops.

My student's ability to brainstorm creatively a setting while listening to music today floored me. Their ideas were great, though some were a bit out of topic with setting. once again I think this leads to the question, What is setting? Which I will continue to address throughout our unit to assure students get the understanding down. When I do this next, I will stress what setting is. My students also surprise me with a lack of descriptive vocabulary. This is something that I will address and perhaps make a reference sheet of descriptive words for their use throughout the unit and into other writing as well.

I will always recap our comprehension strategies as the unit unfolds. I can ask a student to explain what visualizing means in terms of comprehension. I can introduce what we did, or have a student introduce what we did during our quick write, to help students that were not here when I modeled it. Without modeling again, I believe these students can pick up on the concept when talking to their peers. Like in the last two posts, to ensure the book chapters are read, I can allow students to take home a book in trade for their I.D., allow time during L.A.F. to catch up on reading, or listen to the chapter either here at school, or have a cd for students to take home (perhaps allow a trade of cd for I.D.).

If I were to change this lesson, I would give better instruction when visualizing the barn from Charlotte's Web. By giving better instruction, I was ask students to draw a quick sketch of their barn. I had several students who "didn't finish" and I would stress the point of the activity, to visualize a barn, but to quickly sketch it to compare to their neighbor's. I like how everything went with the quick write- modeling to a 1:00 piece, then having the students quick write to a 4:00 piece, twice. Now, perhaps I would change the piece to be a longer one, and not play it through twice. This would not save time, but may save attention. I would also have already had a discussion on descriptive words to ensure that students are writing quality descriptions during their quick writes. This is something I will include in further lessons.

Lit Lesson Two Reflection

Types of Fantasy & Questioning

As with the first lesson, the same students had similar problems. Two boys this time (including the student who had trouble in Lesson One) had trouble copying down the notes presented about the different types of literature. Again, I had the thought that writing these definition would help students in learning and internalizing these different types of fantasy. The boy who had problems yesterday was paying attention, for he had written the examples down of the types of fantasy, though failed to write the definitions. The other student who was having trouble focusing to write had simply not written anything at all. When I came around to his desk, he even had his paper pushed up out of his way. I'm not sure what he was doing, if he was paying attention at all or not, but he has a tendency to be off task as well. The majority of the other students did not have trouble taking notes. Again, I think of how I could change the structure of note taking to ensure that these students do get the information I want them to have. The same girls had trouble seeing the projection, so they came up front to read and copy the notes down. While reading the book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, some students in the second group had a hard time focusing, and were causing distractions. We had a substitute in the afternoon, and perhaps they were riled up from lunch, but this lesson was a struggle for a handful of students in the second group.

The first group I had was able to have time to work on their comprehension questions in class, but the second group did not. I monitored students using sticky notes as I read the chapters aloud- I originally was going to have them silent/partner read, but with the amount of books and time we had, I decided to read it aloud instead. I required students to write at least 2 questions on their sticky note, but many students had more than that. I monitored the first group in their writing of questions more than I had the second group, for a question on their comprehension sheet was to list the two questions they had written while reading, and the second group I wasn't able to give time to work on these questions. The class as a whole has a hard time writing in complete sentences to answer these questions. I hadn't mentioned it in the first lesson, but for this lesson I did. I still saw many students writing minimal word answers. The student feedback when presenting the notes on types of fantasy and examples of those types was interesting. Many students gave movies or t.v. shows as examples, although I had books in mind. Shows the change in the times I suppose. Many of the examples students gave I wasn't able to confirm or deny because I had not been familiar with them. This made it hard to judge their understanding of the genre. I gave examples of my own, and had multiple books to show as examples. This lesson was meant to scaffold their understanding into successfully being able to select a fantasy book when going to the library later in the week.

As I was saying before, I was amazed at how many examples students were coming up with for types of fantasy that indeed were not fantasy books, rather movies or t.v. shows. This just shows that my students' generation are immersed much more in technology-based stories than hard bound stories. It was very smart of them to be able to make that connection so smoothly, but as it was for me, it was harder to be okay with that connection, though I know fantasy spills over into movies, t.v. shows and arguably music/games as well. If I were to teach this unit again, I would focus it on Fantasy as a whole instead of focusing it on just literature, for my students will experience fantasy not only through books, and perhaps not mainly through books. Their difficulty in writing in full sentences may be just a habit of laziness, but it surprises me that they are not into the habit of answering in full sentences yet. We will work on this as the unit goes on.

As discussed in Lesson One's post, for students who miss the chapters read in class, I could allow them to take a book home in exchange for their I.D., let them stay in for L.A.F. and read the chapters they've missed or listen to them on CD, or I could provide them with a CD of the chapters missed to listen to at home. If they miss the notes in class today, I expect them to copy the notes the next day, but without time to do so, I will make copies of my hand written notes to provide for them since it is a lot of writing to catch up on. Another way I could do that with the notes is to give them a blank copy and my copy, to take home and copy as homework. This way they are still getting the experience of writing and reading the definitions in order to complete the homework. If students stil need help picking out a book at the library that's of a fantasy genre, I could refer them back to the different types of fantasy, and help them find a book by asking questions to ensure that the book is of the fantasy genre.

If I were to teach the lesson again, I would likely change the way of taking notes. Perhaps I'd have copies at the desks to help students who have trouble seeing, have less writing for students who have trouble concentrating, or provide copies of my notes for students who did not finish by the end of our time. I would ideally have enough books for each student, and enough time, to have them practice questioning on their own while reading silently. I may pick a book for me to model with that isn't as long as Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, to allow for more time to read independently.

Lit Lesson One Reflection

Introduction to Fantasy - Elements of Fantasy

Most students were engaged in the lesson, following along with the reading of Jumanji and The BFG, yet some trailed during the note-taking. One student in particular had a really hard time with taking notes. I would write the notes over the Elmo, and occasionally walk around to make sure students were on task. This student had only a few words form each line written down, and was always playing with something else, or trying to have a conversation with someone when I would walk around. This isn't something new, he has attention problems, and has admitted to me that it is hard for him to work in groups, he concentrates best when it's silent. Now reflecting on the lesson, I wonder how I could have framed it to benefit him. Perhaps I could have sent him into the hall with my mentor teacher to take the notes and talk him through. If I didn't have her in the room, I could still have sent him to the hall, but I would worry that he wouldn't understand elements or be off task. In the other homebase, two students had trouble seeing the notes, so they moved up front to have a better view of them in order to copy down. I think there are benefits in writing down something vs. reading it, but perhaps for these students, having the notes already typed would be helpful.

With the comprehension questions, I expected students would write thoughtful answers and not have trouble with opinion questions. Most students wrote minimal word answers, and a handful of students had asked me what a question means. I thought I had made them quite straightforward. An opinion question, "How did this chapter make you feel?" had many students hung up. Some students had asked what "different font" means in the following question, "On page 13, the author uses a different font for some words. Why do you think he did that?" I specifically used a different font when typing "different font" to help students understand the word font, though some did not catch the clue.

When taking notes on the fantasy elements including Fantasy, Plot, Characters, Dialogue, Conflict, Setting (What makes it a Fantasy ______?), it came up in discussion what some of these elements mean. I was assuming that students knew what these elements of a story meant, but in actuality, many did not know what Plot, Conflict, or Setting really meant. I easily adapted by providing definitions, and asking for repetition, but it caught me off guard. When talking about these terms in future lessons, I have provided quick definitions to ensure understanding. We will work with each of these elements more in depth as we read The BFG, so I can provide extra support while looking for the elements in the book as well.

As stated above, I will be sure to support the meanings of the terms Plot, Characters, Dialogue, Conflict and Setting as the lessons proceed. For students who have missed instruction including reading of The BFG, I can offer to stay in during L.A.F. and read and/or listen to the chapter. I could also allow the books to go home in exchange for their school I.D. (they cannot get their I.D. back unless I get the book back). For students who missed the notes, during our quick write the next day (review of the notes) I allowed students who missed the notes to copy the notes together at the back table. I briefly explained each one as they wrote.

I, ideally, would have enough books for each student (we are getting more later in the week) so that they could each handle a book, instead of reading in partners. I think this would focus more attention to following along in the book. I would first have a mini-lesson on what Plot, Characters, Setting, Dialogue, and Conflict mean in a story. I would have extra copies of notes that were already written, to help to provide students with poor eyesight, or attention span, to have a copy at their desk to copy, or to have one if they did not finish copying everything down.

Literacy Lesson Day 3- Making Predictions

On the third day of my unit my students practiced making predictions. I started class by asking students to tell me what a prediction is. They have been making many predictions in science, so they were able to tell me that it is a guess about what might happen. I really wanted to emphasize to them that when we are making a prediction there is no right or wrong. I then asked them to tell me what would be good things to include in a prediction. As a class the students decided that they should explain why they think their prediction was going to happen and use evidence from the book to support their ideas.

We did popcorn reading and then it was time for the students to make their predictions. Some of the students really struggled and I heard from many of them that they could not make a prediction because they did not know what was going to happen next. Many of them seemed concerned about making an incorrect prediction. As a result I had quite a few students read ahead or look at the end of the book to find out what was going to happen.

Students also had a hard time explaining why they thought their prediction was going to happen. They could explain in detail what they thought was going to happen but it was difficult for them to really explain why. After talking with me about their prediction they were usually able to pinpoint what in the book or their background knowledge helped them make the prediction, but it was hard for them to figure it out on their own.

I can tell that my students are still going to need more practice making predictions and using text to support their ideas. They are so used to just writing what they think that it is still difficult for them to have to explain their ideas. The next day I shared some of the better predictions that students made and asked the class to tell me what made the predictions so good. I think that it helped other students to see how their peers were using details from the book and their background knowledge to make predictions and explain their thoughts.

Literacy Lesson Day 2-Making Connections

On the day of my second lesson, I wanted my students to work on making text-to-self connections. I began the lesson talking about making connections to what we are reading and I gave an example of a connection I made to the chapter we read the day before. I then asked students to share any connections they made with the previous chapters. A few students were willing to share their connections, and I made sure to point out to the class the importance of using evidence from the text to support their ideas.

I put my students in pairs and had them read the next chapter to each other. Then they were to discuss the chapter and individually respond to a writing prompt. The prompt asked them if they ever felt like the main character did when she thought about running away. I thought that this would be an easy prompt for the students to respond to because most young children have considered running away from home a one point or another. But I was surprised to hear many of my students say that they couldn’t respond to the prompt because they did not have any connections to the book. A lot of my boys told me that since the main character is a girl they are not able to relate to her or have any connections to her. The students were thinking very literally about the concept of making connections and were not able to think of more in depth ideas.

If I were to teach this lesson again I would spend more time talking about making connections. I would explain more about how we do not have to experience the same exact thing as what is happening in the book in order to have a connection to the text. I might even read a short story and have the students practice making connections with it and talk about the connections as a class so that students could see more examples of how to make connections to what they are reading.

Linda Nguyen-Reflections (Daily Lessons 1,2, and 3)

My first daily plan was to introduce the new book we were starting for the unit, Tuck Everlasting.  We started off talking about fantasy novels in general to introduce the unit and we learned what different elements are unique to fantasy books.  Then, students learned ways to explore the book without actually reading the text within the book yet.   We took time to look at the cover, title, and other experts in the book to help us discover what the book may be about.  Students learned that from just looking at the exterior of the book can engage them as readers and help them to set up what the novel could be about.
After exploring the book I read the prologue aloud.  Before reading I instructed students to listen for main events that seem to have connections with other events.  I reminded students that important events are events that give us more insight to coming events that are going on in the story and that they should not be just minor details.  After I read the prologue aloud I asked students to list off events  that they thought were important to remember for the rest of the book.  The first couple answers were right on target of main events that the author explicitly noted in the prologue.  However, some students listed off details that were not as focused, such as the time of day or year it was.  We also discussed the author's style of writing and how she wrote in a way the was suspenseful.  Students made very valid points of how the author created suspense, but after a few students said there answer many students would repeat previous answers.  Another concept students learned was to use the descriptions in the book to create a visualization of setting. 

I had a few students that struggled with transitioning from me reading and then writing written responses.  Those students kept asking, "what are we suppose to be doing?", even after I gave examples and explicit directions.  These students also did not want to read the book at all and seem to have little interest in the fantasy genre.
For many of my students I learned that they are very insightful on picking out main events from the book.  Most were also very engaged and excited to read what was going to happen next.  I also learned that students are able to make predictions by connecting what they know and using it to form interpretive guesses on what will happen next in the story. 

Some students in my class are slower readers than others.  Even though I have different fluency levels in my class I wanted to read the first portion of the book aloud so that all students could follow along and focus more on the events that happened and less on their own fluency.    For students that were still struggling I will talk with them one on one while the rest of the class is writing their responses and be more explicit of what we are doing and what they should be thinking about. 

If I were to teach the same lesson again I would be sure to only pick one focus for the lesson.   I think I tried to pack too much into one day with connecting events, investigating the book, looking at the author's style of writing, and the reading skill of visualization.  If I were to do it again I would narrow my focus and look at just initially investigating the book and connecting events of the prologue.  I think if I was more focus on just a few objectives it would be a good pace for students to really engage in those skills and that they could devote more time and thought to those areas instead of rushing and spreading out the time too thin.  I would also like to emphasize that the skills we are using are the skills that my students can continually use as they read other books outside of class.  I want students to know that these skills can help them become better readers in general.

Lesson Reflection Day 1

In my unit, students will be practicing a variety of ways to process text while reading the book Tuck Everlasting. They will also be looking at the elements of the fantasy genre.

Today was the first day of the unit and I think that the lesson went very well. I started off my reading the prologue aloud to my students and then together as a class we completed a triple venn diagram to see how the events in the prologue were connected. My students have used venn diagrams before, but I made sure that I reviewed what information went in each space. The students did very well with filling out the venn diagram. I told them that they had to use their books to find details in the text to support their answers. We have asked students to use details from their text before, but that has been something that they forget to do. Today they were able to give me many details from the book and explain why they thought those details were important.

I also read the first chapter aloud to my students. The author used many descriptive words to describe the main setting of the book. While I was reading I asked my students to visualize what the author was describing and draw the setting. A few paragraphs were hard for my students to understand, so I would reread those sentences and talk about them more to help students understand what they author was trying to say. If students were having a hard time drawing their pictures, I had them look back through the chapter to reread the descriptions of the setting. Once the students were finished with their pictures, I had them share their drawings with their partner and explain what details from the book they included in the picture. Some of my students struggle with writing, so they really like being able to draw and explain their ideas instead of having to write them out.

From looking at the drawings that my students made I can see that some of them were able to understand the text and that others still need some help. The author uses many metaphors and some of the students need help with understanding what she is trying to say. But overall their drawings included many of the important details from the text. The venn diagrams had many great details because we did them together as a class. Some of the students have difficulty finding similarities between things. They notice small things like that both characters are girls, but it is hard for them to make bigger connections.

We will be revisiting the venn diagram later to add new details that we have read. So I am going to talk more about trying to find the important connections to help the students who are struggling with that. All throughout the book I am going to be asking students to find descriptive words and to be thinking about how these words help them visualize the story better.

If I were to teach this lesson again one thing I might change would be how I did chapter one. I think I would read the chapter once with students following along in their own books. Then I would have them put their books down and listen to me read the chapter again while they draw the setting. I think that it would be easier for them to find the details of the setting if they had multiple exposures to the text and if they had an opportunity to see and hear the text.

Summarizing and Using Textbooks

This week I chose to read chapters 11 and 14 in Strategies that Work.

Chapter 11 is about summarizing and synthesizing information. I chose to read this chapter because at the end of the month my students have a book report due and part of their book report requires them to briefly summarize the story they read. Summarizing text is still a challenge for many of my fifth graders. It is difficult for them to decide which details are important to retell and which details are not needed. In the section called “Writing a Short Summary,” (p.188-189) the teacher tells her students to consider three things when they are summarizing a text. 1) Pick out the most important ideas. 2) Keep it brief. 3) Say it in your own words in a way that makes sense. I think that the third idea is the most important. Many of my students want to just rewrite what is written in their books. But they will have a better understanding of what they read if they are able to say it using their own words. I think that to help my students understand summarizing, it would be good to summarize something together as a class. Then students who are struggling can see how other people summarize.

Chapter 14 is about reading to understand textbooks. I think that the most important thing in this chapter is that students need to be taught how to use a textbook. Textbooks are full of resources such as glossaries, indexes, maps, charts, and other helpful pieces of information. But unless we teach our students how to use these things they will not be able to take advantage of what their textbooks have to offer. At the start of the year my MT had our students do a scavenger hunt of their social studies textbook so that they could become familiar with the different parts of the book. I think this was a good idea because she was also able to explain how to use different parts of the book when they went over the answers as a class. In this chapter they also talked about teaching students how to take notes from textbooks (p. 238). I think this is really important because textbooks an have so much information that it can be hard for students to pick out the important details. (Just like it can be hard for them to pick out the important details when they are summarizing what they read.)

What chapters did you choose to read from Strategies that Work? What did you think was interesting or important?

Creating Mental Movies

From reading chapter 9 of Strategies That Work I've realize that visualizing and inferring a book are two mental processes at are connected.  "When we visualize, we are in fact inferring, but with mental images rather than words and thoughts" (p.131).  Students that are able to infer can understand a book implicitly.  Inferring entails an "umbrella" of avenues where students can understand a book.  Inferring kind of reminds of being a detective where students use explicit evidence from the book, such as language and context to creating a deeper understanding of what the book is about.

When reading any kind of book making mental movies or visualizing what is happening is what makes reading exciting.  The authors make an interesting point on pg. 132 about books turned into movies.  I agree with the authors' statement that something is lost from the a book when it's transformed and shorted to fit a average time frame of a movie.  However,  I think movies are a resource to enhance thinking with students.  I believe that students should be reading books rather than trying to just watch the movie to get the essence of a book.  However, after reading a book it would be good a to watch the movie of it.  I watching the movie about a book could clear up misunderstanding and create discussions of similarities and differences of the book and movie.  What are your opinions of showing videos that were made from a novel?

Chapter 9 also gives great lessons on how to encourage students to visualize and infer.  I really like the lesson of "Visualizing with Wordless Picture Books" on page 133.  I originally thought that using books where the author uses detailed descriptions would be the best what for students to visualize.  However, this lessons showed me that even with picture books visualizing with wordless books helps readers build meaning as they go" and offer many opportunities for students to "fill in" pictures between the pages.  Is there a wordless picture book that you word recommend to use for a lesson like this?

Feedback from Cheryl

Hello Funky Fireflies,  You are all doing a great job of reading carefully and making key connections to your classroom experiences. I am seeing more and more interaction within your blog posts with a thread of an idea being followed through in others' posts so that your blog is becoming very conversational.  Now I'd like to encourage you to take the next step and share any insights/thoughts/comments or disagreements you have with any ideas posted so that you are challenging one another and pushing each others' thinking. This doesn't need to be done in a critical way--it can be more in the spirit of 'devil's advocate' or just, "I was wondering..."  You're off to a great start with your blog!

Rubrics - A Good Assessment Tool?

This week my MT gave me the opportunity to instruct an ‘All About Me’ PowerPoint lesson for the kids. This technology is very new for the students and some have never even heard of a PowerPoint before. My job for the next few weeks is to introduce them to them to the technology and instruct a lesson or two on how to create a presentation that reads many things about who they are. Furthermore, I must create a rubric to help me assess not only their PowerPoint skills but also their writing content, spelling and grammar. I must say, I am pretty stumped on how to design a rubric for this task.

“Make Assessment Count”, from “Writing Essentials” was eye opening for me. Routman talked about many important things such as putting rubrics into perspective. As I began to write my rubric, I automatically wrote a list of things that my students must write about in their presentations. At first this sounded like a good idea but, Routman makes a lot of sense when he suggests that this “sends a message to students that writing to the formula matters, not the content.” I guess if students were told what to write about, it limits their own development of ideas. And if one of our goals as teachers is for our student’s writing to improve, we must assess writing with a broader lens. How else will our students become ‘free’ writers?

Rubrics do have a good purpose of helping students stay on track of the task and help teachers evaluate and prepare further instruction as needed. However, when it comes to using rubrics, Routman clearly says, “Don’t overdo it.” But, it’s important not to focus so much on a checklist that you end up losing track of what the child is trying to do, which may be something not in the rubric but something worth positive recognition. Routman says, “It is not advisable to apply rubrics to all writing nor to score all writing. Just as our students need lots of practice reading many texts without expectation that they will be assessed on everything they read, they need lots of practice writing without being assessed on everything they write.”

I’m really glad to have read this during the time of trying to design my own rubric. And although I am indeed using a rubric, I will try not to ‘rubricize’ my students, as Routman puts it. I will give my students the freedom to develop their own ideas in their presentations and try to pay attention to the big picture at what my students are trying to say. I actually love the idea of creating a child-friendly rubric as mentioned in the chapter. If there will be guidelines, I guess the least I can do is collect student’s input as to what they want to include in the rubric. What do you all think about rubrics? Do any of you have ideas for how to design a rubric without ‘rubricizing’ students? What assessment tools have you seen or used that you really like working within your classrooms?

Book Love.

While reading though Chapter 5 of Harvey & Goudvis' Strategies That Work, many of my favorite "long text" books and many "short text" favorites popped into my head. The authors provide the advice, "Choose those books that serve your purpose or that you love, and teach with those" (p.61). Many times I will run across a text or a passage and think, I'd love to share this with someone. Due to my lack of personal book club circles, I quickly think to share the beloved reading with my students. Harvey & Goudvis suggest this too, "The next time you read an article, a poem, or a short story that really grabs you, think about why. Don't just toss it away. Clip it and file it even if you don't know exactly how you will use it later. In all likelihood, you will find a place for it in your teaching sooner or later" (p.63). There are an infinite amount of ways to incorporate passages, short texts, or long that we find appealing into our classrooms.

Further into the chapter, the focus turns to picture books. Being in a Kindergarten classroom last year, I encountered numerous picture books, mostly aimed at a young audience. But were they? Picture books could be used for multiple purposes across all grade levels. Jump starting a lesson in an engaging way, creating conversation among students, mini lessons on reading techniques- all these purposes can be considered when deciding whether or not to bring a picture book into an upper elementary or secondary classroom. But going back to the idea of using text that you personally love, Harvey & Goudvis express their opinion. "The best reason of all to read a picture book to a group of students is simply because you love it" (p.69).

An absolute favorite picture book of mine is Oh the Places You'll Go, by the infamous Dr. Seuss. I loved this book so much, that I used my childhood copy as a guestbook at my high school graduation open house. Now it holds extra special meaning, as I can thumb through it at any given moment and read comments from favorite family and friends. If I were to use this book in a classroom, I may even use my very own copy with the comments, to show an insight into my own life, and to open up conversation throughout the class to get to know each other better. In an academic sense, I could incorporate this book into teaching/finding poetic devices (repetition, rhyme). This would also be a good book to end a year, motivating students to keep moving forward. :-)

To weed out what not to use, the authors suggest considering purpose, audience, genre, topic, writing quality and text structure (p.63-4). Having listed these, and thinking back to some favorite readings, do you have any books/picture books/short text/passages that you would consider a favorite and one to share with your classroom? What could you possibly use that reading for?

Spelling

Regie Routman has some great ideas that she shares in Writing Essentials. The topic that stood out the most to me in chapters 7-9 was spelling. According to Routman, “Students who struggle mightily with spelling or worry unnecessarily about perfect spelling do not write fluently or easily.” (p. 161) But in the age of spell check, I feel like spelling has been pushed to the side in many schools.

In my school, the fifth grade teachers decided to forego their usual spelling program this year because they felt they could use their class time in a more productive way. I grew up always having a spelling test at the end of each week, so I was curious to see how my teacher would integrate spelling into her literacy teaching.

I think that even without using a specific spelling program, teachers can help their students become better spellers and Routman gave some great tips on how to do this. Her first tip is to create a learning environment that encourages students to be good spellers. This includes having spelling references available, opportunities to write, talk, and read about words, and time to write everyday. (p. 162) She also says that teachers need to value spelling approximations. When students learn how to spell by rote memorization, they are not necessarily learning how letters and sounds work. But students who are given the opportunity to use invented spelling can gain a better understanding of the spelling system and are likely to write more since they are focused on spelling every word correctly. (p. 162)

Routman cautions not to let invented spellings go too far though. She says that while it is okay for students to misspell unfamiliar words, they should be expected to spell frequently used words. Many spelling errors in a paper can make it difficult for a reader to concentrate on what the author is trying to say. So a final tip from Routman is to tell our students why correct spelling is important. Unless students understand the importance of spelling, they are unlikely to give it the attention it deserves. (p. 164)

Routman’s views on spelling were especially interesting to me since it is a topic that has been discussed at my school recently. How does your teacher approach spelling instruction? Do you think weekly spelling tests are important? What else did you find interesting in Writing Essentials?

Linda Nguyen-Be explicit!

Through the readings I came across one strategy that may sound simple, but is a good platform to build on my philosophy of literacy-be explicit!
 When reading chapter one of Strategies that Work I was challenged to be explicit and model to my students the way good readers read.  Sometimes I forget how much students gain from simply watching the actions of their teacher.  Knowing the influence teachers have on students, I'm more aware of modeling to my students what I'm trying to teach them.  In TE class this past Thursday I remember a student talking about D.E.A.R time and that during this time students and teachers in the classroom would drop everything and read.  I thought this was one great example of how to model reading, but in the book being explicit is taken to a deeper level.  The book gives an example of a teacher that picks out a book to read to the class that she personally connects to.  During the reading the teacher explains what she is thinking while she is reading and how she is connecting to the characters in the book out loud.  She also put in sticky notes in the book as she's reading to help her remember parts where she had a strong connection with what was happening in the book.   So many times in the classrooms I've observed I've seen teachers read aloud to their students, but rarely have I seen teachers share their personal connections and thinking.  Seeing the students reaction in sharing about stories that connected with them showed me the power of leading by example. Do you have any examples of explicit literary teaching?  If so, did it seem to be a good model for your students to follow?