How to use this Page

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science (IES) and What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) released the latest educator’s guide to present best instructional practices for English Language Learners.

Although we cannot explicitly teach all academic and content-specific words our students will need to know in their educations and careers, we can be strategic in how we teach 5-8 words a week so they can apply these word strategies to new words they come across on their own.

Last week I applied the guide’s recommendations on how to choose an appropriate text and vocabulary words for English Language Learners and I modeled it with the Lee & Low informational text, Drumbeat In Our Feet.

I will continue to focus on the guide’s first recommendation: Teach a set of academic vocabulary words intensively across several days using a variety of instructional activities.

Using Drumbeat In Our Feet and the IES’s process, my target words are origins, vital, ethnically, diverse, unique, vibrant and varied from the “Origins of African Dance” excerpt in Drumbeat In Our Feet. See how I chose these words here.

1. Read the text

IES: Introduce the topic of the text by asking about students understanding of the topic and personal experiences. Read the excerpt aloud at the start of the lesson. (P. 24)

Lee & Low: I would read the text aloud so students who cannot comprehend the text independently can access the text whole group. All students should be able to follow along with their own student copy. Only constant interaction with the print and following along will allow students to connect with what I am saying and how I say it with what they are seeing in the print.

2. Introduce the vocabulary

IES: After reading the text and stopping to ask clarifying questions, introduce the target vocabulary words and have students find the words (in their copies). Display a list of the words in the classroom. (P. 24)

3. Teach the vocabulary words in layers

IES: “Teach academic vocabulary in depth using multiple modalities (writing, speaking, listening)” and “teach word-learning strategies to help students independently figure out the meaning of words.” (P. 18-22)

Lee & Low: Over the course of 5-8 days (lesson periods), I would focus on a couple of aspects of each of the new vocabulary words. On a whole class chart where the target words are listed, I would add a new component to each word each day in order to deepen the meaning and foster familiarity with the words for students.

Together we will create a student-friendly definition; write synonyms, antonyms, examples, non-examples; determine parts of speech; draw a picture or create an action/gesture to represent the words; list related word forms and any cognates; break the word down into word parts; and use the word in a meaningful, student-generated sentence.

For example, Monday I would read the excerpt, introduce the target words, find the target words in the text, and come up with a definition for each target word. Tuesday, I would revisit the chart and add synonyms, antonyms, examples, and non-examples for all the vocabulary words to reinforce meaning. Wednesday I would cover part of speech and concrete representations, and so on.

Below is how I would teach my target word, origins, from Drumbeat In Our Feet but I would cover all of the target words each day.

Monday

• student-friendly definition: the source where something starts

Tuesday

• synonyms: beginnings, birthplace, roots, foundation
• antonyms: end, destination, result
• examples: beginning of the universe and life, family backgrounds/heritage, word roots, superhero/comic book origin stories
• non-examples: death of a star, the youngest person in the family tree, the last book in a comic book series

Wednesday

• part of speech: noun
• draw a picture to represent the word: I might draw a lake with a river leading up to a mountain and arrow pointing to where the river starts.
• create an action/gesture to represent the word: with my left hand held out at hip-level as the “lake,” I would point with my right finger to my left shoulder (the mountain) as the origin of the river. [Tip: Students are great at brainstorming concrete representations of words!]

Thursday

• list related word forms: original, originate
• list any cognates: origine (French), origen (Spanish)

Friday

• affixes: none
• use the word in a meaningful, student-generated sentence: We hiked from the lake up to the mountain looking for the origins of the river. The original owner of this house built this house all on her own in 1956.

Remember: This is a process I will repeat each week or every 5-8 lessons with a new text and set of target words. While my students may know only up to 400 new vocabulary words by the end of the year, this repeated process will allow them to tackle new vocabulary words in other content classes and in independent reading.

Next week, we will take a look at how to incorporate the selected vocabulary into activities that support listening, speaking, and writing practice for English Language Learners.

Further reading on supporting English Language Learners in the classroom:

• Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners in Elementary and Middle School—Part 1
• Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners—Part 2: Choosing a Text and Vocabulary Words
• Similar text to use with grades K-2 is African Dance: Drumbeat In Our Feet 
• ¡Colorín Colorado! resources on Academic Language for English Language Learners
• Drumbeat In Our Feet also has a BookTalk with creators Patricia Keeler and Julio Leitão

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, close reading, common core standards, ELA common core standards, elementary school, ELLs, English Language Learners, guided reading, Institute of Education Science, middle school, Reading Aloud, US Department of Education, vocabulary

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

As I mentioned last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science (IES) and What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) released the latest educator’s guide to present best instructional practices for English Language Learners.

Let’s take a look at the guide’s first recommendation: Teach a set of academic vocabulary words intensively across several days using a variety of instructional activities.

Here is an example of how to apply the first recommendation using IES’s process and Lee & Low Books’ informational nonfiction text, Drumbeat In Our Feet.

1. Choose a text:

IES: “Choose a text that is brief, interesting, and engaging for the students; contains a variety of target academic words to focus on; connects to a given unit of study and builds the students’ knowledge of a topic; provides sufficient detail and examples for students to be able to comprehend the passage; and contains ideas that can be discussed from a variety of perspectives.” (P. 14)

Lee & Low: Based on these criteria, I selected the first chapter, “Origins of African Dance.” The reading level of Drumbeat In Our Feet is best suited for fourth through sixth graders. The topic of dance history is relatable and relevant to this age group. It will spark student interest and engagement and promote discussion. The short excerpt is an appropriate length that can be read within one class period and is worth multiple re-readings over the coming days.

1. Select vocabulary:

IES: Select a small number of academic vocabulary words (content-specific and general academic) for multi-day instruction. For in-depth exploration, consider only 5-8 words. The IES suggests choosing words “central to understanding the text, frequently used in the text, might appear in other content areas, with multiple meanings, with affixes, or cross-language potential.” (P. 16-17)

Lee & Low: Based on these criteria, I picked: origins, vital, ethnically, diverse, unique, vibrant and varied from the “Origins of African Dance” excerpt in Drumbeat In Our Feet. These words are key to understanding the text, will appear in other content areas students will explore, and several have multiple meanings.

Additionally, I used Flocabulary’s Wordlists to check my words against their grade level recommendations because Flocabulary’s researchers analyze grade level materials and high stakes tests to determine what academic words students should know in each grade. Origins is on the third grade word list and variety (related word form to varied) is on the fourth grade word list. Vital, diversity (related word form to diverse), unique, and vibrant are on the sixth grade word list. However, there are quite a few wordlists available to do this verification so utilize what your district/school recommends or another you have confidence using.

Next week, we will take a look at how to introduce and teach the selected vocabulary across multiple lesson periods using Drumbeat In Our Feet followed by writing and speaking/listening activities for your students to grasp the words’ meanings.

Further reading on supporting English Language Learners in the classroom:

• Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners in Elementary and Middle School
• ¡Colorín Colorado! resources on Academic Language for English Language Learners
• Drumbeat In Our Feet also has a BookTalk with creators Patricia Keeler and Julio Leitão

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, close reading, common core standards, ELA common core standards, elementary school, ell, English Language Learners, informational nonfiction, middle school, reading comprehension, vocabulary

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

Many of our classrooms include students whose home language is not English. In fact, EngageNY released a report documenting that in 2012-2013 New York State alone taught students who spoke more than 140 languages at home with Spanish making up nearly 65% of all English Language Learners.

Teaching students who are English Language Learners is enormously rewarding and meaningful. However, it at times can feel overwhelming, especially for those who have ever juggled multiple languages at once in the same classroom, supported a student whose language few of their peers or staff spoke, or worked with a student who had little formal school experience beforehand.

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) released a new practice guide for teaching academic content and literacy to English Learners in elementary and middle school. In this report, IES presents four recommendations to teach and develop English language skills in grades K-8.

Prestwick Café describes why it is critical to give students tools they can apply on their own, like Greek and Latin roots, and points out that even if we teach 10 new words a week all school year long, that is merely 400 vocabulary words—not nearly enough for a student’s journey to become “career and college ready” by high school graduation. While we can not teach every vocabulary word that our students will need or might come across in their reading, we can give them the strategies to build their vocabulary with and without us.

Over the next few weeks, we will focus on the practice guide’s first recommendation—choosing and teaching a set of academic vocabulary words over the course of several days in a variety of instructional activities and what it looks like in action with our books. Using the IES practice guide, we will demonstrate how to choose a text for English Language Learners and significant vocabulary words, to teach selected words, and to incorporate listening, speaking, writing, and reading practice for ELLs in vocabulary instruction.

 

Additional information, activities and advice for educators and Spanish-speaking families of English Language Learners (ELLs) can be found at ¡Colorín Colorado!

Further reading on supporting English Language Learners in the classroom from The Open Book blog:

Using Dual Language And Bilingual Books And Parent-Volunteers To Foster Deep Thinking

Using Dual Language And Bilingual Books In First And Second Grade

Using Dual Language And Bilingual Books In Third And Fourth Grade

 

 

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, common core standards, Educators, ELA common core standards, elementary school, ell, middle school, reading comprehension

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.

1. Teaching Students About Narrator Bias

Etched In Clay is a compelling case study for narrator bias and trustworthiness. The text structure with 13 narrators and its economy of words make Dave’s story captivating, especially to middle grade students who are beginning to engage with primary sources from the period of American slavery. Students can analyze how each speaker’s social experiences, status, motivations, and values influence his/her point of view, such as evaluating the poems of the slave-owners who would have had a vested interest in popularizing a particular narrative of slavery.

Using multiple perspectives to tell the story of one life is a striking display of how events can be interpreted and portrayed by different positions in the community. Students face the task of examining the meaning and nuance of each narrator (13 in total!) and what they choose to convey (or don’t).

Discussion questions include:

• Why might the author choose to share Dave’s story using multiple speakers? How do multiple narrations develop or affirm the central idea?
• How do the author’s choices of telling a historical story in present tense and first person narration affect our sympathy toward the narrators and events in the book?
• Select a poem, such as “Nat Turner,” and defend why the author chose a particular narrator to tell that event or moment. How would the event and poem be different if another, like Reuben Drake, had told it?
• Are there narrators the readers can trust more than others? Why or why not? What makes a narrator (un)trustworthy? How is each narrator (un)reliable? Why might one of these narrators not tell readers the “whole” truth? Does having more than one narrator make the story overall more reliable? Why or why not?
• How does a narrator’s position in society or in Dave’s life affect what he/she knows? How does the historical context affect what a narrator may or may not know and his/her reliability? How can readers check a narrator’s knowledge of facts?
• What is the motivation of each narrator to share?
• Does this alternation between narrators build compassion or detachment for Dave in readers? How so?
• Why is it important to learn the history of slavery from slaves themselves?
• Compare and contrast the conditions of slavery from Dave’s point of view and Lewis Miles.
• How do the slaveholders depict the relationships with their slaves? How do the slaves depict their relationships with the slaveholders?
• Compare Dave and Lewis Miles’ perceptions of the Civil War.
• Consider whether Dave and David Drake should be considered one perspective or two.
• Contrast how each narrator feels about antebellum South Carolina.
• Who might be the audience the narrators are telling their version of events to (themselves, God, a news reporter, etc.)? Are they the same? Why is intended audience important to consider?
• Argue whether 13 points of view flesh out this figure or make Dave and his life even more elusive.

2. Poetry Month and Primary Sources

As “Primary Sources + Found Poetry = Celebrate Poetry Month” suggests, the Library of Congress proposes an innovative way to combine poetry and nonfiction. Teaching With The Library of Congress recently re-posted the Found Poetry Primary Source Set that “supports students in honing their reading and historical comprehension skills by creating poetry based upon informational text and images.” Students will study primary source documents, pull words and phrases that show the central idea, and then use those pieces to create their own poems.

This project not only enables teachers to identify whether a student grasps a central idea of a text, but also encourages students to interact with primary sources in much the same way as Etched In Clay’s Andrea Cheng. When researching Dave’s life and drawing inspiration for her verses, Andrea Cheng integrated the small pieces of evidence of Dave’s life, including poems on his pots and the bills of sale.

3. Common Core and the Appendix B Document

Many middle school educators are currently using Henrietta Buckmaster’s “Underground Railroad,” a recommended text exemplar for grades 4-5, and Ann Petry’s Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, Written by Himself, recommended text exemplars for grades 6-8 in the Common Core State Standards’ Appendix B document.

Educators can couple Etched In Clay with those texts to involve reluctant or struggling readers, prepare incoming middle school students, and scaffold content and language for English Language Learners. Additionally, Andrea Cheng’s biography offers educators an inquiry-based project for ready and advanced readers to analyze “how two texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take” (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9).

For a more inclusive, diversity-themed collection of contemporary authors and characters of color, check out our Appendix B Diversity Supplement.

Further reading:

Andrea Cheng on Writing Biography in Verse

A Poem from Etched in Clay

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: African/African American Interest, appendix b, CCSS, close reading, common core standards, Educators, ELA common core standards, History, National Poetry Month, poetry, reading comprehension, slavery

Add a Comment

Throughout April, we are exploring how Jan Reynolds’ Vanishing Cultures series can be used in the classroom to teach about the environment, geo-literacy, global citizenship, and nonfiction. Today, we want to share how one school has integrated geo-literacy with digital and visual literacy.

Michael Willis and the Kaleidoscope Team at Williston Central School in Williston, Vermont helped their 3rd and 4th grade classroom build a map on Google Maps of the cultures featured in the books. Through this project, students were able to investigate topics and themes in the Vanishing Cultures series, practice deriving information from other formats and develop visual literacy skills, and gain rich social studies/ geography content knowledge.

The Google Maps assignment is an exciting way to engage reluctant or struggling readers, facilitate the participation of visual learners and English Language Learners, or provide an extension opportunity for ready or advanced learners. The 3rd and 4th grade students hope that in addition to deepening their own knowledge about traditional cultures, their project provides useful and valuable information for others.

From educator, Michael Willis: My 3rd and 4th grade team wanted to get an author in to share their experiences with our young writers.  Ideally we wanted a local person and sure enough Jan Reynolds, who lives in Vermont, was available.  First we hit up our library as well as the others in our area and got our hands on Jan’s Vanishing Cultures series.  We read aloud her books, visited her website, and then Jan came.

She shared a movie about her work and travels with our whole team in the auditorium and then spent time answering questions in smaller groups.  It was during one of the small presentations that Jan mentioned how great it would be to use Google Maps to highlight her book locations.  I thought it would be a great project for our students, and they were motivated to do it by the idea that the project could be shared with other students who read Jan’s books.

We used Google Maps to plot out where in the world Jan’s Vanishing Cultures books take place, and put together this map.

Here’s what the students had to say about the project:

What was it like doing the Google Earth Project?

Grace – I thought that it was really fun because we were working with a famous author.  We had to get all of her books and look up where she had been using Google Earth.

Isabelle – We dropped pins on the locations using the facts and map information on the inside covers of her books.  Doing this project motivated us to have to read her books and learn about the cultures that she visited.  It made me appreciate how lucky we are to have the things we have.

Logan – The map project was really interesting.  It helped me understand how many different places Jan had been.  I didn’t know that there were cultures vanishing from the Earth.  It made me want to learn more about the cultures.  The books were helpful because she had really been to visit the people, talk to them, and learn how they live.

Addie – We used the summaries and the content from the books to add a brief description to the pins which marked the places.  This project motivated us because we wanted to help others learn.  It felt special because we were the first ones to do this and actually get published!  Plus, I didn’t even know these cultures existed!

Myleigh – The motivating part of the project was that I don’t usually get to explore the world. How often do people get to learn about this kind of thing?  It was almost like traveling the world reading Jan’s books.

What do you think is the purpose of Jan’s books?  What do they help you realize?

Sean – Her purpose was to teach children about the Vanishing Cultures and what is happening to them.  I think Jan’s message was not that they need our help because they have been surviving for a long time.  She was telling us that we should respect them, their way of life, and to respect their land.  I learned that they are just like everyday people.  To them, I bet we would look like the outsiders.  Everyone has traditions that they do.

Addie – We are lucky to have so many resources to use.

Grace – It made me realize how different these cultures are from us

Isabelle – It also made me realize that we all are not that different.  We may have different stuff and live in different parts of the world, but we all are people.

Grace – We can help other cultures by protecting the regions where they live

Addie – We realized that while our cultures are different, we shouldn’t force them to disappear because we all have something to learn from each other.  We could be more conscious of our waste and our pollution and that could help them keep their culture and survive

Isabelle – I think that it is important to respect different cultures because it’s how they live.  The Celebrations book helped me learn that different cultures celebrate different holidays

What was it like having Jan visit?

Myleigh – It was really cool to see Jan’s presentation and to hear her describe her trips first hand.  It really helped me put myself in her shoes and understand what she was going through.  When I was hearing her use such descriptive language it felt like I was right there with her.

Katrina – I think that since she came it really helped us understand that you should appreciate what you have – even though the people in the other cultures don’t have a lot they still seemed happy.  The people in those cultures work hard to live off the land and work with nature by using their resources. It really helped me learn about cultures that I didn’t know about.

For more resources on the Vanishing Cultures series, check out:

• Beyond “Did you know…”: Teaching Geo-Literacy Using the Vanishing Cultures Book Series
• Raising Global Citizens: Jan Reynolds Author Study

How are you using the Vanishing Cultures series in your classroom? Share your thoughts, experiences, and strategies that have worked in your school and community! Post a comment below or email Lee & Low at [email protected].

 

 

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, children's books, classroom projects, close reading, common core standards, digital literacy, diversity, Educators, ELA common core standards, environmentalism, geography, geoliteracy, reading comprehension, visual literacy

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

Last week on the blog we spotlighted the work of Jan Reynolds, an author and explorer who has written nonfiction for young readers about cultures across the globe. If we had read the Vanishing Cultures series when I was a classroom teacher, my students would have been competing with each other over who knew the most outrageous fact. Did you know the Tiwi, an aboriginal tribe from an island off the coast of Australia, eat mangrove worms fresh? Did you know the Inuit from the Hudson Bay build rock piles that are stacked to look like men in order to scare caribou toward the real Inuit hunters?

My students loved to play the “did you know…” game. That became a popular sentence starter in our classroom. Students would scramble for the latest book or periodical on animals, prehistoric times, and exotic locales. The peregrine falcon, megalodon, and the giant panda were unshakable favorites.

Yet, we don’t want students to know “just facts” as if they are mini-encyclopedias. We aspire for our students to wonder and to investigate how our world works, how we are all connected to our environment and other humans halfway around the globe, and how our actions here affect others way over there.

The Common Core brings a refreshed spotlight to the nonfiction genre in children’s books, challenging publishers, educators, librarians, and parents to present children with high interest, high quality texts. What a time to engage students’ senses, sustain their wonder, and teach them geo-literacy!

National Geographic affirms, “with the rapid pace of change in the 21st century, it is more important than ever that young people understand the world around them.” It has adopted the concept of “geo-literacy,” and even gone so far as to create a community to support and cultivate “geo-educators.”

Enjoyed in classrooms around the nation, Jan Reynolds’ collection on at-risk traditional cultures is even more significant and striking today than when the series was first published. The persistent popularity of the Vanishing Cultures series speaks to its captivating power to make geo-literacy learning personal and tangible. This collection supports geo-literacy learning because each book challenges students to examine:

• the characteristics of each culture
• what makes this featured culture unique
• how this group of people has adapted to survive in its environment
• what challenges this group of people faces
• the modern human impact (positive and negative) on this traditional culture and the environment
• why the author would want to share this story with children and create a whole series on this topic

When we educate children about other cultures and geo-literacy more broadly, we are implanting the idea that we learn in order to make better, more informed decisions. Before our students become adults in positions of power, we want them to have practice in pausing and thinking how their choices to construct their community could disturb the environment of another community or animal species.

The Vanishing Cultures books encourage students to reason and reflect critically and deeply about how humans affect other humans and why we all benefit from diversity. As classrooms around the country can attest, Jan Reynolds’ books will not only spark enthusiasm that we hope ignites into lifelong careers and hobbies, but also conversation on what information we need to make decisions that will shape our and others’ health, environment, and well-being.

Classroom Ideas for Comparing and Contrasting Between Vanishing Cultures Books and Teaching Geo-Literacy

(Reading Standards, Integration of Knowledge & Ideas, Strand 9)

(Writing Standards, Research to Build & Present Knowledge, Strand 7 and 9)

1. How are these cultures similar and different from each other? What actions do these families take in both books to protect their ways of life?
2. Compare how the challenges of each culture are similar or different.
3. Compare how the children in each book demonstrate their pride in their culture. Why is it important for the children to feel proud of who they are and their way of life?
4. What is the author’s purpose in starting each book with the parents telling their child a story from long ago? How does this affect the tone of and set the mood in the series? How does this opening support the central idea?
5. After reading two or more of the Vanishing Cultures books, what common features or characteristics does a Vanishing Culture book have? If you were to write a book about your family’s culture, what kinds of things happen in a Vanishing Cultures book? What are some things that will not happen in a Vanishing Cultures book? What central ideas and lessons will be in the book?
6. Have students create a chart to compare different aspects of life across two or more cultures. Write the name of each cultural group being compared on the top of the chart, and list the topics for points of comparison down the left side. Here are some possible topics: Food, Clothing, Climate, Geography, Important Animals, Homes, How Children Help (Chores), Roles of Men & Women, Family Life, How People Have Fun, Beliefs, Means of Transportation, Challenges Faced Today, Celebrations, Honoring Loved Ones. Have students record appropriate information as they read and re-read the texts.
7. One elementary class created the “Around the World with Jan Reynolds” project on Google Earth. Explore where each of the books takes place. Compare the political map with the satellite map. Reflect on how geography has helped or hurt the survival of these ancient cultures. Students can create their own maps of the different cultures at National Geographic’s MapMaker’s 1-Page Maps.

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, children's books, close reading, common core standards, diversity, Educators, ELA common core standards, environmentalism, geography, geoliteracy, guided reading, Multiracial, Reading Aloud, reading comprehension, vanishing cultures

Add a Comment

This week I received two emails from teachers asking what writing assignments I incorporated when teaching about the Holocaust. Although it largely depends upon the classes taught, I typically ask students to complete four writing assignments which are directly or indirectly connected to our Holocaust unit.

Citizenship Credits

The first piece of writing students tackle, even before discussions of the Holocaust begin, is an argumentative piece called Citizenship Credits. That assignment is described in this post; you can download the prompt from there, or from below.



Whose Rules?

As students read the latter portion of The Devil's Arithmetic, they take notes on the camp rules and Rivka's rules using a two column chart created in their notebooks. Students record both the rules they discover, as well as the page numbers upon which they appear.  They later use these notes for a second piece: a comparison-contrast essay. They use this very simple model or this very simple model to structure their essay, but their writing is, of course, much more complex, as all points need to be text supported and elaborated upon. (For students needing some further direct instruction in comparing and contrasting, you may find portions of this ReadWriteThink interactive to be helpful).

Should Sixth Graders Study the Holocaust?

Once we've completed the novel, I challenge my students with this essay topic: "Should Sixth Graders Study the Holocaust?" The fact is, many parents and educators believe they should not. Students consult many online sources for support, including a speech by Jane Yolen which includes the "Alphabet of Evil," and a collection of quotes I've compiled. Some teachers may disagree with providing resources for their students, but after viewing many online sources which turned out to be inappropriate, biased, or simply hateful, I chose to provide students with some excerpts which I had personally vetted). A huge emphasis here is on recognizing and refuting opposing points of view.

Improving the World

A last writing piece which students produce nearly a month after our Holocaust unit is based upon an Anne Frank quote: "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." In their responses, students provide examples of ways that others have improved the world, and ways in which they, in their present role as student, can do the same. This link shows how we organize the essay, and also provides many possible openings as well as ways in which to revisit those openings in the closing paragraph.

Hope these suggestions help. What responses to Holocaust studies have your students written?

Add a Comment

Today’s world is smaller than ever, and as technology continues to advance it will only get smaller. Raising students for success means teaching them how to be global citizens, emphasizing cultural literacy and geoliteracy, and exposing them to people whose lives differ from theirs.

For this, there’s no better author than Jan Reynolds. Reynolds is a writer, photographer, and adventurer who has written over fourteen nonfiction books for children about her travels. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including National Geographic, The New York Times, and Outside Magazine. Reynolds is an avid skier, mountain climber, and adventurer who holds the record for women’s high altitude skiing, was part of the first expedition to circumnavigate Mount Everest, and performed a solo crossing of the Himalayas.

Throughout April, we’ll be exploring how Jan’s books can be used in the classroom to teach about the environment, geoliteracy, global citizenship, and nonfiction. Today, we wanted to share Jan’s books and some of our favorite resources available to help teach them:

Jan’s Books:
Vanishing Cultures: Sahara (North Africa)
Vanishing Cultures: Mongolia (Mongolia)
Vanishing Cultures: Himalaya (Nepal/Tibet)
Vanishing Cultures: Frozen Land (Northwest Territories, Canada)
Vanishing Cultures: Far North (Arctic Circle, Northern Europe)
Vanishing Cultures: Amazon Basin (Amazon Basin, South America)
Vanishing Cultures: Down Under (Australia)
Celebrate! Connections Among Cultures
Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life: A Story of Sustainable Farming (Bali)
Only the Mountains Do Not Move: A Maasai Story of Culture and Conservation (Kenya and Tanzania)

 

Lesson Plans and Classroom Guides:
Classroom Guide for Vanishing Cultures series (including classroom guides for individual books)
Classroom Guide for Only the Mountains Do Not Move
Classroom Guide for Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life
Classroom Guide for Celebrate! Connections Among Cultures

 

 

Interviews with Jan Reynolds:
Jan Reynolds on Cultural Anthropology and Photography (Only the Mountains Do Not Move)
Talking about Sustainability with Jan Reynolds (Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life)
Interview with Jan Reynolds on Celebrate! Connections Among Cultures

 

Video:
Jan! From Here to There
Maasai Life with Anthropologist Terry Mcabe
Life in the Wild: Visit a Maasai Tribe in Kenya
Explore Rice Farming on the Island of Bali: Parts I, II, and III

Author Visits:
Jan Reynolds visits schools around the world to share her books and experiences, and also does virtual Skype visits. For more information on her school visits or virtual visits, visit her website or contact us at [email protected].

Visit our Author Study Pinterest Page for more great activities and resources related to Jan’s books, and stay tuned throughout April as we delve deeper into the books of Jan Reynolds and explore how they can be used to teach global citizenship, environmental stewardship, geoliteracy, and more.

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, diversity in the classroom, environmentalism, geoliteracy, global citizenship, informational text, Jan Reynolds, nonfiction, teaching resources

Add a Comment

In discussing the persecution of European Jews in the years before and during World War II, my students would often ask, "How could they let this happen?" Meaning, how could the rest of the world stand by and do nothing? For all the answers I can help students to find, I still can't answer this question myself.

The question asked nearly as often, however, is this: "Why didn't the Jews fight back?" But to that question I can readily answer, "They did. They did fight back. But realize that it wasn't just with guns; even children your age found ways to disrupt and defy the Nazis who tried to exterminate them."

In teaching the topic of Jewish resistance, I've found a great resource in an impressive series of six books from Enslow Publishing titled True Stories of Teens in the Holocaust. This series explores, through hundreds of primary documents and photographs, the diverse experiences of Jewish and non-Jewish youth caught up in the Holocaust.

Another terrific single-volume resource for any middle or high school classroom is Doreen Rapapport's Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust, published by Candlewick Press.

Check out the books below, and then read on for suggested sites for helping students learn history through analyzing primary sources.

Courageous Teen Resisters: Primary Sources from the Holocaust

The popular title Courageous Teen Resisters: Primary Sources from the Holocaust documents both violent and nonviolent defiance of Nazi terrorism, from the increasingly overt persecution of early 1930s Germany to resistance efforts in France to the twenty-seven days of the Warsaw uprising. Readers learn how subtle and secretive efforts by Jews and Gentile sympathizers disrupted and distracted occupying enemy troops in some circumstances, while outright armed resistance and acts of sabotage wreaked chaos and destruction in others.

From Courageous Teen Resisters:

Courageous Teen Resisters is recommended as a stand-alone volume for students seeking to learn more about Jewish Resistance, as well an informational text companion to Heroes of the Holocaust: True Stories of Rescues by Teens (available from Scholastic).

The remaining five titles in the Enslow series are described below with a short publisher's summary or excerpt as well as recommended companion titles. This series is especially useful in text pairings not only to meet demands of the Common Core emphasis on informational texts, but to provide students with the necessary historical and social contexts needed to truly appreciate biography and historical fiction rooted in the Holocaust. (If you're seeking Holocaust texts for lower-level readers, be sure to check out my Annotated List of Holocaust Picture Books).

Youth Destroyed - The Nazi Camps

"Alice Lok was deported to Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp, in 1944. Upon her arrival, she faced a "selection." Alice had to stand in line as a Nazi doctor examined the new camp inmates. If the doctor pointed one direction, it meant hard labor—but labor meant life. If the doctor pointed the other way, that meant immediate death. Alice was lucky. She survived Auschwitz and two other camps. However, millions of Jews were not so lucky."  ~ from the publisher

Youth Destroyed - The Nazi Camps is recommended as an informational text companion to The Devil's Arithmetic (gr. 6-8), Prisoner B-3087 (gr. 6-9; see my review here), Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story (gr. 4-6), Hana's Suitcase (gr. 4-5), Elly: My True Story of the Holocaust (gr. 5-7), I am a Star: Child of the Holocaust (gr. 5-7), Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps (gr. 5-8), I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In The Holocaust (gr. 8-12), and Night (grades 9-up).

Trapped - Youth in the Nazi Ghettos

"(M)any Jewish youth living in the ghettos in Europe... faced death, fear, hunger, hard labor, and disease everyday. Millions of Jews were forced into ghettos, where the Nazis kept them until they could be deported to the death camps."  ~ from the publisher

For this title I'd recommend Children in the Ghetto, an interactive site which describes itself as

"...A website about children, written for children. It portrays life during the Holocaust from the viewpoint of children who lived in the ghetto, while attempting to make the complex experience of life in the ghetto as accessible as possible to today’s children.

Along with the description of the hardships of ghetto life, it also presents the courage, steadfastness and creativity involved in the children’s lives. One of the most important messages to be learned is that despite the hardships, there were those who struggled to maintain humanitarian and philanthropic values, care for one another, and continue a cultural and spiritual life."

Once students have interacted with this site, they will have a mental bank of sites, sounds, stories, and symbols from which to draw upon, greatly increasing their understanding and appreciation of this nonfiction text as well as any novel with which they're working.

Trapped - Youth in the Nazi Ghettos is recommended as an informational text companion to The Island on Bird Street (gr. 4-6), Milkweed (gr. 6-8), Yellow Star (gr. 5-8), and Daniel's Story (gr. 4-8).

Escape - Teens on the Run

"Thousands of Jews lived on the run during the Holocaust. Some were able to escape Germany before the war started. Others had to move throughout Europe to flee the Nazis. And many more could not escape at all."  ~ from the publisher

From Escape - Teens on the Run

Escape: Teens on the Run is recommended as an informational text companion to Number the Stars (gr. 4-5), The Night Spies (gr. 3-5), When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (gr. 4-6), Escape: Children of the Holocaust (gr. 5-7), Run, Boy, Run (gr. 5-8), Once (gr. 6-10), and Survivors: True Stories of Children of the Holocaust (grades 5-8).

Hidden Teens, Hidden Lives
The fate of Jews who were hidden is of special interest to students. Even in a classroom that chooses not to embark upon a full Holocaust unit, time can certainly be devoted to learning about Jews who went into hiding rather than face extermination by the Nazis.

The uncertainty of such a choice is reflected in this diary entry from Anne Frank which appears in the book:

Hidden Teens, Hidden Lives is recommended as an informational text companion to Number the Stars (gr. 4-5), Jacob's Rescue (gr. 3-5), The Upstairs Room (gr. 4-5), Hidden Like Anne Frank: 14 True Stories of Survival (gr. 4-6), Anne Frank (10 Days) (gr. 5-7), The Hidden Girl: A True Story of the Holocaust (gr. 4-6), Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (gr. 7-up), and The Book Thief (gr, 8-up).

Shattered Youth in Nazi Germany

"Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party's rise to power in the 1930s changed life dramatically for all people living in Germany. Hitler used propaganda, fear, and brutality as his main weapons. Jewish children faced strong antiSemitism in their schools and on the street, and saw their families ripped apart. Non-Jewish children deemed "undesirable" suffered a similar fate. "Aryan" children were forced to enter Hitler Youth groups or endure humiliation."  ~ from the publisher

This book is a real stand-out as it not only chronicles the experience of Jews in Nazi Germany, but also Gentiles who were reluctant to submit to Nazi ideologies.

Shattered Youth in Nazi Germany is recommended as an informational text companion to The Big Lie (gr. 3-5), The Boy Who Dared (gr. 6-8), The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List (gr. 5-9), Someone Named Eva (gr. 6-9), Parallel Journeys (gr. 6-8), The Book Thief (gr. 9-up), Hitler's Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (gr. 6-12), and The Berlin Boxing Club (gr. 9-12).

Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

If you're looking for a single-volume resource for any middle or high school classroom, I recommend Doreen Rappaport's multiple award winning Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust, published by Candlewick Press.

Like all of Candlewick's titles, this text is supported by a number of resources available from the publisher's site, including a full page spread, a teacher's guide, an interview with a survivor, and an audio excerpt. The book itself includes primary source excerpts, maps, a pronunciation guide, timeline, index, and sources.

In speaking of her accomplishment (which took five years to research and write), author Doreen Rappaport says,

"How Jews organized themselves in order to survive and defy their enemy is an important but still neglected piece of history. I present a sampling of actions, efforts, and heroism with the hope that I can play a role in helping to correct the damaging and persistent belief that Jews ‘went like sheep to the slaughter.’"

Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation

A key resource for teaching Jewish resistance, and for discovering a multitude of primary sources, is the web site of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, whose key mission is "to develop and distribute effective educational materials about the Jewish partisans and their life lessons, bringing the celebration of heroic resistance against tyranny into educational and cultural organizations."

Over 30,000 Jewish partisans, or “members of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an enemy, especially within occupied territory.” joined the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish resistance fighters who fought the Nazis. Interestingly, however, their assistance was not always welcome, as antisemitism was often common in non-Jewish resistance groups.

This comprehensive and well constructed site offers teachers and students myriad free resources including:

• Professional Development modules which can be completed for continuing education credits (CEUs)  (I highly recommend that prior to using this site you complete at least the first module, to better understand how to best access the site's videos, articles, lesson plans, student hand-outs, and more);
• An extensive film collection, containing 3 to 20 minute films trhough which students can "witness the Jewish partisans' stories of endurance, victory, and struggle;"
• Interactive maps of Jewish partisan activity;
• A Virtual Underground Bunker;
• An Image Gallery (captioned and sourced); 
• Downloads for the classroom and a Resource Search option; and
• A very unique tool called Someone Like Me, where a students enter a combination of characteristics which describe themselves, and the site presents a partisan who matches those characteristics. Students can then explore the life and work of that partisan through any of the resource links above.

Primary Sources

Because the impact of Holocaust education relies heavily upon students learning the true events of this tragedy, primary sources should play a role in every Holocaust unit. The JPEF site described above provides a wonderful collection of sources from which to choose, but below I have compiled a number of additional resources which educators may find useful in planning their instruction. As always, please reach out and let me know what other sites, books, and documents you've found useful.

Why Should I Use Primary Sources?

Reading Primary Sources: An Introduction for Students
From Learn NC, a step-by-step guide for students examining primary sources, with specific questions divided into five layers of questioning.

Primary Document Webinar
This hour long recorded webinar present teachers with not only reasons for using primary sources, but also ten really easy-to-implement ideas for starting with primary sources in the classroom.

Making Sense of Evidence
This is a highly recommended collection of articles written by experts in the field on how to make sense of films, oral histories, numbers, maps, advertisements, and more. While written by the experts, students will find the language they use to be accessible. From the site:

“Making Sense of Documents” provide strategies for analyzing online primary materials, with interactive exercises and a guide to traditional and online sources. “Scholars in Action” segments show how scholars puzzle out the meaning of different kinds of primary sources, allowing you to try to make sense of a document yourself then providing audio clips in which leading scholars interpret the document and discuss strategies for overall analysis.

Because of the career connections, this site is a valuable tool for achieving College and Workplace Readiness goals.

Engaging Students with Primary Sourcesfrom Smithsonian’s History Explorer site
A 64 page pdf that serves as an excellent introduction to using primary sources.

Primary Sources Fitting into CCSS
Brief article showing how instruction with primary docs helps fulfill CCSS.

Teaching the Holocaust with Primary Sources
From Eastern Illionis University, a Holocaust Unit utilizing resources provided by the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress: Why Use Primary Sources?
Very brief pdf discusses reasons in bullets; good for making your point when discussing unit plans with others.

Primary Sources Cautionary Tales (pdf article)
Considerations and concerns surrounding primary sources.

Where Can I Find Lesson Plans with Primary Sources?

I Witness
From the USC Shoah Foundation, this site contains over 1300 video testimonies and other digital resources, as well as assistance for educators seeking to use these tools in Holocaust education.

Response to the Holocaust: Resistance and Rescue(Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center)
A pdf format document filled with original writings and suggested student activities; you can also download the entire curriculum from the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center.

Jewish Resistance: A Curriculum from The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida
Lesson plans include original documents, along with suggested student questions to help analyze them.

The Power to Choose: Bystander or Rescuer?
Popular set of plans that has been online for some time; used by many educators as a good starting place for planning units.

Where Can I Find Additional Sites for Primary Sources?

PBS Learning Media - Interviews with Survivors and Rescuers
A good online source for interviews.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Offers an ever-changing variety of resources, as well as searchable pages for research. Educators can often request free teaching materials as well.

PBS Resources on the Holocaust 
The search page of PBS provides a vast number of resources, including excerpts from shows which have appeared on public television.

Oral History from Virginia Holocaust Museum
Oral History Project provides witness of survivors and rescuers.

Dr. Seuss Went to War
Theodore Geisel was a radical political cartoonist who urged America to join "Europe's war," in large part due to the oppressive policies of Hitler's Nazi. But are Geisel's cartoons themselves a type of propaganda? See an earlier post here on Propaganda and Persuasion.

What Strategies or Tools are Available to Assist Students in Analyzing Sources?

SOAPS Primary Document Strategy
This pdf provides information about the SOAPS acrostic, which students can easily recall for use in analyzing primary sources of information.

Primary Source Analysis Tools from the Library of Congress
Several different tools in pdf form for analyzing oral histories, manuscripts, maps, movies, and more.

Document Analysis Worksheets from National Archive
These pdfs allow for blank printing or for students to type directly on them and then print out or save; very handy for conducting analysis online.

Analyzing a Primary Source Rubric
A rubric for scoring student efforts in using primary sources.

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

In honor of Wangari Maathai’s birthday on Tuesday, April 1 and upcoming Earth Day later this month, we at Lee & Low Books want to share all the fantastic resources and ideas that are available to educators who are teaching about Wangari Maathai’s legacy and using Seeds Of Change: Planting a Path to Peace.

Elementary School:

• Seeds Of Change made Reading Is Fundamental’s 2011-2012 Multicultural Booklist. The amazing staff at RIF has put together extensive guides for educators, families, and community coordinators to scaffold vocabulary, extend knowledge, and apply S.T.E.M. concepts.
• In teaching standard 9 of the ELA Common Core, have students analyze two biographies about Wangari Maathai to build knowledge and compare the authors’ approaches. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance Project created a lesson for students to compare a Wangari Maathai biography with Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.
• School Library Journal’s “Curriculum Connections” e-newsletter features a lesson plan using Seeds Of Change to explore what it means to be a global citizen.
• Kid World Citizen shows teachers how to teach cause and effect with Seeds Of Change.
• Lee & Low Books’ classroom guide includes teaching tips, interdisciplinary activities, and a range of literal to inferential questions.

Middle School and High School:

• Seeds Of Change won the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent in Illustration in 2011. The Committee Chair and Book Jury have prepared activities and discussion questions for Seeds Of Change in the 2011 Discussion Guide for Coretta Scott King Book Awards, P. 20-21.
• Have students read and discuss author Jen Cullerton Johnson and illustrator Sonia Lynn Sadler’s joint interview with Lee & Low, which covers the environment, their travels, and Wangari Maathai’s achievements.
• After introducing Wangari Maathai with Seeds Of Change, delve deeper with the Speak Truth To Power human rights education curriculum, a project of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. They present an in-depth exploration on Wangari Maathai, the Green Belt Movement, and sustainability issues.
• In teaching standard 7 of the ELA Common Core, have students evaluate how Wangari Maathai is presented in a documentary compared to the Seeds Of Change biography. PBS’s documentary on Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement, Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, contains a classroom section full of video modules, handouts, and lesson plans.

What did we miss? Let us know how you are using Seeds Of Change in your classroom!

 

 

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: African/African American Interest, biographies, CCSS, children's books, common core standards, diversity, Educators, ELA common core standards, environmentalism, History, holidays, lesson plans, Reading Aloud, reading comprehension, ReadyGEN, Wangari Maathai

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

Dissecting excerpts, highlighting evidence, defending one’s answer choice, bubbling in exit slips. As necessary as all that preparation for upcoming state assessments may be, March and April for teachers and students can be arduous. In some cases, students are learning how to take a test for the first time. For many, the third quarter risks turning enthusiastic momentum for reading, developing interests, and taking academic risks into a trudge of review and re-teaching.

With all this reading in overdrive, it is understandable that few students (and teachers) want to keep reading at home for pleasure. Yet we need to sustain student excitement for reading and prevent testing anxiety. Now more than ever, students need the bigger picture of how literacy helps us as citizens, the experiences of deriving joy from print, and practice using books for stress management.

If you have observed your students retreating from the idea that books are an escape and hobby to an unpleasant, stressful task, here are some techniques to increase the joy factor in reading and keep kids hooked:

1. After lunch, recess, or the morning message, bring the class together to listen to you read a poem or a chapter from a longer book that is not connected to a skills or strategies lesson. This daily activity exposes students to books beyond their reading levels, bolsters classroom community in an otherwise competitive time, and communicates that books have calming, revitalizing effects.
2. Continue to highlight books with relevant holidays, core value themes, or S.T.E.M. content using designated bins or book cover displays at child height. Even during crunch time when it is hard to infuse lessons with interdisciplinary connections and core value applications, these exhibitions or quick booktalks allow students to explore and develop their interests. Consider creating collections for Women’s History Month, Cesar Chavez Day, baseball season, National Poetry Month in April, and Earth Day.
3. Lead students with books in arms to another classroom or outside for a “field trip.” This physical change of scenery reinforces that books are a mental change of scenery and a respite.
4. Set aside 20 minutes every day just for independent reading instead of squeezing in one more skills mini-lesson. Preserving time for students to interact with books of their choice in independent reading allows students to take a break, manage tension, and re-focus their energy. During this time, students self-select books they enjoy, exercise literacy strategies, and feel in control of their learning. This commitment and preservation of independent reading time conveys to students how seriously you value and respect this sacred time to enjoy a book.
   

   Ten Oni Drummers

5. A lot of test preparation and review involves independent work and sitting quietly. For an end of the week reward, let students choose a classroom peer to read to instead of independent reading that day, invite a younger grade to your classroom for your students to read to, utilize siblings and family relationships at the school, or invite other stakeholders in your students’ educations (like the cafeteria or main office staff) to enjoy a book with students. Reading to someone (buddy reading) allows scholars a chance to talk, enjoy a book in a low-stakes environment, and escape to a new world in a wonderful story.
6. Encourage parents to lead a whole-class read aloud in the classroom. This time gives you a chance to conference with struggling readers, celebrate parents as teachers, and encourage the intergenerational fellowship of books.
7. Invite an author to school or hold an online interview . There is nothing quite like reinvigorating young readers and writers than with a real author. This bright treat gives students a badly needed broader perspective of books beyond assessments. For more information on how to bring authors into your unit of study no matter what your budget is, check out this post.
8. Change up the routine! Have an “opposites day” in which two teachers switch for a read aloud/poem one day. Or engage other school community members (like the principal, school nurse, and other non-teaching staff) to read to the whole class so that your students can see that they have a whole team cheering for them and invested in their growth, health, and success.

Do your students need a distraction? These joyful books offer just enough silliness, escape, or suspense to remind students that books are also for entertainment!

• 

  The Monster In The Mudball

  Bein’ With You This Way

• Cat Girl’s Day Off
• Confetti: Poems For Children
• David’s Drawings
• Dreaming Up
• Ghosts For Breakfast
• My Steps
• My Very Own Room
• Nine-In-One Grr! Grr!
• Surfer Of The Century
• Ten Oni Drummers
• The Monster In The Mudball
• The Palm Of My Heart
• The Pot That Juan Built
• Where On Earth Is My Bagel?
• Wolf Mark

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, children's books, Reading Aloud, reading comprehension

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

First Lady Michelle Obama travels to China this week from March 19-26 and will be focusing on the power and importance of education. In an open letter to American students, the First Lady writes, “During my trip, I’ll be visiting a university and two high schools in Beijing and Chengdu (which are two of China’s largest cities). I’ll be talking with students about their lives in China and telling them about America and the values and traditions we hold dear. I’ll be focusing in particular on the power and importance of education, both in my own life and in the lives of young people in both of our countries.”

We at Lee & Low Books wish we could join the First Lady, but since we can’t this time around, we will be reading the biography of one of China’s greatest statesmen, poets, and humanitarians, Su Dongpo. This scholar is a shining example of how persistence and dedication to one’s studies lead to achievement beyond the classroom and enable one to affect meaningful change.

This biography presents a rich setting for Standard 3 of the Common Core State Standards: character analysis. We follow Bloom’s Taxonomy to illustrate the range of questions you can use to meet your students’ needs and access their literary strengths. By creating a progression of questions within one standard, we differentiate for students within a class, provide extension opportunities for ready learners, or move the whole class from literal- to higher-level thinking over the course of several readings.

Knowledge:

• What are Su Dongpo’s appearance/physical attributes, deeds/actions, thoughts/dialogue, and feelings/emotions?
• What are other character’s opinions of and reactions to Su Dongpo?
• Can you select sections showing how Su Dongpo relates to other characters?
• How would you describe Su Dongpo in a paragraph?

Comprehension:

• How would you classify Su Dongpo’s character trait(s) based on these actions, thoughts, and feelings above?
• How would you summarize Su Dongpo’s opinion or feelings about Wang Anshi?
• How would you describe Su Dongpo’s feelings about being banished from his job and home?
• What problems does Su Dongpo face and how does he solve them?
• How would you summarize Su Dongpo’s opinion about the purpose of government?

Application:

• When Su Dongpo was twenty, he took the official exams and earned status as the First Scholar for his academic achievements. Based on what you know about Su Dongpo’s character traits, how would he have handled the situation differently if he had not earned such high marks the first time?
• How would Su Dongpo react if his brother, Su Ziyou, became a corrupt government official?
• What would need to happen or change for Su Dongpo to work for Emperor Zhezong?
• How would Su Dongpo distinguish a “good” government from a “bad” government?
• What would Su Dongpo likely think about our end of the year state assessments or the Common Core State Standards?
• What advice do you think Su Dongpo would have for students who take state and national tests today?
• If Su Dongpo worked for the U.S. Department of Education, what might Su Dongpo feel and think about the role of education in America today?

Analysis:

• How did Su Dongpo’s upbringing prepare him for his career in government?
• What inspired Su Dongpo’s beliefs about the purpose of government?
• Why did Su Dongpo not care about “instant glory” or “worldly fame” when making a decision?
• Compare Su Dongpo and Wang Anshi’s motivations for working in the government.

Synthesis:

• Compose and present a speech that will communicate the thoughts and feelings of Su Dongpo to the Chinese people after he is pardoned when Emperor Zhezong dies.
• Imagine you are Su Dongpo and write a diary account of your daily thoughts and activities. What would you say about the work that you do, the people you meet in government and in the villages, and the challenges you face?
• Rewrite the scene of Su Dongpo hearing he is pardoned after the death of Emperor Zhezong. What would Su Dongpo feel and what would the Chinese people think about him if he were not pardoned?

Evaluation:

• Defend whether you would or would not like Su Dongpo to work in your government.
• Argue what lessons Su Dongpo learned from his career in and out of government.
• How effective is Su Dongpo as a humanitarian?
• Determine whether Su Dongpo was or was not disrespectful of government.
• Assess whether Su Dongpo changed from the beginning to the end of the book based on his character traits.

Additional resources:

Sign up for updates from the First Lady throughout her trips and opportunities to ask questions.

Explore PBS LearningMedia for the First Lady’s blog, a map of China, and other resources.

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: biography, bloom's taxonomy, CCSS, character analysis, children's books, close reading, common core standards, differentiation, Educators, ELA common core standards, guided reading, higher level thinking, History, reading comprehension, rigor, white house

Add a Comment

Arousing a Sense of Wonder

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

My students and their siblings were often alone or spent a lot of time with each other. For some, siblings were the only constant in their lives. Fittingly, siblings and close-in-age relatives held powerful sway and influence over each other.

I found that brothers, sisters, cousins, and neighbors saw each other’s success as their OWN success. One of my third-graders danced in the middle of the carpet for twelve minutes after he heard the intercom announcement that his fifth-grade sister would be the new school president of the student council. What if I could channel that excitement towards literacy?

Brothers and sisters WANTED to see their siblings succeed. Sure, when one of my third-graders struggled to translate from English to Spanish that she hadn’t turned her homework in for a week at the parent-teacher conference, her older sister was delighted to impart the correct information to their mother.

In addition to using siblings for accountability and parent-teacher bridges, siblings became an incredible reward and relationship in my classroom. When my students, especially the struggling readers, made it to a new level, aced an assessment, or turned in excellent high-quality work, I wrote laudatory notes and let those students deliver them to their siblings in another classroom.

This system turned out to be just as powerful as a celebratory phone call home to adults, but I was recognizing the child in real time and recognizing the strength of the family presence at school. And it went further: the younger or older sibling was able to celebrate my student in their classroom and admire them publicly amidst their peers for academic achievement. There are not enough Dollar Tree prizes to compete with that kind of reward.

Beyond my school, psychologists have noticed the effect older brothers and sisters can have. In fact, NPR explored the positive and negative consequences of older sibling influence in a segment called, “Big Sibling’s Big Influence: Some Behaviors Run In The Family.”

At Arlington Elementary in Arlington, Tennessee, The Jackson Sun reported how teachers are recruiting older students to read to younger students in their Big Brothers, Big Sisters Reading Club every morning before school. More advanced students can relate to struggling readers and explain strategies in a friendly, non-high-stakes atmosphere.

In Carmel Valley, California, the Read To Me Project is an early literacy program that builds school readiness by engaging elementary brothers and sisters to read to their siblings. So far, 350 participating older siblings are reading to 443 young children across four school districts.

For Dr. Seuss’ Birthday last year at my school in the Bay Area, our kindergarten teachers invited the third-graders to read to them. Everyone was ecstatic to read to their brother, sister, cousin, or neighbor. My scholars had the opportunity to show off the chapter books they were tackling and feel like experts as they helped the kinders decode and recognize sight words. The kinders, in turn, received extra reading time, exposure to high-quality texts, and an opportunity to show off how remarkable their older sibling was.

One of my students who was an advanced learner, but had a very unstable home life, was very, very protective of his three younger brothers. His active kinder brother had refused to read with any third-grader, hiding each time another class of third-graders came throughout the day. Not until the last period arrived and his third-grade brother, my student, finally appeared did this kinder cuddle up to read. Even though my student brought a dense, picture-less chapter book on sharks and their presence in Fiji cultural traditions, his kinder brother sat in rapt attention for nearly an hour soaking in every word from his big brother.

We know the results on a child’s motivation and confidence when parents relish in their child’s success, so why don’t we harness that effect from siblings as well? Equipping our children with the love for reading and the skills needed to confront real world problems involves every stakeholder in our children’s lives—and that may include their smallest (but loudest!) cheerleaders.

If you need more inspiration, check out these books with strong sibling relationships:

• Bird
• Bringing Asha Home
• Elizabeti’s Doll
• Elizabeti’s School
• George Crum and the Saratoga Chip
• Home to Medicine Mountain
• Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path
• King for a Day
• Mama Elizabeti
• Only One Year
• Strong to the Hoop
• Summer of the Mariposas
• The Birthday Swap
• The Monster in the Mudball

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: CCSS, children's books, close reading, diversity, Educators, ELA common core standards, Reading Aloud, reading comprehension

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

Infographics’ format and economy of words make infographics engaging and accessible to children, reluctant readers, visual learners, and English Language Learners. As infographics contain multiple layers of information, they are a challenging medium for students to practice inferences and interpretation. Lee & Low Books’ infographic series on the diversity gap in major spheres of influence is a valuable vehicle to build students’ visual literacy skills and understanding of diversity. The following discussion questions and suggested activities were created based on the Diversity Gap in the Academy Awards infographic, but these can be applied to the rest of the series.

Discussion questions to consider with your students:

1. What patterns do you see? What trends do you see? How are the different charts related?
2. What is the central idea of this infographic? How do the words, phrases, and visuals interact to affirm the central idea?
3. Based on the infographic, what does “diversity gap” mean in terms of the Academy Awards?
4. What might the author’s purpose be in choosing this medium to convey the central idea (to shame, inspire, shock, etc.)?
5. Does the infographic make the central idea clear and obvious? How does the infographic use an economy of words, language, typography, pie charts, bar graphs, negative space, and title to communicate the central idea?
6. What type of infographic is this (flow chart, web, map, graph, diagram, table, timeline)? What might the author’s purpose be in choosing this type of infographic? How effective is this format of infographic at organizing and displaying data compared to just text?
7. Evaluate the effectiveness of the infographic as a form of communication as compared to text alone. Is this the most effective and convincing way to convey information about a lack of diversity at the Academy Awards? Why or why not?
8. Why might the creators have assembled this information about the Academy Awards and race at all?
9. Who is the intended audience (moviegoers, actors, directors, writers, producers, movie studios, general public, government officials)? What might the creators of this infographic want them to do with this information?
10. What is the context of this infographic? What major events in the United States were taking place when this infographic was created? Why is it important to understand the context of the infographic?
11. Is this infographic’s argument and presentation persuasive or compelling? Why or why not? Analyze this infographic’s effectiveness in inspiring activism.
12. Based on the information presented, what can you predict future trends will be for award winners, actors, directors, producers, and writers?
13. Can you determine causes for the lack of diversity in this infographic? Why or why not? How might researchers go about figuring out the cause(s) for the historical and current lack of diversity in the Academy Awards?
14. What is the impact of a lack of diversity amongst writers, actors, producers, directors, and award winners? What does it mean to be a young child growing up and consuming this form of media (movies)? What will they see? What will they not see? Tell me more about the possible effects of this situation and current trends.

Suggested activities:

1. Challenge students to translate this infographic’s central idea into a written argument. Students should use key details and evidence from the infographic to assert the central idea.
2. Have students revise or add on to make the infographic more effective. Students should consider format, adding or deleting information, and more. What would make the infographic stronger, more persuasive, or more memorable?
3. Encourage students to investigate how these percentages compare to the general public. Students can use the United States Census data for demographics.
4. Have students investigate possible causes for the lack of diversity in the Academy Awards. Urge students to propose ways to change these trends.
5. If possible, ask students to research the percent of moviegoers who are people of color. Check industry publications or major news periodicals. How do these numbers compare to the information in the infographic?
6. Permit students to interview their grade, class, or school on questions, including: Do you go to the movies? How often? What kinds of movies do you see? Who are your favorite actor and actress in Hollywood today? Who is a director/actor/actress of color that you have seen in a movie recently? Why do you think there aren’t more movies by and with people of color? Students can organize and display data in graphs and present findings to the class. Reflect on this information’s relationship to the infographic’s central idea.
7. Dig deeper—investigate the artists that were nominated each year. How many were people of color over those 85 years? What roles did these artists play in the movies they were nominated for? What genres of movies were they in for this nomination? Explore the people of color who did win best actress or best actor. What roles did they play and what kind of movies were they in when they won for best acting?
8. Compare this to other Lee & Low Books’ infographics in the series: The Tony Awards,  The Emmy Awards, Children’s Book Publishing, The NY Times Top 10 Bestsellers List, and American Politics. Consider central idea, evidence, format, and audience.
9. Update the information to include the 2013 and 2014 Academy Awards results. What changed? What did not change?

For further reading on teaching visual literacy and diversity in the classroom, check out these fantastic resources:

• Common Core in Action: 10 Visual Literacy Strategies by Edutopia
• An Approach For Teaching Diversity by Jim Winship
• An Introduction to Information Design by John Emerson and Backspace
• Teaching with Infographics: Places to Start by The NY Times The Learning Network
• Addressing the CCSS with the Use of Infographics by Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch
• Standards Introduction by ACRL Visual Literacy Standards
• Classroom Resources from Teaching Tolerance, a Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center
• Visual Literacy Part 1 by School of Teaching and Learning, Ohio State University

How are you building visual literacy skills in the classroom? Let us know below!

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: Academy Awards, CCSS, common core standards, diversity, Educators, ELA common core standards, History, infographics, Oscars, Race issues, reading comprehension, teaching about race, visual literacy

Add a Comment

It was curriculum night at a local Tukwila elementary school – with a focus on Common Core State Standards! I was excited to go!
As a public librarian, I’m always trying to figure out how I can be supportive and involved with students and school staff. ALSC has a resource page (http://www.ala.org/alsc/ccss-resources), and previous ALSC Blog posts have been helpful, but a chance to personally interact with local elementary staff was not to be missed! I could focus on talking to the principal and teachers about CCSS and find out what’s going on in my school district. Education leaders in WA expect the 2014-2015 CCSS assessments to result in lower scores state-wide. As “the most diverse school district in the nation” with 80% of students qualifying for free/reduced meals, there already exist many challenges in preparing students in Tukwila for graduation. Maybe I could gain some insight into providing help.

Right off the bat, the principal mentioned great interest in our newly formed Book Buddies program where teen volunteers spend time reading with younger kids. I discovered students are expected to read each night – since reading, along with math, will be areas of concentration for this school. I was delighted to hear we’re on the principal’s radar and we’re offering a program that matters to him.

After a general presentation, the grade levels broke up into individual presentations and I attended the 4th grade session.  Students in this grade will have access to Chromebook laptops and will use the following websites at school and at home to help with reading: Lexia, Raz-Kids, and Spelling City. Most homework will be math, including these websites: TenMarks and XtrMath. Because not all students will be taking laptops home with them, our public library branch can offer support by being familiar with these sites and providing homework help during nonschool hours.

The slide presented by the 4th grade teachers about Reading and CCSS was simple and encouraging:
• To read both narrative and expository texts
• To understand and remember what they read
• To relate their own knowledge or experiences to texts
• To use comprehension strategies to improve their comprehension
• To communicate with others about what is read

Does this sound familiar? On a basic level these are the same strategies we promote in Story Time when we talk about literacy and reading with a child. We know children’s librarians are preparing families long before the children go to school. Now I’m thinking of new conversations with parents whose children are already reading on their own – how they can continue to build reading skills and thus pave the way to making the new standards that much easier to understand and achieve.

-Gaye Hinchliff, member of School-Age Programs and Services Committee, works for KCLS in Tukwila, WA and can be reached at [email protected]

Add a Comment

Katherine Ali is a dual-certified elementary and special education teacher. She recently graduated as a literacy specialist with a Masters in Science from Manhattanville College. She has experience teaching internationally in northern China and now teaches in the Bronx, NY.

In order to be active participants in the literate world, students must be reading, writing, speaking, and listening at all ages. The natural interplay of language looks slightly differently across grades levels, but the foundations and mission are the same:

Reading:  Text Complexity and the growth of comprehension

We want our students to ascend the staircase of text complexity and simultaneously sharpen their comprehension skills.  Students, of all ages, need to build stamina through independently reading more rigorous and complex texts.  Additionally, read-alouds allow students to access content and concepts they may not be able to decode themselves.

Writing: Text types, responding to reading, and research

Opinion pieces, research-based projects, and narratives are the three main categories of student writing the Common Core State Standards focus on.  It is also imperative that our students engage in the writing process and expand their writing style using the conventions of the English language.

Speaking & Listening: Flexible Communication and Collaboration

Speaking and Listening in each grade level includes but is certainly not limited to presentations, group work, and class discussion.  Students need to be aware of their oral language skills and communicate their thoughts and research appropriately.   Building off other students’ ideas is also an important component in developing these skills.

In this series,  I’ve looked at:
Integrating reading, writing, speaking, and listening in grades K-1
Integrating reading, writing, speaking, and listening in grades 2-3

Today I look at how to integrate reading, writing, speaking and listening standards in grades 4-5, using the book Bird as an example.

Bird, by Zetta Elliott, illus. by Shadra Strickland
Interest Level: Gr. 3-8
DRA: 40, Guided Reading Level: Q

Reading:   Due to some heavy content (drug use and addiction, death) this story must be used in a safe learning environment.   It allows for great discussion around the themes of death, decision-making, perseverance, and coping skills.  Reading this book closely with a small group of students – almost page by page – will allow the students to deeply recognize the narrator’s point of view and how it affects the story.   Character description and point of view are the two main reading strategies I would suggest teaching with this intense, powerful text.

Writing:  Quick writes about students’ reactions and connections to the story are still merited in fourth and fifth grade.  Higher-level thinking questions can also be posed for students to develop their inferential thinking skills as well as their ability to cite evidence to support their answer.  Questions can include, “How are birds important in this text?” “What happened to Marcus? How do you know? What in the story tells you this?” and “How do you feel about the ending? Why?“  Using a high-interest and provocative book such as Bird may elicit a higher level of student participation.

Speaking & Listening:  To engage the students immediately, introduce this story by showing the Book Trailer posted on the Lee and Low website.  After students read and listen to the trailer, have them turn and talk with a partner to make predictions.  Or you can pose the question, “How does this trailer make you want to read the book Bird?” and give students 5 – 10 minutes for a quick write and share.   Then, discuss the media medium of the trailer asking, “Whose perspective is the story being told from? How do you know?  What decisions did the editor have to make? How do the music and transitions affect the presentation?”  The S&L standards for these grades want the students to converse about multimedia and presentation decisions.

There is also an extensive free teacher’s guide available to go with Bird, with several additional ideas.

Notice the close relationship between the modes of communication as the students read, listen to, write, and speak about complex, grade-appropriate texts.   If these key features are central to your instruction, your students will leave with a toolbox of skills they can rely on forever.

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: Bird, CCSS, common core standards, ELA common core standards, listening and speaking standards, Reading Standards, writing standards

Add a Comment

Katherine Ali is a dual-certified elementary and special education teacher. She recently graduated as a literacy specialist with a Masters in Science from Manhattanville College. She has experience teaching internationally in northern China and now teaches in the Bronx, NY.

In order to be active participants in the literate world, students must be reading, writing, speaking, and listening at all ages. The natural interplay of language looks slightly differently across grades levels, but the foundations and mission are the same:

Reading:  Text Complexity and the growth of comprehension

We want our students to ascend the staircase of text complexity and simultaneously sharpen their comprehension skills.  Students, of all ages, need to build stamina through independently reading more rigorous and complex texts.  Additionally, read-alouds allow students to access content and concepts they may not be able to decode themselves.

Writing: Text types, responding to reading, and research

Opinion pieces, research-based projects, and narratives are the three main categories of student writing the Common Core State Standards focus on.  It is also imperative that our students engage in the writing process and expand their writing style using the conventions of the English language.

Speaking & Listening: Flexible Communication and Collaboration

Speaking and Listening in each grade level includes but is certainly not limited to presentations, group work, and class discussion.  Students need to be aware of their oral language skills and communicate their thoughts and research appropriately.   Building off other students’ ideas is also an important component in developing these skills.

Last week, I explained what what it looks like to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening in grades K-1, using the book Rainbow Stew as an example. This week, I take a look at grades 2-3:

As Fast As Words Could Fly by Pamela M. Tuck, illus. by Eric Valesquez
Interest Level: 2 -7
DRA: 34, Guided Reading Level: O

Reading:  Doing a close read with students of As Fast As Words Could Fly fulfills the Common Core’s shift up the staircase of text complexity and builds strong vocabulary skills. Words such as refused, boasted, disbelief, barricaded, grimaces, and blurted are rich and valuable for second and third graders to read and understand.  This text is also an excellent model of the use of dialogue.  Through close reading activities students can highlight the dialogue and the speaker to understand the different ways to properly punctuate dialogue in a narrative. Of course, teachers can also read this story aloud so students can connect to the themes of perseverance and overcoming adversity.

Writing: Tuck’s writing style is strong and complex.  She uses compound sentences, prepositions, and onomatopoeia throughout the story creating a very sophisticated narrative.  Teachers can focus on one of these skills in a Writing Workshop model in which students translate the skill into their own writing. Mason’s story also evokes different opinions and feelings that lead to rich discussion. Use these discussion questions as a guide and encourage students to write a Reader’s Response and to share their responses with the class.

Speaking & Listening:  By second and third grade, students should be developing their formal presentation skills, therefore they may share Mason’s story through a presentation about influential people who took risks (complement the study with this interview with Moses Teel Jr., whose experience as a teenager during integration was the basis for Mason’s story).

Students also need to learn to lead discussions.  Assign a group of students to be the leaders of an interactive read-aloud and have them come prepared with various questions they developed in advance with the classroom teacher.  Creating a routine of student-led conversations around literature will catapult students into the upper elementary grades.

Stay tuned next week, when I discuss how to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening standards for grades 4-5 using Bird.

Filed under: Curriculum Corner, guest blogger Tagged: CCSS, Civil Rights, close reading, common core standards, ELA common core standards, integration, listening and speaking standards, reading, Reading Standards, writing standards

Display Comments Add a Comment

Katherine Ali is a dual-certified elementary and special education teacher. She recently graduated as a literacy specialist with a Masters in Science from Manhattanville College. She has experience teaching internationally in northern China and now teaches in the Bronx, NY.

As educators, we witness the transformations of students throughout elementary school.  First graders will one day become fifth graders, while fifth graders were once first graders.  So we must think, where did our students come from? and where are they going next? Our classroom must be structured to prepare our students for the future and help them build a skillset they can bring with them.  In order to be active participants in the literate world, students must be reading, writing, speaking, and listening at all ages.

Here on the LEE & LOW blog, I’ll illustrate what it looks like to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening across several grade levels: K-1, 2-3, and 4-5. The natural interplay of language looks slightly different across grade levels, but the foundations and mission are the same.

Reading:  Text Complexity and the growth of comprehension

We want our students to ascend the staircase of text complexity and simultaneously sharpen their comprehension skills.  Students of all ages need to build stamina through independently reading more rigorous and complex texts.  Additionally, read-alouds allow students to access content and concepts they may not be able to decode themselves.

Writing: Text types, responding to reading, and research

The three main categories of student writing the standards focus on are opinion pieces, research-based projects, and narratives.  It is also imperative that our students engage in the writing process and expand their writing style using the conventions of the English language.

Speaking and Listening: Flexible Communication and Collaboration

Speaking and Listening in each grade level includes (but is certainly not limited to) presentations, group work, and class discussion.  Students need to be aware of their oral language skills and communicate their thoughts and research appropriately.   Building off other students’ ideas is also an important component in developing these skills.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll share a few titles published by LEE & LOW BOOKS that illustrate opportunities for integrating oral and written language in the classroom. The stories can be used in different capacities depending on students’ interest and ability; therefore I focus on the interest level as well as the guided reading level to determine each book’s grade-level appropriateness.  Furthermore, while the mini-lesson ideas and strategy-based activities are categorized by each key feature, they are still connected.

Grades K-1

Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell

Interest Level: Grades K -3

DRA: 16, Guided Reading: I

Reading:   The rhythm and rhyming of Rainbow Stew (“Whimper, sigh, cloudy sky, is it to wet to play? We don’t want to stay inside/ because of rain today“) make it a fantastic read aloud.  Teachers can model how to use the bright, colorful pictures and other context clues to unlock the meaning of unfamiliar words such as “soggy” and “grasshopper.”

Students can also practice reading together through choral reading exercises in either whole class or small group instruction. Choral reading supports struggling readers and strengthens fluency.  Students are also then listening to the rhythm and rhyming of the author’s words repeatedly.   Additionally, students may be able to read this story independently to practice fluency and build vocabulary.  For emergent readers, this text can be a tool to teach phonemic awareness and word patterns as well.

Writing:  Author Cathryn Falwell uses a methodical writing style of action words followed by rhyming verses.  Young learners can discuss the writer’s craft in this picture book as well as notice some nuances in the different verses with strong scaffolding.  Teachers can lead a shared writing project in which the class borrows Falwell’s style and writes their own book, playing with words.  Another age-appropriate reading and writing strategy presented in Rainbow Stew is sequencing.  Students will need to refer to the story in order to recount the events by either drawing pictures or writing.

Speaking & Listening:  Teachers can facilitate an interactive read-aloud in which students turn and talk to one another about the story.  Asking questions such as, “What other stories does Rainbow Stew remind you of?” adheres to the reading standards in making connections across different texts and fosters intentional discussions.  Through the choral reading exercise students are reading, speaking, and listening to the text.  Creating a class book improves collaboration skills such as taking turns, listening to other’s ideas, and compromising.

Stay tuned next week as I demonstrate how to integrate reading, writing, speaking & listening for grades 2-3 using As Fast As Words Can Fly by Pamela Tuck!

Further Reading:

Integrating Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening in the Classroom

What Does Close Reading Look Like in Kindergarten?

Filed under: Curriculum Corner, guest blogger Tagged: CCSS, close reading, common core standards, ELA common core standards, kindergarten, listening and speaking standards, literacy, Rainbow Stew, reading comprehension, Reading Standards, writing standards

Add a Comment

The recent issue of Educational Leadership (March 2013  Vol. 70 No. 6) is chock-full of articles that challenge the way we think about learning and technology. I was especially drawn to Marc Prensky‘s article, Our Brains Extended. He asks,

Is the human brain still the smartest thing on the planet? When enhanced by technology, it is. . . Wise integration of our evolving and powerful technology demands that we rethink our curriculum.

And, I agree with him.  I think the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a stab in that direction.  Prensky challenges us,

We need to start teaching our kids that technology is, in a great many cases, the best way to learn something, not  just a new way to do old things. Would you maintain an expensive horse in the barn in case your car breaks down?

Ask yourself: Are students engaged? Marzano‘s research tells us that student engagement is strongly influenced by what teachers do in class.  I’m not talking gadgets,  but 21st century education. So, here we go:

• Edudemic’s 50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About 
• Edudemic–education technology tips for students and teachers
• Edutopia’s Blended Learning: Combining Face-to-Face and Online Education 
• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
• Flipped Learning Network
• Flipped-Learning
• The Flipped Classroom Infographic
• Khan Academy–a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere
• LearnZillion–a learning platform that combines video lessons, assessments, and progress reporting. Each lesson highlights a Common Core standard, starting with math in grades 3-9.
• SMART Exchange–lesson plans and resources for your SMART Board
• Mobile Learning, A Genie on the Loose 
• Math Teaching Resources for K-5 Classrooms
• National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)
• NETS for Students
• NETS for Teachers
• NETS for Administrators
• Edutopia’s Technology Integration in Education
• TED–Technology, Entertainment, Design
• TED–open translation project
• TED-Ed–lessons worth sharing
• Blackboard–Blackboard is a global leader in education technology that transforms the experience of millions of students and teachers
• International Reading Association–New Literacies and 21st Century Technologies

Related blogs:

• International Women’s Day 2013
  
• Science Technology Engineering Math–STEM
  
• Common Core–Framework for the 21st  Century
  
• Tree of Life Web Project

Graphic from Flickr Creative Commons by Henriksent

Display Comments Add a Comment

The recent issue of Educational Leadership (March 2013  Vol. 70 No. 6) is chock-full of articles that challenge the way we think about learning and technology. I was especially drawn to Marc Prensky‘s article, Our Brains Extended. He asks,

Is the human brain still the smartest thing on the planet? When enhanced by technology, it is. . . Wise integration of our evolving and powerful technology demands that we rethink our curriculum.

And, I agree with him.  I think the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a stab in that direction.  Prensky challenges us,

We need to start teaching our kids that technology is, in a great many cases, the best way to learn something, not  just a new way to do old things. Would you maintain an expensive horse in the barn in case your car breaks down?

Ask yourself: Are students engaged? Marzano‘s research tells us that student engagement is strongly influenced by what teachers do in class.  I’m not talking gadgets,  but 21st century education. So, here we go:

• Edudemic’s 50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About 
• Edudemic–education technology tips for students and teachers
• Edutopia’s Blended Learning: Combining Face-to-Face and Online Education 
• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
• Flipped Learning Network
• Flipped-Learning
• The Flipped Classroom Infographic
• Khan Academy–a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere
• LearnZillion–a learning platform that combines video lessons, assessments, and progress reporting. Each lesson highlights a Common Core standard, starting with math in grades 3-9.
• SMART Exchange–lesson plans and resources for your SMART Board
• Mobile Learning, A Genie on the Loose 
• Math Teaching Resources for K-5 Classrooms
• National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)
• NETS for Students
• NETS for Teachers
• NETS for Administrators
• Edutopia’s Technology Integration in Education
• TED–Technology, Entertainment, Design
• TED–open translation project
• TED-Ed–lessons worth sharing
• Blackboard–Blackboard is a global leader in education technology that transforms the experience of millions of students and teachers
• International Reading Association–New Literacies and 21st Century Technologies

Related blogs:

• International Women’s Day 2013
  
• Science Technology Engineering Math–STEM
  
• Common Core–Framework for the 21st  Century
  
• Tree of Life Web Project

Graphic from Flickr Creative Commons by Henriksent

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

   Was chatting with a friend the other day and he asked me about this CCSS stuff he was hearing about.  I gave him a brief explanation and he thought it sounded like an interesting move and one that might benefit me and other nonfiction writers in many ways for years to come.  I said, "We certainly hope so!"  But as soon as I said that a dark cloud passed over my obvious enthusiasm.  And I added, "But there's been some push back about it."
   And we've all heard about incidents of resistance to and downright loathing for the changes to the CCSS.  Educator Diane Ravitch has come out against the CCSS and has recently called for parents to band together in an effort to get their states to withdraw their agreement to impliment the changes.  Even while saying that she finds much that is good about the changes, her anti-CCSS blogs sound like typical paranoid tea-bag rants about big gubmint and evil private business interests.  Or is that the evil gubmint and big business interests?  Anyway, it's almost as if she knows she won't convince the vast majority of level headed professional educators, so she's gone to scare tactics to get parents into her camp.
   There are other negative voices, of course.  At a recent literary conference the director of the college's library services said he liked the changes to the CCSS, except "there was too much nonfiction."  !!!!  I know a writer of children's nonfiction who feels the changes are profound and wonderful, but hates the Appendix B list of exemplar texts.  I tried to explain why I thought the appendix was useful and appropriate, but this writer would have none of that and still denounces the appendix whenever a discussion of the CCSS takes place.  Could some part of this writer's antipathy be because he/she doesn't have a book on the exemplar list?  Meanwhile, there is a blogger/reviewer who seemed downright annoyed that at last summer's ALA conference more and more publishers, especially of textbooks, are actively promoting their various products as CCSS compliant.  In the same breath, said blogger/reviewer promised to do a review column of books that are CCSS compliant.  Go figure.
   It's not that any of these individual voices will turn back the changes to CCSS on their own.  While insistent, I don't think they are ultimately very persuasive (there's too much obvious self-interest involved in their positions).  But I do think their constant, negative drone can have a wearing effect.  And I do have a parellel situation that, while it might be a bit of a stretch to some, does seem worth thinking about.  That's the anti-gun discussion that's going on right now.
   Following the terrible tragedy at Newtown, CT, there was a massive, emotional out cry for gun law changes.  This was answered by the now famous response of NRA President Wayne LaPierre (that certainly didn't do his or the NRA's image much good).  After this, a variety of news reports of shootings taking place all around the US were reported, until my wife Alison looked at the paper one day and said, "I can't stand to read about any more of these shootings!"  My response was, "if you want real gun reform, you should be ready to read about shootings every day of the week and every one should be on the front page."
   Of course, the news reporting of shootings has dropped off considerably and so has the emotional edge in the gun reform message.  But the anti-reform movement has steadily preached the usual line of "we must be careful about our Constitutional rights" "it's not the guns; it's the crazy people" "we already have enough laws; they just need to be enforced" etc., etc.  As announcers sometimes say about football games, the momentum seems to have shifted.
   What does this have to do with the CCSS?  It seems that a great many teachers, librarians, school administrators, writers and others have embraced the changes and are busily preparing to carefully impliment them.  But they aren't all explaining the changes or defending them publically.  So the negative voices seem to be holding court unopposed.  And having some effect.  Maplewood has an online community called, naturally, Maplewood Online.  Recently one poster who dislikes the school adminstration (and has for years) has begun including a condemnation of the changes to the CCSS as yet another evil plot by the school superintendent and his minions.  You would think other posters might call her on this, but they don't.  She goes on and on in various threads, each adding a negative buzz about the CCSS.  Which reminds me; I have to get a MOL account to respond to her rants!
   And that's my point.  We talk about, praise, and defend the changes to the CCSS here in this blog.  But I think we need to get our voices "out there."  Vicki did this very nicely in a response to a Dianne Ravitch blog and I'm sure others have responded in a variety of ways to similar negative comments.  But I think we need to add our voices if not daily, at least over and over again.  I'm going to respond tomorrow to the Ravitch post (though I promise not to be snarky) and then make it a practice to address the negative noise whenever I encounter it as best as I can.  I have a feeling that if enough positive voices are heard, and heard constantly, we can keep the momentum going in the right direction.                        
                 
    

Display Comments Add a Comment

• Encourage students to examine verb choice in novels, poems, picture books, and informational texts. I choose existing mentor texts and  rewrite excerpts using “common verbs” (or, as Krasner would call them, place holders). Students are then challenged to replace these with more precise or colorful verbs.


• Direct your students to consider verb choice in their own writing, and work to find action words that are more exact. As a start, outlaw there is, there are, there were, there was phrases. A better alternative always exists. As do exceptions. Remember the first line of Holes?


• Teach children how to use a print thesaurus or online reference source (such as the Merriam Webster dictionary or Wordnik) for assistance in locating more exact expressions.

Display Comments Add a Comment

• Share George Bellows: Painter with a Punch with students, reading through from beginning to end for the sheer enjoyment of the narrative and images. Show students additional Bellows' paintings in over-sized library books or online. I prefer using images online, as I can often resize them on-screen to match their approximate real-life sizes.
• Reread selections from the text in order to discuss the use of opposing viewpoints. Why does the author include them here? In what way is this text argumentative? How does mentioning the opposite viewpoint strengthen each point that author Robert Burleigh makes? 
• Once students have discussed some text selections, work with them to identify the "skeleton" or "template" of each argumentative structure. Then, supply students with new content to be rephrased in argumentative format using the author's exemplars. One example from above reads, "Some critics note that the figures in the paintings are awkwardly drawn or that the ringside spectators have odd, caricatured faces. What concerns George most, though, is creating a "you-are-there" feeling."  This excerpt relies upon the "Some people..." format, with the counter-punch statement using "though" to express opposition (however could have been used as effectively as though).
• Discuss the book's title with students. Some students will notice that the subtitle is alliterative, in that words share the same beginning sounds. If your students have recently read biographies, challenge them to write fictitious subtitles that rely upon either alliteration, rhyme, or word play. (Other students will notice that the top rope of the ring serves to underline the book's main title).
• Show students other nonfiction books which utilize a title and subtitle, and discuss this feature's purpose. Authors and editors may do write titles in this manner for many different reasons: to separate their book from others on the same topic, to add a creative twist while still keeping the main topic "out in front," or to provide prospective readers with the book's focus (for example, Abraham Lincoln: A Pioneer Boyhood is aimed at a different audience than Abraham Lincoln: Making of a President). 
• Require that students use sentence stems (aka templates, models, patterns) such as those above to contrast simple ideas. Start with simple single sentences, move to paired sentences, and finally to paragraphs. My own students have used them for lesson summaries, spelling sentences, responses to current events, summary paragraphs (such as the Holocaust piece above), and comparison/contrast writings about character motives.
• Check out this fantastic break-down of argumentative writing from Smekens Education Solutions, Inc. In addition to some teaching tips, you'll find a ready-to-go activity that challenges students to identify what makes a revised piece of writing argumentative. They've also produced a clever student friendly/teacher friendly interpretation of the ELA Writing Standard (6.1) for Text Types and Purposes.

Display Comments Add a Comment