March 26, 2015

Incorporating High Interest Nonfiction Close Readings into Your Classroom

Ask a student about their favorite reading from English class and most will give the title of a young adult or classic novel. Few, if any, will name a piece of nonfiction. To increase my students' engagement with nonfiction, I decided to capitalize on something I knew they would be interested in: the holidays. I created a series of nonfiction close readings using rigorous texts from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Read about how one teacher uses these nonfiction close readings in her classroom.
When you ask students about their favorite reading from English class, most will give the title of a young adult or classic novel. Few, if any, will name a piece of nonfiction.

To increase my students' engagement with nonfiction, I decided to capitalize on something I knew they would be interested in: the holidays. I created a series of nonfiction close readings using rigorous texts from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio.

Below, one teacher describes how she uses these nonfiction close readings in her classroom.

Ask a student about their favorite reading from English class and most will give the title of a young adult or classic novel. Few, if any, will name a piece of nonfiction. To increase my students' engagement with nonfiction, I decided to capitalize on something I knew they would be interested in: the holidays. I created a series of nonfiction close readings using rigorous texts from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Read about how one teacher uses these nonfiction close readings in her classroom.Good day to you! I am Sarah from Kovescence of the Mind. I had the fortune to stumble upon Brynn Allison, The Literary Maven, and her nonfiction close reading sets a few months ago. Since then I have quickly snapped up every single one that she has posted.

Recently I used her St. Patrick's Day & The Dark History of Green text and questions. I think this is one of my favorites because the text was the transcript of an National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast. Most of my students have never come across a text like this before. They really got into the Valentine's Day one too.

Before class I printed off both the transcript and the questions for each student. I print enough for every student, much to the dismay of the man watching printer counts, because I want them to mark up the text. I always give my students the article first without the questions because otherwise they don't even want to read. These texts are short (about four pages), so the students don't get too squirrley.

The first thing I ask them to do is always the same: read and annotate. I ask the students to make two comments or questions on each page. Clearly this student was all about BACON. Not only does the annotation help them focus and let me know they read, it is just good reading strategy.

Ask a student about their favorite reading from English class and most will give the title of a young adult or classic novel. Few, if any, will name a piece of nonfiction. To increase my students' engagement with nonfiction, I decided to capitalize on something I knew they would be interested in: the holidays. I created a series of nonfiction close readings using rigorous texts from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Read about how one teacher uses these nonfiction close readings in her classroom.As they finish reading, even though I ask for quiet, they begin to talk....about the reading!!! I love the conversations they have over these texts. It warms my heart that the students get into the reading enough to want to share with others. The sharing of their thoughts with their table groups is what I do after the reading. See how engaged they are in the conversation...TEACHER LOVE!!!

One student was getting so excited about the topic that he almost hit me with his papers as I was walking the room checking in on everyone.

Only after the conversation do I hand out the questions that go with the text. We go over them one-by-one before I turn them loose. Some of these questions ask for textual evidence, and I want to be sure that my students know exactly which ones they need quotes as parts of their answers.

Ask a student about their favorite reading from English class and most will give the title of a young adult or classic novel. Few, if any, will name a piece of nonfiction. To increase my students' engagement with nonfiction, I decided to capitalize on something I knew they would be interested in: the holidays. I created a series of nonfiction close readings using rigorous texts from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Read about how one teacher uses these nonfiction close readings in her classroom.That is one of my favorite things about these products, they require text-based answers. The students have to use the text in their responses. I have been using these for awhile now, so the students are getting really good at figuring out the types of questions that go along with the Common Core informational standards. This is another great thing about these products, they cover all of the Common Core Standards for informational texts. Check those right off my list!

Another point about these close readings is that I just finished the first part of our state testing, and while it is NOT my favorite time of year, these texts made it tolerable because they are such high interest yet allow students to work with texts that similar to those nonfiction texts that they encounter on tests.

One last thing to consider is that these close readings are so user-friendly (the answer key is included) that they make a perfect substitute folder addition. These can easily be printed off and left for a substitute to teach. In fact, the Presidents' Day set was used for just that last month.

You can find all of the seasonal nonfiction close readings here plus one about the impact improper social media usage has on athletes here.

Ask a student about their favorite reading from English class and most will give the title of a young adult or classic novel. Few, if any, will name a piece of nonfiction. To increase my students' engagement with nonfiction, I decided to capitalize on something I knew they would be interested in: the holidays. I created a series of nonfiction close readings using rigorous texts from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Read about how one teacher uses these nonfiction close readings in her classroom.

March 12, 2015

Creative Writing 101: Point of View Retellings


One way to bring children's stories into your secondary student is to examine examples of fractured fairy tales and then write their own retelling of a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.
You would never want to insult your students by having "little kid" books in your classroom library, even if you have students reading at that level. But is it ever okay to bring children's stories into the classroom?

My blogger friend Lauralee of The Language Arts Classroom wrote a post about using literary terms like characterization, mood, and point of view from children's books to teach high school students.

It got me thinking about how I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith to teach the literary term unreliable narrator. And that got me thinking about a fun creative writing assignment, having students retell a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.

One way to bring children's stories into your secondary student is to examine examples of fractured fairy tales and then write their own retelling of a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.

I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka for this lesson, but there are so many other choices: The Frog Prince Continued also by Jon Scieszka, Goldilocks and The Three Bears by James Marshall, and these collections of The Other Side of the Story. I haven't read any of the stories from The Other Side of the Story collections, but each story can also be purchased individually like Really, Rapunzel Needed a Haircut! and Seriously, Cinderella Is SO Annoying! I even learned that there is a term for this type of story, a fractured fairy tale.

I am partial to the Jon Scieszka books because they always have great illustrations. I scan the book and create a PowerPoint of the pages so that my students can read along with me. If you are having trouble getting your hands on one of these books, many of them can also be found on YouTube. I also saw some great Pinterest boards of other titles. There are so many possibilities.

Which story you choose to use as a mentor text is up to you. I recommend not sharing too many as not to limit students' choices when they choose a story to rewrite. After analyzing the differences in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, I offer some suggestions of topics (including superheroes for those boys that think fairy tales are girly) and planning questions to help think about how students' stories would differ from the originals.

A few excerpts of my students' work:

Batman & Robin
After re-capturing the Riddler, Batman and Robin went back to the batcave. While in the batcave Robin was thinking over how his role as a superhero all started. 

(flashback) It was a cool summer evening the young adolescent was was defiling a strange automobile. Upon being discovered in his act of criminal activity the Batman appeared from the shadows. Young Robin looked in somewhat shock and surprised. He apologized to him but Batman was still unpleased with his actions. But none the less, the boy was ready to take off if things got hairy...

Cinderella:
I know you’ve heard about Cinderella and the glass slipper but I’m here to tell you the real story. I am Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s “evil” step mother as they say. But, in reality Cinderella is a cruel person. I've tried my hardest to raise Cinderella but she’s been out of control every sense her dad's death. To start off, she stole money and jewelry...

Allowing students to retell a well-know children's story from an alternative perspective gives those students who struggle with getting started a starting point as well as a format to guide their writing, while still hitting all of the Common Core narrative writing standards as well as working on characterization and point of view.

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

One way to bring children's stories into your secondary student is to examine examples of fractured fairy tales and then write their own retelling of a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.


March 5, 2015

Creative Writing 101: Talk Show Interview

Not all pieces in a creative writing class have to be short stories or poetry. You can engage with nonfiction sources and allow them to practice their research skills with a talk show interview assignment. Students will select an individual of interest to research, develop questions to "ask," and then write a script including the responses.
When I think of creative writing, poetry and short stories are the first things that come to my mind, and probably yours too, but not all students are interested in that type of writing. In my creative writing elective class (which students had not elected to take), I wanted to come up with a creative writing topic that all of my students would be interested in. Since everyone has at least one person they are interested in, whether a famous athlete, musician, etc, I came up with the idea of having students write a script for a talk show interview.

As I thought more about it, I realized this assignment would also require students to engage with nonfiction sources and use their research skills, but because students would be focused on a person of interest, they wouldn't even realize it! Sneaky, sneaky me.

I allowed students to choose any famous person, living or dead. I discouraged students from using someone non-famous, like their grandmother, because that would be more difficult to research in class. Some choices were: Beyonce, Steve Jobs, Kevin Durant, President Barack Obama, Aliyah, and Will Smith.

After students selected a person of interest, I asked them to identify three credible sources of information about their person. As my students were in 10-12th grades, we just did a quick review of what makes a source credible or not. If your students are younger, you may want to spend more time on the topic. Students emailed me the links to their three sources and once I checked them to see if there was enough information and that they were credible sources, students received the okay to begin developing the questions and responses for their talk show.

Once students had an outline of their Q & A, we examined samples of written interviews to properly format our own. We also discussed the idea of dialogue (narrative skill) and making our written interview sound as if two people were actually speaking to each other. Watching clips of a view interviews would help students get the flow.

After students wrote out a rough draft, they typed it up in Google Drive where I could easily make suggestions about revisions.

In my English classroom, I might use a similar project to have students "interview" a favorite poet from our poetry unit or a favorite author at the end of the year. You could also "interview" a character from a novel, but then students would be using a fiction source rather than nonfiction and would not employ research skills.

A talk show interview isn't limited to the ELA classroom. This writing project would require nonfiction sources and employ research skills regardless of the subject area.

Some ideas:
1. In history/social studies, have students select a historical figure from a unit or time period to "interview."
2. In science, have students select a scientist who made a significant contribution to the unit or course topic (i.e. chemistry, physics, anatomy) to "interview."
3. Similarly in math, have students select a mathematician who made a significant contribution to the unit or course topic (i.e. algebra, geometry, calculus) to "interview."
4. In gym/physical education, a famous athlete.
5. In music or art, a famous musician or artist from the genre or style you are studying (i.e. jazz, Cubism).

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Not all pieces in a creative writing class have to be short stories or poetry. You can engage with nonfiction sources and allow them to practice their research skills with a talk show interview assignment. Students will select an individual of interest to research, develop questions to "ask," and then write a script including the responses.



March 3, 2015

Common Core Writing: Wrap Up & Additional Resources


A top ten list of things you need to know about teaching using the writing standards of the Common Core as well as resources such as text exemplars for writing analysis and samples of student writing.
This is number ten and the final post in a series about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. If you are looking to get caught up, check out:
Post #1: an overview of the writing standards
Post #2: the gradual release process and writing
Post #3: explicit teaching of writing skills
Post #4: argument writing
Post #5: informational writing
Post #6: narrative writing
Post #7: research and writing
Post #8: writing across the content areas
Post #9: assessing student writing

In this final post, I wanted to wrap up what I learned from the course and share a few additional resources to help you align writing in your classroom with the Common Core. As this was a series of ten posts, I will leave you with a top ten list of what I learned.

1: The Common Core standards are standard across grade levels; they just increase in complexity.
2: The gradual release process should be used with writing just as with any other lesson in the classroom to ensure students have ample time to practice before working independently.
3: Explicitly teach students even the most basic of writing skills because any gaps in knowledge will only continue to be a hinderance.
4: Argument is the most important type of writing and must be grounded in evidence.
5: Find great mentors texts on interesting topics to hook students when doing informational writing.
6: Narrative writing can be blended with nonfiction and research by writing historical fiction or science fiction pieces.
7: Practicing research skills is not limited to research papers and can be done with shorter assignments.
8: Schools should take a unified approach for teaching writing across content areas.
9: Assessment should be used as a tool to plan future teaching and students should be active participants in the assessment process.
10: Likely you are already doing parts of 1-9, but as you approach each type of writing, look back closely at the related standard to ensure that your lesson is truly Common Core aligned.

As you shift your teaching to better align with the Common Core, there are several valuable resources related to writing on the Common Core State Standards Initiative website.

The English Language Arts Appendix A reviews types of writing and related language skills. Pages 23 - 24 define the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 24 - 25 explain why argument writing is so important as well as the difference between persuasive and argument writing. Pages 28 - 29 introduces teaching and learning the conventions of Standard English (grammar and usage). Page 30 has a graphic showing an example of the progression of a skill across grades. Page 31 showing the progression of all language skills from grades 3 - 12.

The English Language Arts Appendix B focuses on text exemplars and performance tasks, which will show you what kind of readings students should be analyzing in their writing. Page 2 discusses selection of text exemplars. Pages 4 -13 are a table of contents of text exemplars listed by grade band and by type of text: stories, drama, poetry, and informational texts for ELA, history/social studies, and math/science, and technical subjects. Excerpts of the listed exemplars are on the pages that follow.

The English Language Arts Appendix C offers samples of student writing so you can see what student writing should look like at your grade level. Samples are broken down by grade and the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 3 - 4 are a table of contents of samples broken down by grade and the three purposes in writing: argument, informational, and narrative. Pages 6 - 107 are the samples, each with an annotation that breaks down how each piece meets the grade level standards, citing examples from the piece to support each point.

I hope you enjoyed this series on implementing the Common Core writing standards, and as always I would love to hear how you are implementing these ideas in your classroom.

A top ten list of things you need to know about teaching using the writing standards of the Common Core as well as resources such as text exemplars for writing analysis and samples of student writing.