When we met, we discussed that this book is not required to be read in chapter order. I am hoping that each of you has had time to look through and get to know this book. In this blog, I would like you to think about goals 5 through 7. These goals support fictional reading. Let's discuss a strategy from each goal that stands out to you or that you may want to try and use. Below you will find some question stems to help us start our discussion board.
Goal 5: What is plot and how do you teach it?
Share a Strategy from goal 5 that you might try.
Goal 6: Students understand the characters in a story if they can tell you.....
Share a strategy from Goal 6 that you may try.
Goal 7: What are themes? Why is it important to teach theme, idea, and symbolism?
Share a strategy from Goal 7 that you may try.
Goals 5-7: focus on Supporting Comprehension in Fiction. Servavallo references planting sticky notes inside text to have students respond while they read. Could you use this strategy? If so, how?
If you have used any of the goals from this book please share about them below!
Please be sure and respond to questions before January 11. The next book study questions will be posted on January 12.
As a science teacher fiction is not the type of reading that is done in my classroom very often. In saying this I have found a few strategies in this section that I may be able to use to help my students understanding in nonfiction readings.
ReplyDeleteSection 5 Retell what's most important by making connections to the problems would be the most useful for my students. In this strategy you help the students identify the main problem of the text and step by step you allow the students to see the character problem solve until they have found a solution to the problem. I have tried this strategy with my students in a reading about polar bears and there loss of habitat. They identify the problem that is facing the bears, then they have to identify the solutions the scientist are trying to mitigate these issues. At the end they tell me what the effects the resolution's had on the original problem.
Strategy 6
I would use The influences on character strategy 6.17.
This strategy allows the student to analyze all the influences on the character to better understand there motivations for why they are acting the way they are. I would use this strategy when analyzing biographies for certain scientist. Albert Einstein would be a good example of this strategy by understanding his up bringing in WWI and understanding what happened to him during WWII it would help my students understand his importance in the Manhattan Project.
strategy 7 Mistakes can lead to Lessons 7.7
This strategy can help my students understand that Scientific knowledge is a constantly evolving and changing as new information is discovered. In this strategy students look at mistakes the character makes and what lessons they could learn from these mistakes. I constantly teach the history of certain standards, such as plate tectonics and the our understanding of the atom. These standards would allow me to present readings that allow the students to pick out the mistakes the scientist make. This would help them pick out what lessons the scientific community took from these mistakes to better help us deepen our understanding.
Great examples of how to use the strategies. I really think your students will make connections in the science reading examples you listed.
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to delve into this book! I love that the author prefaces the goal reminding us how important teaching lost-in-a-book sort of reading strategies. In order to do that, students need to understand the book and be able to engage or dive into the story. They need to know what is happening and where the events are taking place! Goal 5 shows 28 examples of how to teach plot and setting - I am planning on trying them all.
ReplyDeleteFollowing are two I did try:
Strategy 5.2 Title Power
Teaching 5th grade reading can be challenging when my students do not have the proper language, vocabulary, or background knowledge to effectively assess the plot. 'Title Power' is an easy way to familiarize students with a book title and why keeping that title in mind when reading helps them connect what is happening in the story.
Learning to connect story events with a book title will make it easier to identify the problem(s) and how important will that problem become as the story unfolds.
Strategy 5.16 Summarizing with "Somebody . . .Wanted . . .But . . .So . . ."
This strategy is effective for 5th graders because they are writing using a different color for each category. As they read their book, they jot down the main character, what he wanted, his problems, how he resolved the problem, and finally how it ends. As students become more proficient discovering the answers, I am hoping the skill will become a stronger habit each time a book is read.
Themes are issues and ideas and morals and lessons that give a story its depth, texture, and meaning. If Cinderella's character didn't make us feel indignant how she was treated by her stepmother and stepsisters, it would not be a well loved fairy tale.
ReplyDeleteTeaching our students to identify story theme (because it is their job to figure out the lesson, moral, and text details) will further help students dive into their book and go on a marvelous adventure. I believe this skill helps develop problem solving skills, learn inference, and write their own endings.
I've noticed that teachers tend to struggle keeping theme and plot separate. On page 195, Strategy 7.2 The Difference Between Plot and Theme helped me arrive at a different method to teach this. Plot is "What happens?" and Theme is "What's the Big Idea?" The text suggests using prompts like "What is your idea about what's happening?" and "What else do you think is a possible big idea from the story?"
I am excited to introduce this new anchor chart to my readers!
Students can show understanding of the characters in the story if they can tell us what a character looks like, how they dress, what they say, where they live, what they eat, and who their friends are.
ReplyDeleteStudents can accomplish this through retelling a chapter or short passage, understand why the story events are happening and what the character has to do with those events and tell what the problem is and how it is resolved.
One strategy I like is 6.18 Complex Characters.
This strategy allows the student to use a graphic organizer and list in detail the characteristics of the character. I like the prompt " What words describe the character?""What kind of person is he/she?", or "How do you think this character is feeling on this page?"
This strategy also suggest dedicating a spot in the classroom to hang photo-copied covers of past read-a-louds, with character webs or a list of traits. I like this visual display as it helps children to focus on what they need to be doing without the need to ask for help.