Me Before the Common Core Standards...
Literature Major/Reading Teacher + Nonfiction = Bleh! I'll stick to my stories!
Me Last Year...
Reading Teacher + Needing to start teaching Nonfiction= Umm okay, I'll spend a week on it.
Me This Year...
Reading Teacher + I'm Lovin Lit's Interactive Notebook products + NewsELA = acceptance!
Me Last Week...
REALLY wishing I had a Smartboard!!! (Yup I have a blue chalkboard. And yes my class plays "make believe" while we pretend the chalkboard is a Smartboard.)
The graphic organizers I have been using have also been a great help! I designed them with my students' needs in mind. Some students NEED everything laid out for them. By the way, students write their whole essay within the parameters of this organizer. It is not for pre-writing.
Literature Major/Reading Teacher + Nonfiction = Bleh! I'll stick to my stories!
Me Last Year...
Reading Teacher + Needing to start teaching Nonfiction= Umm okay, I'll spend a week on it.
Me This Year...
Reading Teacher + I'm Lovin Lit's Interactive Notebook products + NewsELA = acceptance!
Me Last Week...
REALLY wishing I had a Smartboard!!! (Yup I have a blue chalkboard. And yes my class plays "make believe" while we pretend the chalkboard is a Smartboard.)
Well it has been a few weeks and my students are progressing with annotating text! They have totally accepted the "No Highlighter" rule and are using text marks to annotate their reading. They know how to find the topic sentence and details thanks to Erin's (i'mlovinlit@ blogspot.com) interactive notes. So far, so good. The main problem I have come to thus far is that students are reluctant to write on their reading. (Not underlining, but actual notes.) I'm thinking that I will need to continue modeling for them. I wonder if anyone else has a similar problem? (Also, for the students who DO take notes, I find that they are superficial. How do I get them to really inquire and think beyond the text? Feedback please!!!)
In addition to reading nonfiction, my students have also been writing nonfiction. My class is a 2 period block. I use the first period as my modified Daily 3 time. I allow students to choose which days they read and write, but two essays are due at the end of each week. (Just drafts for practice!) In the new year, I have assigned a quote to analyze and a persuasive prompt.
I know, I know...what am I doing tackling both writings at the same time?!?! I'm not even sure I know myself! But what I do know is that I have not formally taught how to write each essay and yet, with the independent Daily 3 time, I have been able to work with students one-on-one every day and that is beautiful! So...even though my students have not had a formal lesson on these essays, I have assigned them and worked with each student on how to improve in baby steps. I'm not teaching everything, but assigning one goal for the student to either fix or improve upon for next week's writing.
The graphic organizers I have been using have also been a great help! I designed them with my students' needs in mind. Some students NEED everything laid out for them. By the way, students write their whole essay within the parameters of this organizer. It is not for pre-writing.
I used the persuasive organizer last year. Students wrote about 2 essays on their actual organizers. On the second essay, I then had them copy it onto lined paper to see exactly how the essay looks. By the third essay, students could use the graphic organizer as a reference, but could not write on/in it. Eventually they did not use the organizer at all.
This year, I found that the expository essay was harder for my students than it was in past years. I followed the same format and am planning on practicing expository writing with our organizer this week. Wish me luck! =)
If you are interested in purchasing these organizers, they are for sale at my TPT store.
I literally had to take highlighters away because that's all my students would do. I told them time and time again that they need to show me their thinking, and highlighting just shows me that they can draw a line on top of words (especially because the whole article would be highlighted). It helped when they couldn't fall back on that anymore.
ReplyDeleteWe also make an anchor chart as a class with symbols for the kinds of thinking we're looking for. This helped them have a focus. They could add the symbol and then write their comment or question in the margin.
I guess I've been lucky with the highlighters! My students are also not doing too bad with the symbols....it's just the actual writing notes. I'll try out an anchor chart with all of the symbols and a sample of a note next to it. Maybe I will require a note per symbol. Thanks for the advice!!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that you are trying to adapt to the challenges of CCSS! We teachers enjoy challenges too!
ReplyDeleteI find that when I teach my students what kind of information to look for depending on the genre (setting, conflict, etc... in fiction; main idea, key words, author's purpose clues, etc... in nonfiction) they know how and what to annotate.
Most importantly, it just takes lots of practice. And it sounds like your kids are off to a great start!
Darlene
meatballsinthemiddle