Favorite Pins Friday!

Welcome back to another Favorite Pins Friday! I'm going to start making #5 a resource that I use in my classroom. A lot of them will be my own products since I do use them but also others. I'll also include a little blurb about how I use it.

Here's a quick note! When you pin these images, make sure you are pinning them from the original source. I'm seeing a lot of these images on Pinterest that have been pinned directly from my blog. I love that y'all like my Favorite Pins Friday, but we need to give credit where credit is due. Thanks so much for doing this! I'm sure the original owner of the picture will appreciate it, too! All you have to do is click on the picture to view it in Pinterest. You should be able to pin it from there ;)

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I'm sure I'm not the only one who has 5th graders who STILL don't capitalize the beginning of the sentence! With texting becoming so popular, I don't see this changing any time soon. I tried to point attention to this last year but it honestly got SO overwhelming. I'm going to make a chart similar to this and refer to it ALL-THE-TIME! Can I get an AMEN?!?

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I've said this every year, but this year I'm going to do it! No one knows your students better than their own parents! On the first day of school, I'm going to send home a survey and a letter request. I want the parents to give me any information they think I should know about their child with a focus on reading and writing (since that's what I teach!).

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This is a great way to get students thinking about characters in a story. I'm definitely going to use this with my character trait unit. Students always struggled with how to analyze character and this will get them started!

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This year I'm wanting to really get my students writing about their reading. This will be a great chart for students to refer to when they have a free response prompt.

Last but not least is my Close Reading Seat Work Bundle. If you want to get your students supporting their answer with evidence, then this pack is for you! It covers a range of reading standards, both literary and informational. The resources are equally split between literary and informational passages with high-interest photos and facts. Each passage is related to the season/time of the year.

I used this this past year starting in January. I was a little scared at first. All I knew was that I didn't have time to spend 10-15 minutes a day on this. It literally takes 5-10 (max) minutes. It is ah-mazing and I plan on using it this coming school year from the first day of school. Here are some photos of my students using it.

If you are interested in a closer look, I have taken three of the passages and compiled them into a FREEBIE in my TpT Store. 

Falling in Love with Close Reading: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: A Study of Point of View & Argument

Point of view can be a complex task, especially for 5th graders.  The standards don't really tell us where to stop, so I end up teaching all types.... and I'm not gonna lie.... even I get confused sometimes!  However, the focus of this chapter is geared more toward understanding the argument of the writer/speaker and being able to critique it.  This is a higher-order thinking skill that is beneficial to my students and an area that needs improvement.  This is a wonderful way to get students to look at the text closely and to truly understand what the author is trying to get across.  It has requires a lot of inferential thinking.

Major Take-Aways

• Have students take brief notes as they read bout speaks' major points and evidence of support.
• Have students choose an argument and try to find support to disprove or support their thinking.
• Have students find the validity of an argument: what are the strengths/weaknesses?
• When guiding students through a lesson, start off with texts that have an obvious point of view and build your rigor from there.
• Have students consider what is the point of the argument and what makes it persuasive?

I was super excited about this last one!  I plan on making something with all of the text-marking strategies I have learned through my Close Reading reads.  In this chapter, the author suggests having students mark on the right side of the text with techniques that the author uses and the left side of the text with arguments that the author makes.  

I just loved this organizational strategy!

Falling in Love with Close Reading: A Way with Words

Hey, ya'll!  I'm back again with chapter 3 of Falling in Love with Close Reading.

To be completely honest, I haven't had much time to read.  I'm only half way through chapter 4.  We just finished our state testing last week... how exhausting!  I'm so glad that is over with.  Now, we must survive the remainder of May... and let me tell you... the kiddos are CRAY-CRAY!

Chapter 3 was about word choice.  It's something that, as teachers, we have always considered, but this chapter takes the meaning deeper.  I always tell my students to get out their shovels and dig deeper.  It's kind of quirky, but they always seem to understand what I mean.

That's exactly what chapter 3 is all about.  There are two huge ideas that I want to share with you today.

Something that I want to use next year is the use of media to introduce the concept that "everyone chooses their words for a purpose."  It is suggested to use commercials and ads as examples.  The purpose of this activity is to get the students to look closely at the word choice of the commercials and ads.  Students listen to the commercial or ad, record words the hear and how many times they are used, then have the student make word clouds.  When students are finished, they can look at the word cloud and clearly see the most frequently used words.  Teachers can extend the activity by having the students record WHY? they think the author chose to use those words.

The authors suggest that you can close read to analyze word choice as well as the tone of the text by reading through a lens.  This reading through a lens is used throughout the book.  Some steps to read with a lens for word analysis and tone.  First, read a text with your students and record 1-2 main ideas on the board as the students record some on their paper.  Have students look carefully at the kinds of words and phrases the author used.  Make sure you read slow to give students a chance to jot down words/phrases.  Then, look at all the words and phrases the author used and find patterns in those.  Have students look for groups and ask questions... are there ways the words fit together?  tone?  feeling?  Last, have students start to develop their ideas to understand the text.  Does the inferred main idea match the tone I analyzed from the word choice?  Does it make sense?  If it doesn't, have students go back to redevelop their main idea.  Teachers may need to differentiate at this point, because students will be at different points in their learning.

Chapter 3 goes on to discuss ways to implement this in a narrative text, but the most meaningful ideas to me are the ones mentioned.  I hope this all makes sense to you and is something you can use in your classroom.

Chapter 4 is about the structure of the text... don't miss it!

I hope ya'll have a great week!

Falling in Love with Close Reading

Don't you love the interaction between students and text when they close read?  I started {somewhat} using close reading this year, but I wanted to read a little more into it to get a better idea of what I was doing and how to guide my students to reach the deep understanding I want them to.  This past summer, I read Close Reading of Informational Texts.

This book was a great introduction to what close reading is and what it looks like in informational texts.  It left me wanting a little more.  Especially for my fiction readers.

That's when I found Falling in Love with Close Reading.  Have you heard about this book?  Maybe you have even read it!  I'm picky about my professional reads, because I can't read just anything.  I get easily distracted and bored... quick like!  If I'm going to finish a professional read, it has to be something highly engaging and something I can use in my classroom and small group instruction.

To be honest, the first chapter was just an introduction.. a little hard to get through.  So, I'm going to talk mostly about chapter 2.

This was a great chapter about helping students find text evidence in fiction and informational text.  I'm not going to give too many details, but I'm going to share some "Aha" moments I had as I read.  The focus of this chapter was based around a chart/anchor chart to help guide students  to close read their texts.  You can download the picture below to download a .pdf version of both fiction & informational.

• As students read, have them write down things from #1 on your chart.
• What do the characters say/think/do?
• What are some relationships?
• What do you notice about the setting?
• What do you notice about the time period?
• Then, have students sort through their notes and highlight related facts by color or by placing them in categories.
• Students should ask themselves questions from #2 on your chart:
• Which details fit together?
• How do they fit together?
• Then, students should look at any patterns and develop new ideas based on those patterns.

• First, students read and record any facts, phrases, descriptions, photos, or graphics they do not understand.
• Then, have students sort through their notes and highlight related facts by color or by placing them in categories.
• Students should ask themselves questions from #2 on your chart:
• Which details fit together?
• How do they fit together?
• Then, students should find patterns with confusing information.  Then, understanding can begin to come.

1. The reason why the character __________ is because __________.
2. It seems like this character tends to __________.
3. My thinking about this character has changed because __________.
4. These characters are really different because ___________.
5. One issue I am noticing in this book is ___________.
6. I think the author is trying to teach me __________.
7. I think this because the author wrote __________.

• Students can use stickies to record facts
• Students can use highlighters/crayons to color-code common facts
• Patterns help us see what's important
• Start with simple examples to share as a introduction so you will have room to revise
• Close reading may not be necessary every time

Overall, I was pretty excited about this chapter!  Don't miss chapter 3!