Revisiting Summaries

We've needed another refresher of summaries.  Perhaps it's because of winter break, but my students seem to have forgotten that summaries are more than 4 words long.

Sigh, review time.

I used Lon Po Po so we could learn about folk tales from other countries while also reviewing summaries (RL 3.2).  I like opportunities to imbed multiple skills at once.

We read the story and I had students work in partners to write a summary.

 

The next day, I read all the summaries and we gave feedback to one another.  From there, I took all their ideas and created an anchor chart:

 However, we took it one step further with color coding the parts (somebody, wanted, but,so, then).  

I had student helpers:

By including my students in the process, there is more engagement.  While the anchor charts aren't always pinterest quality, there is a benefit of making them with the students.  If you present a pre-made one, they have no investment.  It's something the teacher did.  However, if you make it with them and include their ideas, they feel more connected to the content. 

On day 3, we read this book:

We reviewed summaries, started talking about the lesson learned (pre-teaching theme), and compared and contrasted the story with Disney's version.

Many of my students have cultural ties to Mexico, so by chosing this story, not only am I addressing the multi-cultural parts of the standards, but I'm validating and embracing their culture.  We talked about the beautiful art work, I had student helpers read the Spanish phrases in the book, and my students felt celebrated.  

 

Somebody Wanted But So...

One of the strategies I've been trying with my small reading groups is "somebody wanted but so".  I create a chart with those categories and we collaboratively fill in the boxes.  It's a very guided approach to summarizing and my students are having a lot of fun with it.

Example: (the Lost Hero)

Piper (somebody) wanted to rescue her dad and stay loyal to her friends but she was worried how she could do both so she told Jason and Leo about her problem and they decided to help her.

I also found this on pinterest:

I like that it adds the "then" category for students to explain how the problem was solved.  This teacher suggests using post-its and I think that would be a great way to introduce the concept, but I wouldn't necessarily use it every time.

#95! Comprehension Question Stems

I'm pleased to announce my favorite center is now available on TpT!

I'm an advocate of guided release, which means over the course of our school year, I relinguish more and more control to my students.  This comprehension station perfectly aligns with this teaching practice.

This mega center (50+ pages) includes question stems to help students guide their own discussions.  It is color coded and includes different fonts for easy clean up!

The skills that students will practice are:

Snapshots of the center:

This product is priced at $6.00 on TpT, which is quite a bargain considering it is 59 pages long!

The best part is this station can be used for literature or informational text! (The second best parts are that the center is in color and uses fun chevron prints!)

New Colossus

In whole group reading, we are loosely following another school district's long range plans and mentor texts.  They did a good job with spiraling and using authentic literature & informational text for the Common Core State Standards.  

We worked on poetry and many students were struggling with identifying theme, looking for figurative language and summarizing stanzas.

So their must do this week involved the poem New Colossus.  I picked this poem because it is challenging and within the 5-6 band of suggested poetry.  

Each day they read the poem independently with a different purpose.  Thursday they compared notes with a neighbor and Friday we talked about it as a class.  

Here are some snap shots of their note taking:

I think they did a great job.  A few figured out the poem was about the Statue of Liberty, but once I revealed that, there were quite a few "a ha!" moments, or as we call them, brain fireworks. 

I then had them reread the poem, this time looking for clues that the poet used to reveal the subject of the poem.

They had a lot of fun with it, so I think I'll make a poetry station where they glue in poems & practice this strategy.  I'll type up a list of what I expect for each read through and have them switch marker colors each time they read.  By doing one marker color per read/per purpose, it holds them accountable to all the steps without them even realizing it :)

Happy reading!

Casey at the Bat

This week we read Casey at the Bat and after days of reading and re-reading this poem, we are done!  Here is a snapshot of some of my students' work:

We take our learning very seriously and are getting ready for our academic futures with lots of interaction with our text!  It's not enough to read the poem and answer questions, we dug much, much deeper.  We discussed the text structure of poetry, found examples of figurative language and rhyming patterns.  We looked at how the mood changed over time and how Casey was portrayed (as a hero).  

We summarized the stanzas, looked for themes and backed up our themes with quotes and evidence from the poem.

Then today we watched this school tube clip to analyze how the poem is similar and different from its multimedia counterpart.  

Next week as an extension (and because we need a little more practice with poems), we're doing Casey's Revenge.

Happy reading!

Themes & Poetry

This week we are working on poetry.  Specifically, we're reviewing text structure, figurative language, theme and summarizing a poem.  We're also working collaboratively to summarize the stanzas, identify characters' feelings, locate shifts in mood and practice note taking on the text to become more engaged readers.

We used the poem Casey at the Bat this week and broke it up into a 3 day unit.  The first day was the "I do" where I modeled the skills we're working on, the second day we did as a class and the third day they did part with a partner and the rest for homework.

Then I re-read the entire poem, thus modeling the importance of re-reading for information.  We then referred to our theme chart:

(You can grab it here as part of a TpT bundle!)

We did Casey at the Bat not only because it's a recommended text, but it's also because I'm a Boston Red Sox Fan :)

Today, in honor of Halloween, we are doing the same process with Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven.

I know it will be a little tricky for some students, but it's a fun challenge and it's festive!

In small groups today, we're also trying a new collaborative strategy for writing a constructed response.  Since many of them have finished their first novel, we are going to look for the theme.

I made them a guide for their CRs:

They're going to write independently on a post-it today and tomorrow combine 3 or 4 people's post-its into one group response. I'm excited to give this new strategy a try!

Next, here's a student working on our affix sort, a new process I'm trying this week.

We did Wednesday's activity yesterday of sorting affixes.

You can download your own copy here!

We also have our new centers ready to go!