Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Scaffolded Reading Comprehension - From Answering Direct Comprehension Questions to Socratic Seminars



Students love to talk. We know this. That is why I love the fact that I can run classroom discussions throughout my teaching day. There are lots of moments throughout the day where my students have the opportunity to talk and discuss their opinions, thoughts and questions. One of those moments is during Reading Workshop.

I structured Reading Workshop in a way to build more rigor as students work through each novel throughout the school year. I teach 3 novels per trimester.

Trimester 1

During the first trimester, I kept things simple. Students read the chapters at night, took specific notes and then came to the carpet as a whole class the next day and discussed the reading. This was the trimester where I directly taught them how to have a whole class conversation and we practiced it  everyday. After the conversation, students would answer written comprehension questions. 

Books: Blubber by Judy Blume, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

Trimester 2 

During the second trimester, the students read the first book and discussed it with the whole class while I facilitated the conversation. Students are always responsible for reading the night before and taking notes in a way that I assign. For the first book, they were assigned to take 3 notes (I.e. a question, a prediction and a favorite part). Then we would come together and conversations would be guided by using their notes. After the conversation, students would answer written comprehension questions. The second book, students were given notes to take that directly related to the chapters they were reading. They were assigned to small groups and there was a discussion director each week that facilitated the conversation by coming to the group with open-ended questions about the reading. After the conversation, students would answer written comprehension questions. For the last book, I split the class into two groups (15 kids each) and the students facilitated the conversations. Teachers monitored and were a part of the conversation. Students were taught and practiced writing summaries after each conversation. This was their comprehension check.

Books: Weedflower, by Cynthia Kodohata, The Watsons go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis, Nine, Ten by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Trimester 3

We are now into the third trimester and final trimester before 6th grade, and students are working on advanced comprehension skills. I am running Socratic Seminars. When students come to the circle (15 in each group), they discuss what happened in the reading. The book lends itself well to conversation, so I usually have to tell them to end the discussion about the book and answer my central question (not a bad problem to have). Examples of Central Questions: How does self-confidence play a role in being successful? Is it important to be an individual, why or why not? The students discuss these questions and then are asked to write their answer to the question while also using evidence from the text to support their answers. This is a very advanced skill, but some of my students are able to do it! I am confident that by the end of the school year, I will have almost all of them able to share their opinion and use evidence from the text to back it up. This will be the structure for the rest of the school year. Students seem to be enjoying it and are practicing so many important LIFE skills at the same time: listening to others' opinions, formulating their own opinion and articulating it so that others understand, considering important questions that will help shape who they become, and finally, connecting their reading to their own beliefs and experiences.

Books: The Wave, by Todd Strasser, Courage for Beginners by Karen Harrington

Thursday, March 1, 2018

WWII Multimedia Timeline in 5th Grade

This trimester, students studied WWII events. I modeled for them the steps of research with the topic of Japanese Internment Camps and they researched a WWII event of their own that they chose. In small groups, they were assigned and given a syllabus to complete a multimedia timeline that depicts 10 important events of WWII. Students mostly used recycled materials they found throughout the school and at home. They decided on the events and how they would depict them. Below are some examples of their hard work. I am so proud!











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