Important Conversations

I had a very important conversation with one of my small groups this week.

It's one of my higher groups (DRA 60) and they're in the middle of Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games.  They're mature enough for it and they picked it because it sounded interesting.

At our first discussion, they set up their notebooks to keep track of characters, settings, vocabulary words, etc.  They were excited.

But slowly over the course of our next few meetings, their enthusiasm for the book changed.  They could answer the comprehension questions, analyze characters and were fully participating...but they weren't enjoying it.

So we had the conversation about how we were truly feeling about the book.  I gave them each a post-it to respond on and sent them away from one another.  I stressed the importance of honestly giving feedback about the book.

When I collected back the post its, three of them didn't want to read it anymore because they simply weren't enjoying it.  One still wanted to finish the novel.

So I pulled them back together and we had the important conversation: it's okay not to love every book you read.  It's also okay not to finish every book you start.

They looked at me completely bewildered.  I went on to explain that sometimes there will be books that you have to read the whole text, even if you don't like it. I went on to explain that our small groups were different.  I wanted them to enjoy reading and to interact with literature.  I wanted them to fall so in love with these characters that when we were done, they would miss them like old friends.  I wanted them to become entranced with the author's word choice, to be so absorbed in their books that they simply don't hear the timer when it goes off and it's time to clean up. I want them to love reading and want to discuss literature.

For that to happen, they have to be making connections with the book they're reading.

As an adult, if I'm not feeling strongly with a book and I'm over half way through, I'll stop because I'm just not that into it.  I wanted my students to know that it's okay to do the same.

I told them they gave it an honest effort (13 chapters).  I told the one who wanted to finish that he would keep it until he was done and let him know what students would love to discuss the ending with him.

We are meeting again on Monday for our final conversation about the differences in the tributes' attitudes toward the Games and what it means before we switch to our new novel:

As a grade level, we ran out of time with reading The Lightning Thief.  So I'm going to start my group toward the end of the novel.  That will be a tad strange for me, jumping right into the end of the book but I think they'll be okay.

From there, we'll continue on through the rest of Rick Riordian's mythological series.  

I haven't done the Percy Jackson with a small group yet and I'm excited for this new opportunity! I know they loved reading it out loud, so I'm hoping we have the same great conversations in our small groups :)

After our conversation, the look on their faces was priceless: relief.  I told them I wish they would have addressed their concerns earlier because I don't want them to struggle to like a book they simply don't.  That's not my goal for small groups.

I want them to love reading. I want to mold them into life long readers.

Tech Tip: Wordle

I blogged about wordle in the beginning of the year because I love using this (free) web 2.0 tool to make our accountable talk posters and norms, like these:

However, I haven't really used it since.  So in the interest of trying new strategies with my small groups, we will keep track of characters in our novels this way :)

So, for example, if I was making a wordle about Hermione Granger, I'd start with brainstorming a list of descriptive words, character traits, quotes, etc.

I'd type up a list in word (so it's easy to edit):

Helpful hints:

1) If I'm using a phrase or more than one word, I have to use a ~ between words with NO spaces.  The ~ is above your tab key if you're on a PC

2) If you want a word to appear larger, type it more than once (ex: her name)

From there, I'd go to wordle and select create:

Then after selecting create, I copy and paste in my list from word:

Then hit go.

From there, I get my wordle:

Which I can customize with the font, layout & color until I get one I like:

From there, I can print or use another web 2.0 tool like Jing to take a snapshot & save as a png (picture).

I can also go back to my list in word and add more words, then repeat the process!

Enjoy!

New Strategy

I saw this idea on pinterest and I'm really excited to try it with my small groups!

I'll have them write down their favorite quotes from the novel we are reading and then justify why they chose those quotes :)

I'm also excited to try it for characters.  Instead of having students keep track of all the characters in the novel, I'll have them keep track of one or two in depth.  When we're done with our book, I'll have them compare and contrast the characters.

This strategy would also work well for settings or interesting words.

I'm excited for them to try this new format in their notebooks!

Acquiring vocabulary

In small groups, one of the skills we work on each day is vocabulary words and "interesting words."  With one of my groups, a student mentioned wanting to add acquire to our list.  We defined the word, found it in context and reviewed the meaning of previously added words.

One of my students turned to me and said "Ms. Vice, I think you've acquired a lot of scarves.  You have a new one each day. I also noticed that most of them are polka dotted."

Yup.  

At least they're owning the vocabulary!

New anchor charts!

Here are some of our updated anchor charts:

Theme and constructed responses:

Affixes:

Greek & Latin Roots:

Inflectional Endings (phonics):

I need more wall space!

8 weeks down!

8 weeks in and things are finally starting to feel normal :)

My students are loving our read aloud of the Lightning Thief and can't wait to figure out who Percy's dad is.  The ones that have seen the movie or read the novel are doing a great job of keeping quiet to not ruin it for the rest of them :)

We analyzed the development of Percy over the first few chapters of The Lightning Thief:

I modeled the first chapter and students worked in groups of 2 or 3 to re-read, looking for specific details about the main character's thoughts, actions and motivations.

We ran out of room in the classroom and since I didn't want to disrupt the learning of the other classrooms, we went outside to share.

Of course, my principal happened to walk by when she was observing PE and monitoring playground duty.  Luckily the student she asked about our learning was able to fully articulate that we worked in small groups to re-read, looking for evidence and recording our thinking on anchor charts.  Granted, he was off task a few moments later but at least he could focus for that short period of time :)

We are finishing up our first set of novels, so my students have posted their charts of our interesting words on our word wall:

Each time they met with me, they shared the words they found in their reading.  I recorded their answers and changed colors each time so they could easily see which words were new.

They also posted their logs for keeping track of characters:

For the Series of Unfortunate Events, it will be interesting to watch these characters develop over the next twelve books.  AM and PM also compared and contrasted the charts that they made and had some great discussions about the novel.

I also posted their writing ideas chart on our anchor chart about writing genres:

On Fridays, we do our formative assessment on our weekly phonics skill.

My students track their own progress:

We glued trackers inside the front cover of their word study notebooks.  On one side is the skill we're working on and on the other is where they record their score as well as if they're emerging, approaching, meeting or exceeding on that skill.

Happy Friday! 

(Unfortunately, this weekend is devoted to grading and preparing for parent-teacher conferences, so it's a good thing next week is only 2 days with one of those days being a field trip!  We plan well!)

Interesting Words

For our read aloud of The Lightning Thief, we've been keeping track of characters, settings and interesting words:

We also keep track of these elements in our small group novels and my students are doing such a great job with our books :)

Of course, I'm still providing vocabulary instruction but it's empowering for the students to pick what words they want to add to our anchor chart.  They feel more ownership over the book and that's a wonderful thing!