Guest Post: Kimberlee Fulbright, Close Reading Journey Through Text

How can we get students to review standards taught, yet continue high levels of learning? I have begun what I like to call a "Journey Through a Text," with my students. This is a great way to:
1) Use when introducing a skill during mini-lessons
2) Once all mini-lessons have been taught and students have practiced the skills; it is a great way to review all skills independently on their OWN level.

First, it is important to have a plan at how to take your journey. What I want to do next year, that I didn't do this year (remember, it was my 1st year in 5th grade... still learning what works and what doesn't). My plan next year would be to introduce and model these skills with each novel we read. In doing so, they will have seen my modeling multiple times. PLUS, they would have practiced (with my guidance) multiple times. In addition, I want to make the process slow and steady. It is never a good idea to rush such deep work.

So, how do we take a journey through a text? I will show you step by step how to take the journey, which skills to focus on based on our 5th grade standards, and tell you a little about where students could go wrong with their journey, so you can be ready to get them back on track.

Here goes...

The skills/standards we will be working on are as follows:

* ELACC RL1
* ELACC RL2
* ELACC RL3
* ELACC RL4
* ELACC RL6

* ELACC RI1
* ELACC RI2
* ELACC RI4
* ELACC RI5

* Figurative Language
* Inferences
* Textual Evidence/Main Idea
* Textual Structure
* Vocabulary
* Sentence Structure
* Visualization
* Context Clues
* Summarizing
* Theme
* Character Analysis 
* Point of View


I will talk you through half of the "Journey" using the text Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse.

STEP 1 - choose a text; You can choose a novel to work on together (so you can model and practice together). This is what I recommend to begin with. Once you have completed a journey together at least twice, I would allow students to use an independent reading book (their choice & their level).

STEP 2 - Students will need to fill out their cover page with the text title, author's name, and choose 6 items to work on. Again, I would start slow... introduce one concept as you get to a mini-lesson about that specific skill. 

STEP 3 - Begin the journey. I will show you 6 of the 12 5th grade skills you can dig deep with. 

VISUALIZATIONS:

With this digging deep journey activity, students are to create a visual representation outlining the major points of the text. They must find a portion they have read that they can really visualize. Just saying: "The dog ran down the road." is not enough. If it said, "The gigantic German Shepard leaped effortlessly over the fence, as globs of slobber splashed here and there." then that would be enough details in order for us to truly visualize the scene. Students want to put general sentences here, but when you have modeled similar sentences, as I have below, they have a better understanding of what types of words and sentences can really paint a picture in their minds. 

 

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

After spending a lot of quality time with each type of figurative language, students begin quickly identifying these types within the texts they are reading. With this journey skill, students must dig deep to find an example of each type of figurative language, write the meaning of the example, and then illustrate. If for some reason the text you are working on does not have one of the types, then I had my students create one that would fit in their text. See some of my samples below:

CONTEXT CLUES:

At first, my students got this page and the vocabulary page confused. With this journey page, students review using context clues in order to figure out the meaning of unknown words. After modeling & practicing multiple times, students should be able to use the text around the unknown word in order to come up with a close meaning. Another skill we practice along with this is substitution. After reading around the unknown word, students can determine a word that would be similar in meaning, reread by substituting with that new word to see if the new word makes sense. If so, that could assist in determining the meaning of this unknown word.

Students are to find a word, and then they should EXPLAIN the meaning and HOW they figured that meaning out. Many students wanted to either "quote" the sentence with the word (incorrect); write a sentence using the word (incorrect); or write the definition of the word (incorrect). What must be thought about here is the process in which they took in order to determine the meaning.

TEXT STRUCTURE:

Not all texts are structured the same way. After reviewing the different ways, students can begin to look at key words, visuals, etc. in order to decide which type of structure the text was written. Rather than just tell the structure, it is important that students are able to communicate HOW they know. They need to back their response with some type of proof. Some of the structures we have discussed are Cause/Effect, Sequence of Events, Description, Compare/Contrast, Problem/Solution, etc. See the example below:

THEME:

Although texts can have more than one theme, it is important for students to figure out which theme is the overall theme of the text by providing enough evidence to support that theme. It is not enough to say that "Perseverance" is the theme, they must say that "the turtle kept going and didn't give up" as proof for support. Prior to identifying and supporting a theme, use picture books to teach mini-lessons to show evidence for many different types of themes. With this skill, students just wanted to list all the themes they could find. The proof is what makes all the difference!

SENTENCE STRUCTURE:

Lastly, I wanted to show how we review compound and complex sentences. My students have learned so much about these types of sentences through first identifying these types within texts they read. After identifying these types, they can then combine sentences in order to create these types. Here, they can practice writing these more fluently by taking simple sentences within their text and combine them to create compound or complex sentences. Here are two simple sentences that I have modeled.

I hope that this "Journey through the Text" has shown a deep way of reviewing many 5th grade reading standards. I am sure there are many other creative ways in which to review these standards, but I found this way very rewarding for my students. I sure hope that it can be a time saver for you!!

Stop by and see me here:
2 Fulbright Hugs TpT Shop
2 Fulbright Hugs Blog
2 Fubright Hugs on Instagram
2 Fulbright Hugs on Facebook

Read More

Digging Deeper: Writing about Reading!

Hello everyone!  

Are you counting down the days until spring?  I know we are!  The students are getting a little touch of "Spring Fever" so I am trying to balance the wiggles we are experiencing with our need to really dig "DEEP" into our content.  The Common Core really is asking us to push our students, and as I have been really working to immerse myself in the CCSS and the "intent" of it, I realize that there are few things that I think we need to keep in mind as we move forward.  Perhaps you will agree--perhaps not--but I do think we need to really increase the level of professional dialogue about what the Core means to us and to our students.  So--here are a few "blanket statements" I would like to throw out there!

• First, we need to remember that our number one obligation is to our students.  They are just little people who put all their trust in us to take care of them, to teach them, and to make wise decisions for them!  We cannot let our worries/stresses/frustrations get to them!  (This is me doing a little "self-talk" as I feel my end of quarter stresses beginning to mount!)

• The Core has drawn a line in the sand--we need to be pushing our students harder, we need to present them with more rigorous texts, and we need to work to weed out some of the "fluffier" lessons we have added to our collection in the past.  The Core doesn't really ask our students to be making text-to-self connections or other reflective tasks. . . it wants students to analyze the text itself so comprehension is deep.  Several years ago I had an "AHA" moment with this when I read Eve Bunting's "Sunshine Home" to my class.  I had the students write about the text when we finished and every single child made a text-to-self connection about having a grandmother.  Not. Very. Deep. . . .and certainly didn't contribute to better understanding of the text!

• Students' self-esteem is fragile--but they DEVELOP self-esteem by being faced with challenging tasks, being properly supported through the tasks, and being recognized for their successes.  Self-esteem does NOT come from giving students easy tasks or by throwing them into difficulty activities without proper modeling, support, or coaching.  We can make a difference in how students see themselves as readers and thinkers!

• Digging deeper into texts is FUN for students!  If we give them the tools they need, they can not only think more deeply about their independent reading, but book discussions can be more engaging and more interactive!

So . . . I have working to find ways to really get my students engaged in reading, discussing, and writing about what we read--and I am REALLY trying to do a better job of modeling my own thinking!  

Here is my goal for the next week--I am going to work at helping students develop double entry journals about a series of picture books we are going to read to review key literary elements such as symbolism, foreshadowing, flashback, figurative language and the like.  I have created an anchor chart to help us keep track of evidence we find in the text and our own thinking about the text.

See what you think:

I am going to work hard to model, model, model the difference between evidence from the text and my own thinking and try to scaffold their work along the way.

Here's why--our goal for the next month or so is to have students write a series of literary essays, and I feel I need to beef up my students' skills before we tackle this.  For the last few years I have used something I call "Pausing Points" in my class . . . sometimes before we read, sometimes while we read, and sometimes after we read.  I try to get my students to tackle something related to the text that is just a LITTLE bit more in depth than they have done before . . . working toward getting them to be the kind of sophisticated thinkers the Core requires them to be!

Some of you may have either used my historical fiction book study resource, my "Digging Deeper:  Writing about Reading", or one of my novel studies.  If so, you have seen the "Pausing Points" and have hopefully found them useful!  If not, I have pulled one out of my "Character Studies" unit to give you as a freebie to see what you think.  I am confident that we can raise the level of our students' responses to literature--if we take the time to coach them through!

Interested in trying one?  Here is the freebie!

Pausing Point FREEBIE!

Here are the links to a few of the resources I mentioned in the blog post if you want to see how I have used "Pausing Points" in different ways!  Let me know what you think!

Digging Deeper: Writing about Reading

Historical Fiction Book Study

Novel Ideas: No Talking

Thanks for stopping by to visit!

www.fourthgradestudio.blogspot.com

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Meg-Anderson

http://pinterest.com/dmamec/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fourth-Grade-Studio/154102318070432

or find me on Twitter at @FourthGrStudio

Read More

Response to Reading ANSWER method

In Massachusetts, our standardized test is the MCAS, and in 4th grade, one of the challenges our students face on their reading test is the Open Response question. We've been gearing up for the test because it starts in mid-March this year, so test taking strategies have been at the forefront of my mind. 

We spend time every week pouring over past MCAS selections to help our fourth graders become more familiar with test taking language, as well as the stamina for an independent writing task for a topic they are probably seeing for the first time in printed form.  The kids have weekly homework practice, and I have an MCAS Practice Tips letter to parents that I posted on my blog.  Teaching the kids to use a graphic organizer for pre-writing, and analyzing the question (such as with the QAR method) is something we've done for years.  But this year is the first full year that we've implemented the ANSWER method.  And I think it's been working VERY well for this specific purpose.

The acronym is from the Keys to Literacy, who have provided a number of professional development trainings for my district, and if you ever see one offered in your area, I HIGHLY recommend you check it out (the vocabulary one was another fantastic experience).  I only tweaked it slightly by adding a bit to the "E" (originally the acronym read: "Analyze, Notes, Scan, Write, End by Rereading") and of course the explanations are my own rewording according to what's been working for my class over time.  Because as my students would tell you, I do my anchor charts in pencil, and that's only after I've written them on the white board with them first, until I'm feel that I've answered all of their clarifying questions and I'm happy with the exact wording.  They actually tease me, "You really ARE a rough draft kind of gal!"  I like to think this helps to instill a sense of importance of the revision process for them!

Each component of the ANSWER method is a lesson (or two) in and of itself, but by this point in the year, nearly every kid (as of last week, every kid, yay!) in my class knows what is expected of them when it comes to preparing and composing a written response to writing.  Along with a goal setting sheet each week, they know that when it comes to formal assessments, they don't just write about the story; they have to ANSWER the question!

How do you prepare your students for standardized test reading responses?

Amber Thomas's Classroom Favorites on Teachers Pay Teachers
http://shutthedoorandteach.blogspot.com/

Read More