close reading Archives

Stop Highlighting… Start Thinking!

October 21, 2014

Remember when you were in high school and college, and as you studied, you highlighted everything you felt was important… then you got to the bottom of a page, looked back, and your entire page was highlighted??

Yeah… that’s what we DON’T want students doing when they are reading.

If we teach students to annotate, we can eliminate that highlighter bleeding! The idea of annotating is to slow down and really think about what the author is saying.

How should students annotate a text?

We know that close reading is the reading and rereading (and even more rereading) of a short complex text for several different purposes. Depending on the standards you are covering, you can use the same text for several readings and get something new out of it each time.

During close reading, students should annotate the text to help leave tracks of their thinking as well as to help with their purpose for reading. How you have students annotate (the marks they will make) is totally up to you, but making sure their marks are purposeful is what is most important to teach them.

There are two times my students might annotate:

1) With a text-dependent question (or multiple questions on the same standard)… This will help provide a student a purpose for each reading. We don’t want the margins to be full of random thoughts, but rather responses to their reading based on their purpose.

2) With a cold read… Students use an annotation bookmark at first to help remind them of the things they should be thinking about while reading, but they soon don’t need it because they remember.

(You can get these bookmarks for free here!)

My students annotate during and after reading – one paragraph at a time. I teach them that if they get to the end of a paragraph and haven’t written a single thought, most likely they weren’t truly thinking while they were reading, and they should go back and reread one more time.

The best way to teach students how to think and annotate is to model it for them.

Check out a model!

Here, I have modeled my own thinking for my students with a passage I wrote about epidemics (which you can download and use with your own class in this paired text freebie).

You can see that I showed my thinking, but it is not necessary to underline or write a thought about every single sentence, just like it’s not necessary to highlight every sentence either!

It’s also a great way to get students thinking before discussing an article with a partner. I have my students turn knee to knee and share what they thought was most important, what surprised them, and also share their questions with each other. You can see them doing that here with the second pair of texts in the free sample:

A lot of times, these conversations can help lead to new thinking for the students, which is exactly what we want from our readers!

Good luck annotating in your own classroom! If you are interested in even more paired texts, check them out here in my store!

PIN FOR LATER:

Close Reading

What Is Interactive Notetaking?

August 15, 2015

Interactive notetaking is the BEST way to get information to “sink in” for your students. I first learned about it five years ago at a staff development session and never looked back. Give it a try with your students, and I bet you’ll feel the same- especially when you see how much they ENJOY it!

If you do a search on the internet for this topic, you will find that there are all different types of strategies. I am going to share the one that has worked for me in my classroom. In my room, we use colored pencils to key our paragraphs, then we use those same colors to write phrases and draw pictures that represent the important information learned in a passage. I LOVE using this strategy in science and social studies, but you could use it in any subject! It is really just a fancy way of doing close reading. :o)

Interactive notetaking is active learning because it helps students understand what is important in a text and allows them to represent what is important in their own way. It also helps students use BOTH parts of their brain!

Interactive notetaking strategy with Ideas by Jivey.

The left brain “controls” the right side, and the right brain “controls” the left side. For this reason, anything I give them gets glued on the right side of the notebook- this is the “control.” And anything they write or draw goes on the left side of the notebook- this is their “connection and creativity.”

Color is VERY important with interactive notetaking. Students will box each paragraph with a different color. As they read, paragraph by paragraph, they should use the color of THAT paragraph to represent what they have learned. I highly recommend colored pencils- markers bleed, and crayons are hard to read when they start getting rounded ends. I have my students keep a handheld pencil sharpener with a shavings catcher at their desk- this keeps them from jamming my nice electric ones, and from getting up and down to sharpen. (They sharpen every five minutes at first, but then once they realize they are “eating” their pencils, the novelty wears off and they only use it when necessary!)

The first several weeks of school (and even sometimes later in the year when I really want to make sure they understand what they are reading), we do interactive notetaking together. Once I see they have the hang of it, I let them work in partners to read, dissect, and represent their passage. This is one of their favorite activities, and little do they know, they are learning so much by talking about what they are going to write/draw and why!

Sometimes there are more words and phrases than drawings. It depends on the topic.

You can find great {free} articles on k12reader.com on several science, social studies, and math topics (the two examples above are from there)- and they are sorted by grade level readability! You could do this with any article, of course.

**Copy Hack: If the page is too big for the notebook, copy it at 85%, cut off the white edges on the bottom and side, and BOOM. Perfect fit!**

We sometimes use annotating symbols as we do interactive notetaking, too. You’ll see in the passage below, I had them draw a cloud around tricky words, then we defined them in the margins.

Using annotating symbols in interactive notetaking with Ideas by Jivey.

Get this Columbus Passage and Organizer for free!

You can also see above that this can be done with a graphic organizer! Students are guided to find information in their passage, and they use the color to show where the information came from.

Once students have finished their notes, they should be able to read back what they have learned. I have them sit with a partner and talk in complete sentences to summarize the notes they have drawn and written on the left side of their notebook.

This is also a great study tool. When we do interactive notetaking, my students are required to take home their notebook that night… they fold their notebook in half so that they can see their notes and a parent or older sibling can see the article. They should do just as they did in class and summarize their notes- and the person on the other side of the notebook should be able to follow along in the article, so they know if the child is not understanding.

Need passages? Check out the freebies in my store, as well as the complete sets!

I’m linking this up with another fabulous blogger and teacher- Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching! Interactive notetaking is absolutely a motivator for students… who wants to just “sit and get?” Not me! My students absorb so much using this strategy!

Do you have any fun notetaking strategies you use? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Close Reading, Paired Texts

Text Dependent Questions with Annotations

March 11, 2015

I am excited to share about some things we’ve been doing with close reading and text dependent questions in my classroom. Many of you probably remember my blog post about annotating (if not, read it here). My kids have become annotating experts now!

Lately, I have been “trying” to give them a focus for their annotating with text dependent questions. We’ve especially been focusing on the “top of the pyramid” grappling with understanding what the text we are reading really means.

Text dependent questions with annotations witth Ideas by Jivey.

In Social Studies, we have been learning about the Founding Fathers and how they built our nation’s government, so I used my George Washington passage from my February and March Themed Paired Texts.

I wanted the students to think about what kind of person George Washington was using the evidence given- in other words, they needed to infer based on what was written in the passage. They did such a great job! Here are some of their inferences:

background and clip art from the fabulous Teaching Super Power!

I also have to share this amazing resource I found searching for examples of text dependent stems!!

I love having a bunch of possible questions I can ask about a text without having to rack my brain for them. This resource by Beth Burke has been a lifesaver for all types of question stems!

Text dependent Stems by Beth Burke with Ideas by Jivey

It is a free resource- definitely go grab it if you do close reading in your room! :o)

Read PART 2 here!

Close Reading, Paired Texts

What does the text say?

Here is a compare and contrast question- a “what does the text say?” question. You can see how we wrote out specific explicit evidence found in the passage to help formulate the answer:

Text dependent questions with Ideas by Jivey.

How does the text work?

To help them “climb the pyramid,” we use the same passage for a few days.

Here is another question we did on a different day using the same passage that falls in the “how does the text work?” section. “What does the author want us to know about the giant squid?” The students were able to identify this question as being one about the author’s purpose:

And lastly, we looked at the second passage for another “how does the text work?” question… we talked a lot about how we had seen the anglerfish in Finding Nemo…

Angler Fish and how does the text work with Ideas by Jivey.

…but what if someone hadn’t seen the movie…? We talked about why images in articles can be necessary:

Constructed Responses

All of these questions helped prepare them for a discussion we had (and then wrote about, too) in the “what does the text mean?” section of the pyramid: “How do animals survive in the deepest part of the ocean?”

This sounds like a simple question, but the students actually had to do quite a bit of inferring using BOTH passages, which definitely makes it more complex. The students had to think about what both passages included, which was how they find food- giant squid’s large eyes helps it see in the darker parts and its tentacles are used to catch prey, and bioluminescent animals attract prey.

They had to put this information together to talk, and then write, about how deep-sea animals survive.

This response is not perfect by any means, but I was very proud of this kiddo because English is not her first language, and had been working so hard to cite evidence and answer the question completely!

Text dependent questions student response with Ideas by Jivey.

(Want the Mysteries of the Deep set for your classroom? You can find your grade level of this set here in my store!)

Available for grades 2-3 and grades 4-6!

How are TDQs going in your classroom?

3-5, Mastering Mentor Sentences, Mentor Texts

Tying It All Together With Mentor Texts {with freebies!}

October 10, 2015

Mentor texts are perfect for students of all ages! If you don’t believe me, read here. 🙂 One of the best parts of using a mentor text is that it gives you more time to TEACH! Once you’ve read the book one time, you only need to re-read or refer to parts of it for your mini-lessons.

In this post, I am going to explain how I used the book, When Lightning Comes in a Jar by Patricia Polacco to review vivid verbs in writing (and help them implement in their own writing), review parts of speech and similes in grammar through mentor sentence lessons, and do a close reading lesson where they use text evidence to support their thinking during reading.

You can find all of the activities I will be discussing in these two freebies in my store:

The students were already familiar with vivid verbs, so I wanted them to “read like a writer” and listen for vivid verbs as I read the story to them for the first time. Patricia really has a beautiful way with words, and all of her books have great vivid verbs- this one was no exception!

Students wrote all of the vivid verbs they heard as I read, then they shared what they heard with a partner. This recording sheet becomes part of their writing resource folder, so they can use it during writing time to help them revise if they need ideas. Later in the week, I had them pull out their writing piece and work on revising their verbs.

Over the course of the week, we also used one sentence from the story as our mentor sentence:

The focus was still on vivid verbs to tie in with our writing lessons, but look at all the other great things we got to talk about with this sentence! Compound subject, simile, prepositions, proper noun, plurals… the list goes on! That’s what I love about mentor sentences- the students get so much out of it each week and it really becomes a spiral review if you consistently use them. They are also looking at why the sentence is written WELL instead of a bad sentence full of errors (trying to figure out what might be wrong with it).

One thing students always need more practice with is close reading and finding evidence… but you don’t have to only do this with a nonfiction article! As a teacher, you can legally photocopy an excerpt of a book for the students to use in an educational setting. I copied the two pages where the aunts and Gramma were telling crazy tall tales. Students read this quietly and annotated their thoughts as they read, then we discussed their thoughts. They agreed that Aunt Ivah was exaggerating her story because no one would pick up a rattlesnake with an umbrella, much less get close to one!

We did the first two jars together, then they tried it on their own with the last two jars.

There is also an activity included in the freebie where students find text evidence to support the theme of the book, if you’re interested.

So I know reading about how to do all this and actually SEEING it are two different things… so I’ve made a new video!! I have several videos on YouTube but wanted to show how I tie everything together with one mentor text. Now, I’ll warn you… this one is longer than the others with multiple lessons happening… go ahead and grab your popcorn! 🙂

Thanks so much for reading! For more mentor text resources, head over to my store or click the specific products below!

Mentor texts resources with Ideas by Jivey

Looking for ready-made, detailed, explicit mentor text lessons for the week?

Join the club!

No really… there’s a club!

Close Reading, Poetry

Close Reading Poetry: Step-by-Step Mini-Lesson

October 27, 2015

Poetry is not just for April! Don’t save all the awesome poems for the spring! Everything you are doing with close reading can be done with a poem, too. Students can still infer, determine theme, compare characters or events, understand figurative language and word choice, explain how stanzas build on each other, determine mood or point of view, and compare poems to each other, just like they can with literature.

In this post, I will walk you through how I close read poetry with students.

I have used different colors for each step, but this is not necessary. (Although it IS prettier!)

When close reading a poem with students, before we read, I like students to label stanzas, verses, and sometimes even rhyme scheme.

Close Reading Poetry step-by-step with Ideas by Jivey.

Then in the first read, I just want students to “get the gist” of the poem. Students will annotate their initial thoughts during the first read. (Check this post for a great annotation bookmark students can use as a reminder!) Sometimes I read it aloud to them during the first read, sometimes I want them to read it alone. It depends on how much I anticipate that they might struggle with it (I don’t want them to struggle TOO much, but a little is good). With this poem, I’d say most students 4th grade and up could read it alone.

During the second read, I always read the poem aloud to them. I will usually do some think-alouds along the way and ask questions about parts that I want them to really think about. I also talk about any cloudy words to make sure they understand the meaning (by leading them through context clues if possible). This is when students really dig in deep and try to understand what is happening in the poem, and what the author wants to convey.

With this poem, I’d be sure to really talk about the word choice of the poet to show Ann’s fear as well as the mother’s feelings. We will also talk in detail about the lesson Ann’s mother is trying to teach her.

For me, I think the third read is always for the students to do on their own. They should really have a pretty good understanding of it at this point, too. The third read is where I like for students to connect to the poem and figure out what it really means to them. In this example, I have boxed the words that made me feel a bit sorry for spiders- all of Ann’s mother’s words.

(Of course, with all of the things you can do with one poem, you might do several readings over the course of a few days, but this is just one day!)

The poem you’ve seen in this post is a freebie in my store! 🙂

Close Read A Poem Freebie with Ideas by Jivey.

Enjoy using it with your class!

**Fun fact to share with your students: Jane Taylor also wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!**

You can also get the full pack to give you a poem for every month of the year!

Close Read A Poetry Through The Year with Ideas by Jivey.

Prefer to get these poems in digital format (Google Slides) so that you can print them OR use them 1:1?
Click here to purchase the digital-classroom-ready unit!