Reading in the Wild {Summer Book Study}

Today I am joining with several dozen bloggers to invite you to an awesome summer book study showcasing Donalyn Miller's Reading in the Wild!

An amazing reader and teacher, Miller's first book, The Book Whisperer, shares her experiences in middle grades classrooms and how she has fostered a love of reading in her students. Her classroom is INSPIRING! The book is so down-to-earth, a fast read, and filled with simple (but powerful) ways to create a culture of reading in your classroom. In The Book Whisperer, Millers leaves you with her frustration - students leaving her classroom loving reading but faced with future teachers that do not share Donalyn's enthusiasm for reading. Gradually, her students leave the practice of daily, just-because reading.

Here enters, Donalyn's second book, Reading in the Wild. This books acts as a follow-up to the first and discusses how to foster a love of reading that is lifelong and sustainable...even when a passionate teacher is not present. As a 5th grade teacher, this is powerful to me. How do I structure reading and sharing opportunities that set the foundation for life-long reading? Reading in the Wild address this question!

I would love for you to join us! You can click here or the image below to grab your copy.

So, are you in??

Summer Reading...And My Return to Blogging!

It has been way too long since I have been able to sit and blog away on my little keyboard.  I've been wanting to come back for awhile now, but time was most definitely against me.  Around the time I disappeared from the blog world, our district was hunkering down for state testing (AIMS here in Arizona) and then the due date for my National Boards retake was approaching very very quickly.  Then, when I thought I'd have a chance to sit down and put a post together...the end of the school year sprang up. So, everything just drained me in general.  Have you ever had one of those school years, weeks, or even days when you just need to come home and do mindless things to keep from collapsing from exhaustion (mental, emotional, and physical)?  Me too!!!

So, I've been simmering over several blog posts I wanted to put together to jump feet first back in to blogging.  Then, this linky party popped up over on Hands-On Teacher in First (Marie's blog) and it is just perfect!  Now that I have some time on my hands I have a growing summer reading list with both personal and professional books I've been hankering over.  Please join up with us and share what you plan or hope to read!

Professional Reads

Normally, I try to only pick one professional read...or I end up overwhelmed and try too many things at the beginning of the year.  But I ended up discovering a new book by Michael Linsin who wrote Dream Class, which I read last year and just loved.  So, the list became 2 deep.  Then, came an invite from The Brownbag Teacher to join in for a book talk for The Book Whisperer's Reading in the Wild...which I also didn't get to read this past summer. 

Teach like a Pirate by Dave Burgess | This particular text has been on my to-read list since last summer.  But I had to worry more about the two books I had set aside to help me prepare and study for my Assessment Center exercises.  I have only heard wonderful and fantastic things about this book and can't wait to dive into it!  It is most likely the best book to read to make a comeback from such a rough year like mine.  In case you haven't heard of this one, here is a peek into some of the topics:  Part I - Passion, Immersion, Rapport, Transformation, & Enthusiasm; Part II - "I Like to Move It, Move It," Long Live the Arts, Stand and Deliver, etc.; Part III - called Building a Better Pirate.  Sounds intriguing no?  In case that didn't convince you, here is the synopsis from Goodreads:  "Based on Dave Burgess's popular "Outrageous Teaching" and "Teach Like a PIRATE" seminars, this book offers inspiration, practical techniques, and innovative ideas that will help you to increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life as an educator. You'll learn how to: Tap into and dramatically increase your passion as a teacher Develop outrageously engaging lessons that draw students in like a magnet Establish rapport and a sense of camaraderie in your classroom Transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students This groundbreaking inspirational manifesto contains over 30 hooks specially designed to captivate your class and 170 brainstorming questions that will skyrocket your creativity. Once you learn the Teach Like a PIRATE system, you'll never look at your role as an educator the same again."

The Classroom Management Secret by Michael Linsin | I didn't plan on reading this one, but I get Linsin's monthly newsletter emails and one of them caught my eye.  It closely related to the issues I was going through with my students this year, so I actually took the time to read it closely.  Come to find out...he had also released this new book.  I enjoyed his personable and user-friendly process to create a Dream Class (which I wasn't fully able to do because of how thrown off I was by my group this past year).  I decided, despite management being my strongest ability as a teacher, I needed to rethink my system and make improvements.  This way, no matter what kind of group I get next year, I will be ready!  Before I bought it for my Kindle, I checked the Table of Contents and was immediately intrigued by the first several chapter titles:  Why You Should Smile on the First Day of School, 7 Keys to the First Day of School, The Biggest First Day of School Mistake You Can Make, Why Coming on Too Strong Will Force a Mutiny in Your Classroom, and more.  Here is the description from Goodreads:  "In The Classroom Management Secret, you will learn how pursuing just two simple principles will allow you to grab ahold of the rewarding and meaningful teaching career you've always dreamed of. Based on the popular blog, Smart Classroom Management, the book progresses step-by-step through 46 keys, showing you how to manage your classroom in a way that inspires your students to want to behave. By the end, you will have the knowledge to take over any K-8 classroom and create the kind of peaceful buy joyous learning experience your students will always remember."

Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller | I was, and still am, a HUGE fan of The Book Whisperer.  It changed how I saw and taught students how to love reading.  It also changed the reading lives of so many of my students.  They still thank me to this day for how I helped them become a self-selected reader who enjoys reading for what it should be.  So, when I found out Donalyn was releasing a 2nd book long before it came out...I added it to my wish and to-read list.  Sadly, I wasn't able to get to this one last summer either.  But I just found out The Brownbag Teacher is having a book talk on it and had to join in.  So...bring it on!  Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:  Teaching students to become lifelong readers A companion to the bestselling The Book Whisperer, Reading in the Wild explores whether or not we are truly instilling lifelong reading habits in our students and provides practical strategies for teaching "wild" reading. Based on survey responses from over 900 adult readers and classroom feedback, Reading in the Wild offers solid advice and strategies on how to develop, encourage and assess key lifelong reading habits, including dedicating time for reading, planning for future reading, and defining oneself as a reader.Includes advice for supporting the love of reading by explicitly teaching lifelong reading habits. Contains accessible strategies, ideas, tips, lesson plans and management tools along with lists of recommended books co-published with Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of "Education Week" and "Teacher Magazine"
Packed with ideas for helping students choose their own reading material, respond to text, and build capacity for lifelong reading."

For Fun Reads

I usually have a HUGE list planned a couple weeks before my summer starts, so I can get to the library and start grabbing up books.  But, alas, that just didn't happen this time around.  However, I did come home this past Friday (our last day of school) ready to find a juicy and fun chic lit read from my long to-read list on Goodreads.  My book club of lady friends is reading The Monuments Men this month as well...so these two are givens.  As for the rest of what I'm going to be reading this summer?  Perhaps I should read the 3rd book in V.C. Andrew's Dollanganger series.  I'm hoping I get off the wait list for Emily Giffin's new book soon, since I've been on it for the last month already.  I also have some Jodi Piccoult books I've been hoarding.  So many choices and so little time!!!

 

 

How about you?  What is on your summer to-read list?  I hope you take the time for yourself to relax and enjoy some good reads...whether they are for work or play!  

Time to Pass it On! Text Features Are Coming Out of Our Ears

Is anyone else having moments of realization?  You know...those kind that us teachers get this time of year when we stop and realize it is that time of the year.  The big bad test is just around the corner and we have to shove all kinds of standards in to a period of time the size of my pinky nail?!  Please tell me I am not the only one who keeps having these little moments of insanity during the school day.

I had so much fun sharing what I did in my classroom to help my students engage in fact and opinion learning so I really wanted to keep this momentum going and pass on another lesson that worked well again.  

We needed to cover both text features (or organizational features...I hate that they have different names depending on who you ask) and reference sources within a pretty short amount of time.  This means, I had to find a way to give my kids the biggest bang for their buck.  So, I took to a little bit of Google to help me in my time of teaching need.

I stumbled upon an old pin, a dead one...so I had to scramble to Google to find a similar idea and thankfully I found a couple strategies I could easily implement and adapt to my group of kids and our experiences.

Miss Bonger had an extensive blog post HERE.  Take a look at the post if you want to scroll through. But what I took from it (mainly the anchor chart graphic organizer and the examples tacked to charts) and tweaked for my kids is what you can see below.  And I hope you are able to take what you see and bring it in to your classroom for your students!!  

So, because I hate throwing so much vocabulary at my kids all at once...I separated it into 2 days...because when I'm bored, they are bored!  We put a graphic organizer/anchor chart together and students wrote their own in their reading notebooks (via Miss Bonger's post).

Each time we added a reference source to the anchor chart, my kids had to go on a hunt for the reference source in our Social Studies textbook or our Reading basal textbook.  I wanted them to also be able to explain how they knew what they found was that particular reference source as well as share a piece of information they gained from the source.  This was extremely successful and the kids really liked the short chunks of boring vocabulary mixed with quick bursts of hunting and discussing.  It kept us all sane.  Oh...it also helped to stand up and create a TPR (total physical response) motion for each source.  I wish I could post a video of us doing all of them.  They were hilarious!

On the third day of our reference sources lesson, I put together an anchor chart for each reference source with the definitions we had discussed in the previous days, with examples copied from different nonfiction texts in our classroom, and several scavenger hunt questions at the bottom (I tried to include higher-level thinking questions when possible) and posted them around our classroom.  

Hey...the more I can get my kids out of their seats, the better.  The idea was to have them use the reference sources in order to read and understand information!  I stamped this one as a big success as well!  

Since we have to conserve paper at our school, I try to use as few copies as possible.  I did a quick model of how I wanted students to record information using our ActivBoard...and our bulb is almost dead from so much use each day.  My students were away on their scavenger hunt for up to an hour during the next 2 days.  I walked around and visited with students to ask them a few questions about information they were locating and learning from.  I tried to check in and see if they could tell me why the particular reference source was useful as well.  

By the end of our 4-day scavenger hunt and trek, my kids made Me Reference sources.  This was an idea I found via Google.  If you'd like to take a look for yourself at Sarah's original blog post, you can find it HERE.  Again, to save paper, I had students make their own pages in their notebooks.  They just had to follow a sort of template I placed up on our board.  The pages also included areas for text features to enhance the information on each page of their Me Reference sources.

The covers were pretty fun to look at because of how creative they got with their selfies.

Just like any reference source students use, they had to create a Table of Contents (as short as it was)

One of the pages I liked reading the most were their encyclopedia entires since I learned a large variety of facts about my students I may not have known before.  Within the different reference sources, I also asked them to use text features we had already studied as well.  If they included an illustration or photo, it had to have a caption.  All of the entires (except the atlas) had to also have guide words at the top.  

  

For the dictionary page, their definition had to be about the origin of their name.  There were some great stories, such as Sebastian's above, that caught my attention.  Many of my students didn't know the origin of their names, so they were able to ask their families and bring that information back to school with them.  

I made copies of both the United States and Mexico since all of my students were either born there or visit there quite often.  They were allowed to choose how they labeled their map as long as they included text features such as a legend, compass, etc.  

So there you have it!  It wasn't a super fancy lesson, but it allowed my students to get in those extra practice sessions and anything that gets them out of their seats brings it home!  What have you done in your classroom to teach reference sources and text features?  

Understanding Fact and Opinion {Part 2}

Welcome to part 2 of our fact and opinion exploration!

You can read about part 1 HERE!

We picked up where we left off the day before with a seriously awesome animated video from 1989, called "Red Riding Hood and the Well-Fed Wolf" (Churchill Films), that I found via the lesson I shared yesterday (you can read more in part 1, but you can find it here just in case).  I really wanted my kids to practice identifying fact and opinions outside of text first so they could become comfortable with listening for signal words and paying close attention to items they know to be certain rather than pushing them into a book straight away.

This is where this blog post is going to come in handy...you see, the video the Beacon Lesson Plan calls for is not one you can just find on YouTube.  Believe me I tried and tried again this year before I taught this lesson a 2nd time.  I searched online high and low last year and thankfully found the clip needed (you won't even need the entire thing) on the animator's website.  HERE it is!

I've included some screenshots from Joel Fletcher's (the creator's) website for you to get an idea of how seriously neat and hilarious the video is.

If for some reason you don't have access to a computer and projector, you can actually find this at your local library.  I did a search through my local library's system and actually found it via Overdrive.  So, hopefully, you will find a way to show this in your classroom as my students find it quite entertaining...and even more important?  It is challenging!  The facts and opinions aren't so easy to pull out as one might think.

Before watching the video, my students got a T-chart ready in their reading notebooks.  They are very much used to holding partner and group discussions with each other after we watch videos, so they knew the expectation right away.  I stopped the video after every food group character made an appearance, which made it much easier for students to stop and jot down facts and opinions they had identified.  After a couple minutes, I gave partner groups a chance to Rally Robin back and forth to share items they had recorded.

Once the video was finished, we came together to share different facts and opinions.  I recorded them on our class anchor chart as students added them to their own charts.  Before recording each one on the chart, we did a quick check by throwing up thumbs up if they agreed with the fact/opinion being shared or a thumbs down if they disagreed.  We stopped to discuss why or why not.  The more we did this the more comfortable they became and by the end of the discussion, we had an even better list put together than my students last year.

**And wouldn't you know it?!  While I was posting this, I just noticed I placed a fact on the opinion side and my students didn't even notice!  Gah!!! Maybe you can post this and ask your students to find what doesn't belong?  LOL.**

In my defense, we were about to run off to P.E. that day, so I seriously must have just checked the clock and started writing in on the wrong side when I turned back around.  Sigh.  Oh well.  I can totally revisit this with my kids tomorrow to see if they can identify the misnomer.  

To practice it within text, the real part of our reading standard (our district is still using state standards at this time), I downloaded the extension file (you can get it HERE) included in the Beacon Learning lesson in order to have my students read the restaurant review article.  

Attachment is included with the Beacon Lesson Plan

Using two different colored highlighters, we did the first section together while I modeled the highlighting on the board.  My kids then worked on the second part together.  The two colors made it easy for me to walk around and check-in with students in order to see if I needed to intervene at all.  

To step it up a notch, I showed my class a Discovery Education video downloaded from Discovery Streaming all about tornados.  At the end of it, I asked my students to take the opinion, "I think tornadoes are dangerous," and improve it using facts.  They wrote up and discussed short paragraphs by naming at least 2 facts they learned from the video in order to support the opinion.  My kids did well with this exercise, showing me that they are able to recognize how facts and opinions work together as well as how to decipher them.  We extended the practice opportunity by having students pull an opinion from a text we had recently read (during Close Reading) and supporting them using facts quoted from the passage.  

Screenshot from Discovery Education video

Screenshot from Discovery Education video

As the gifted cluster teacher, I try to give students a chance to make a product to show me their learning.  Most times they are given a choice menu, but for this one I was looking for a quick and easy way to wrap up our unit.  My awesome teammate put together a product rubric and description for making fact and opinion placemats and shared it with me.  Here are some of the placemats students made which included facts, opinions, with supporting facts, and matching illustrations from one of our basal reader's Time for Kids articles called "Forests of the World."