Launching An Argument Unit

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I'm not going to lie...argument has never been one of my favorite units to teach. Maybe it is because I am not a "great debater?" Maybe it is because in 18 years, I could count on one hand the arguments I have won against my wonderful husband. Maybe it is because it seems weird to encourage kids to "argue." But, whatever my reason, I need to get over it, because It. Is Happening! And regardless of MY level of interest, the truth is...KIDS LOVE TO ARGUE! They love to debate and to question things!

This year, we have a new Teacher's College reading unit...Researching Debatable Issues. It does also tie well with their writing unit Writing an Argument Essay. Win-Win. The downside, is that the Teacher's College does not always provide the most open-ended opportunities for voice and choice in a personalized learning environment. I will say, that the new reading unit really has stepped it up. The online components of being a Teacher's College district were great for this unit! Lots of articles and resources to help you. Let's be honest, finding age-appropriate resources that connect to debatable issues isn't always easy. We are very fortunate to have these resources available to us in our district.

In our grade level PLC, as we began unpacking our units of study and working to develop a cross-curricular unit plan, we had some intense discussions about what topics would be appropriate for our kiddos. We are not in a place where we could just "take the lid off" and let kids tackle any debatable issue they wanted. There are many factors that play in to that, but the bottom line is that we have some unmovable "fence posts" in that area. However, we as a team are committed to personalizing the learning of our students as best as possible. The compromise we found was to provide our students a "limited menu" of options to choose from. While this isn't as personalized as we wish it could be, it was the best we could do with the strong fence posts we are functioning within this unit. The Teacher's College resources set the stage for a lot of it, but we also added a few PC topics of our own. Here is our "final" list:

So, to launch this unit, we read a wonderful book: I Wanna Iguana. It is a hilarious story told through letters between a boy and his mother about why he should get a pet iguana. Even as 5th graders, they loved it. Big kids still love picture books, and we try to incorporate them whenever we can!

Link to Amazon

Following the book, we discussed three essential questions when examining argument writing:

1. What is the claim being made?
2. What reasons are given to support that claim?
3. What evidence is given to support those reasons?

We, then, examined the types of persuasion that is all around us. The conversations that came up surrounding these different types of products was fantastic!

"Wow! Look at that! Why are those words bigger? Where do they put sugary cereals on the store shelves? What commercials do they play in between cartoons? Why do you think they put those words there? What words are missing?"--and, of course, they got quite the hit out of "Everything tastes better in a bacon bowl!"

Then, it was time to "Take Our Own Stand"--literally! We had all the kids stand up. We put up choices on the board (example: soccer vs. football), and the kids had to move to either side of the room to take a stand. We did these with a few, then they had to find someone on the opposing side of the room and "convince" them that they were right! The buzz in our room was electric!

Once this fun and excitement was done, we put the kids into random groups of 5. Each group got a folder full of articles that took a stand on one side of a topic or another. There was at least one article for each of our list topics. With 50+ kiddos, organization is key in these types of situations. If we aren't organized, there will be articles EVERYWHERE in our space without any rhyme or reason. To help with this, we put each article set into a numbered manila folder. Each article in that folder shared the same number. Each random kid group was assigned a number and the responsibility of keeping track of their team's folder! It was beautiful! <My Type A Heart Is Singing> ;)

FINALLY...it was time to DIG IN! Kids devoured one article after the next! They couldn't help but discussing while they read. They voluntarily took notes on what they were reading. We just sat back and soaked in the amazing-ness all around us for a few minutes! Jumping into those initial small group conferences was energizing. It made ME enjoy argument! They were so engaged and excited!

In our space, we have the most amazing kids. Our room is full of so many diverse needs and backgrounds. We have multiple students identified as having disabilities. We also have even more students that receive ELL services. One of our students is even just starting to learn English for the very first time (He's now reading at a Level J...we're SOOO proud of his growth!). With the many needs, kids need different ways to access materials. We are fortunate to have Google Read & Write for all of our students in our district. This amazing tool allows for almost all websites and PDF's to be read out loud to kids! It also allows you to "simplify" texts from sites, creates pictures notes, and more amazing features...all connected to their Google Drives!

With the new updates to Google Classroom (it's about time, Google...), I am able to send websites and articles to individual students. This helps so much with the way that we personalize learning for our kiddos! Now, no matter what their ability or background, kids can access argument texts and have rich conversations with their peers! <I Heart Google!>

One of our students listening to an article using Google Read & Write!

Following an amazing immersive day, kids continued to become familiar with the topics within their folders. They debated (naturally) with each other, shared facts organically, and were truly fired up about what they were reading. Two days after this launch, we held a "grand conversation" about what we had learned so far. Kids led this, and they brought up the topics they learned about. What sides they were noticing. Some even were ready to declare their own claim about a topic. We took notes on all their great ideas. Then we provided them with a simple form to make a "final selection" on a debatable issue that they wanted to pursue further. 

Debate can be a tricky thing. There are so many topics in this world that may not be completely age appropriate for "littles", so we have to be a little protective. Heck, even we as adults are having some difficulty lately arguing and disagreeing respectfully. That being said, we still wanted to give our kids some freedom over their topic selection. Due to this, we added a selection in our form for "I have an idea I want to share with my teacher." We were floored with the amazing (age-appropriate) topics that they came up with. In addition to the list below, we now also have kids studying:

• Whether or not kids should have caffeine
• Reducing carbon emissions by increasing hybrid/electric car use
• Why improving public education in America is important
• Whether or not we should use nuclear power
• And a few more that are digging into topics of interest to see if there is enough info out there to support a claim!

From here, we put the kids into "topic-alike" groups. Kids created shared documents to share digital resources (without being prompted...wow!). They took their own notes in graphic organizers. And, most importantly, are naturally forming opinions that they want to share with others.

So, what's next? We are going to allow the kiddos to learn more about their debatable issue. From there, we are going to conduct "flash debates" with others. We are going to talk about the importance of counter-claims. How understanding points that are different than yours can strengthen your own argument. Ultimately, they will write an argumentative essay aligning with the 5th grade writing standards.

I know I was a little unsure at first, but, as always, putting trust in the kids prevails. They have made me LOVE argument! Their energy, excitement, and passion are completely contagious. I can't wait to see where the rest of this unit goes!

What about you? How do you teach argument? Have you found any resources that have made a great impact on your units? We'd love to learn from you!

Happy Teaching!

Angela

Last Literacy of the Year

Again...better late than never! This summer has been CRAZY busy for Kate and I! We've been attending and presenting at different conferences and supporting teachers all over the state! All other time has been spent being moms to our littles! August?! When did you get here? Geez...time flies.

At the end of our school year (May-June), we tackled our final literacy units of the year. Our focus?--Author Study & Literary Essay! I love this unit. I love exposing kids to authors that they might not have known before. I love the excitement when I wheel a cart full of books into our classrooms. I love the buzz of "Oh. My. Goodness! Have you read this one yet?? You HAVE to!"

This was our last unit of the year, and we chose to organize it as a book club unit...more so...an "Author Club." We co-planned as a 4th grade team, and brainstormed various authors that we felt would be meaningful to our kids. We wanted authors that had a wide range of levels, which wasn't always possible, but we tried our best. We ended up with mix of chapter book and picture book authors. Our goal, was for kids of all levels to be in each author club, to really add to the rich discussions. This was not going to be a traditional "book club" where all kids read the same book--the kids in these clubs would all be reading different books by the same author. With this kind of format, our lowest readers wouldn't be "bound" to be together, as often happens.

Our other major focus for this unit was theme and theme development. Due to this, we really wanted strong authors and texts. Why theme?--so we could tie their reading work to writing. Our last writing unit of the year was Literary Essay. They could use all of the texts they read and discussed with each other to develop an "author theory" to write about within their literary essay.

We launched our unit by introducing the kiddos to the various authors we had selected. We did take their suggestions in developing this list, but we also had kids after the launch that came and wanted to study different authors. We were pretty flexible and open to all ideas presented by the kids.

Following this introduction, we provided them with a Google Form to vote on their top choices.

Click to see the full form.

We also developed an "Author Hub" website (Using Weebly for Education) for the kids to use throughout the unit. It included author home pages, interview videos, book trailers, and more! Kids found others along the way that we later added to this collaborative site.

Click to see the full website we created!

Once we had their votes in, we looked at their top choices and got them into "author-alike" groups. We found that some authors had NO votes, and others had SO MANY, we didn't have enough texts. When this happened, we moved to their 2nd and 3rd choices. All of our kids ended up getting one of their top 3 choices. We also had pretty mixed-ability groups, which was awesome!

Then came my favorite day...BOOK DAY! Kids got into their Author Clubs for the first time, selected their first books, wrote the "norms" they wanted to follow as a club, and set their reading calendar! The "buzz" that is in the room on these days is so contagious!

We provide each kiddo with a packet of "templates" that they can use to track their thinking throughout the unit. At this point in the year, some choose to use it, and some choose to make their own. We love seeing what they come up with! They now know themselves so well as learners, that they know how they learn best and what they need in order to be the most successful in literacy! <proud teacher sigh>

This is the packet of templates that kids could choose to use. Click  to grab this from our TpT store!

Here are a few pics of different templates our kids created! Many chose various digital tools like: Slides, Sheets, or even Google Keep!

As the unit progressed and kids had made their way through multiple books, we started to tie in writing. We brainstormed theories we were generating about our author:

• Did you author write about similar themes?
• Did your characters face similar struggles?
• Did your author have a particular style? How do you know?
• And more!

The kids discussed these different theories & trends in their author groups and collected evidence from each other. Each of these graphic organizers are linked to the Google Docs we used! Feel free to snag them and make them your own!

It was our last big writing project of the year...they were a little burned out...but we were SO impressed with the deep thinking they did and the end results!

It was another amazing unit and a great way to end our school year! How do you teach Author Study? Literary Essay? We'd love to learn from you!

~Angela

Now Presenting... Our Wax Museum!

Okay...so I'm a little late on this blog...I actually wrote this MONTHS ago, and for some reason, never published it! So sorry! I don't know what happened there...

So, we have finished the culminating activity for our "Historical" studies that we have been doing for the last few months...OUR WAX MUSEUM!

When we started our Historical Fiction book club unit (previous blogs HERE and HERE), we knew we wanted to tie in some sort of nonfiction writing component. The NEW Teacher's College Units of Study recommend the spiral "Bringing History to Life." This connects to the new reading unit about the Revolutionary War. Since Revolutionary War is sort of a 5th grade "baby" in our district, we wanted to explore other options for topics. We decided to allow kiddos to research an important person that lived during the historical era that they were reading about in their book clubs.

We had kids meet in large "era-alike" groups (multiple book clubs together). They were given a piece of construction paper, and asked to brainstorm a list of important people that lived during their era. At this point, they had experienced quite a bit of nonfiction reading throughout their book club work in order to learn more about their era. They generated these amazing lists:

From there, they picked which person they wanted to really dig in deep with. For some eras, we had to draw names out of a hat (Adolf Hitler, for example...we had about 10 kids that wanted to research him...wasn't ONE Hitler enough for this world? ;)

They, then, began their research. They used various graphic organizers to help plan their ideas and put together all of the rich information they were learning. We discussed reliable sources, citations, strong transitions, tone, and more! It led to some amazing conferences and classroom conversations!

We discussed text features, layout of our text, and all the other amazing nonfiction goodies! To be honest, their final papers were some of their best all year long! We were SO impressed with all of the little "teacher voices" that we read come through!

From this point, we discussed first vs. third person. They were tasked with taking their amazing nonfiction pieces and converting them to biographical sketches that utilized 1st person narrative! They also had to pare down their pieces, as they were given a 3-minute time limit!

Another important feature that we added to this modified piece was a "heart" of their story. What could an important life theme be that could encapsulate their historical figure? Was it determination? Perseverance? Grit? Tenacity? Putting others before themselves? They were challenged to weave this heart like a thread throughout their piece. This was the hardest part for many of them!

Once they had their biographical sketches written...it was planning/practicing time! What props would they need? Would they dress up? Could they incorporate a technology component to support their presentation? A photo slide show? We encouraged all kids to just use what they had at home. We did not want anyone feeling like they had to go out and buy a fancy costume or special prop! In the end, some chose to have these items, and some didn't. We were okay with either!

It was so fun to see what this project brought out in many of our kids. Some really thrived and it bought out sides to them that we hadn't seen before. Some really struggled, which also surprised us. But in the end, the final wax museum was PRICELESS! We invited other 4th graders and our families. It was a truly magical afternoon!

Here are a few examples of the fun!

Have you ever done a wax museum? What worked well for you? We'd love to learn from you!

Happy Teaching!

~Angela

A Personalized Nonfiction Reading Unit

I'm not going to lie...I absolutely LOVE teaching nonfiction to kiddos! And the best part is that THEY love it, too! Kids are in pure discovery mode and can't wait to share "Ah-Ha" facts with anyone and everyone nearby. I love watching them read and seeing their faces when they learn something new that they think is really cool. So, needless to say, this unit has always been one of my favorites.

One thing we have struggled with has been how to make it individualized for our students. The thing about this unit, is most kids do not have much background knowledge on text structures or nonfiction types. They know they like nonfiction. They know "text features" (Click here for our Text Feature Scavenger Hunt freebie that we used as review). But if you ask them to identify or use a cause and effect text structure, and they look at you like you're speaking alien. Due to this, all of our mini-lessons for this unit were whole group. We really tried to personalize the unit for our individual kids during their independent work time.

So, we teach our mini-lessons and get kids excited about text structures (wow...who knew?), but finding books that have these text structures can often be a challenge, too. By collaborating with our amazing ELL and SPED staff, we printed multiple articles from the Reading A to Z library. By whiting out the identifiable  labels at the top, we were able to provide our kids with multiple articles to choose from at their level to practice with. Another fantastic resource that we often turn to is the Stephanie Harvey Tool Kit! (click picture below to be taken to her website).

These awesome books come with high-interest, leveled articles! The CD's are great to print clear copies from, too. Not all match specific text structures, but many do, and really helped to provide multiple options for kids to choose from.

Once kids had their chosen articles/books that interested them, we gave them multiple graphic organizers to help them organize their understanding of the different text structures. We used the same graphic organizers to model with during our lessons. This was really helpful, because when the students downloaded the Google Docs that they needed, they had our class examples on the front page as a reference model. We used these formatively to help support our strategy group work.

As we dug deep into nonfiction for over a month, we wanted a culminating project that we could also tie in with our nonfiction writing standards. We wanted the kids to dig deeper into a topic that interested them, but at the same time, prove they had a strong understanding of the text structures. What we developed was a "Magazine Article." It required that they choose and research a topic, complete "Boxes and Bullets" as note-taking, cite their resources, and include the many different tools/structures that we explored throughout our unit. Feel free to click the image below to get your own copy. You will need to "FILE, MAKE A COPY" of the document first. Then you can edit your own version as you see fit.

As they researched, we coached them on their note-taking, sources, we talked about reliable sources, and provided them with additional graphic organizers to help with their own text structure planning. They self-edited and peer edited. Then, it was time to start the final product!

They were most excited about trying out Google Slides in a new and unique way. We chose Slides as our format for the same reasons so many bloggers utilize Powerpoint. It provides the user with more versatility than a traditional Doc. They can make multiple text boxes, layer them, change backgrounds, and more! They came up with some incredibly creative final articles! Most importantly, they were totally engaged and VERY proud of the final "editions." Below is my "exemplar" that I built with them to teach them the tools. I also researched Giraffes when I modeled the note-taking once we introduced the topic.

Here are a few kid examples, too! These are only the first pages of two of them. Many were 3 pages long (and for a good reason ;)

They never cease to amaze us with their creativity, excitement for learning, and the way they make every day fun! We love our jobs!

Do you have any creative projects or ways of working through nonfiction? We'd love to learn with you!

Happy Teaching!

~Angela

Poetry Is In The Air

April is National Poetry Month! It has also been the month of testing...testing...and more state testing. We needed something creative to re-energize our kiddos.

We launched a Reader's and Writer's Workshop poetry "mini-unit"! Welcome to 10 days of creativity and bliss (can you tell I'm biased...I LOVE POETRY!)

We began by "sketching out" what those 10 days would look like. We wanted to blend the learning between both reading and writing, so one lesson often led into the other with regards to content. We also thought about where we left these kiddos last year with their poetry learning/understanding. We created a combined unit plan in a Google Doc, so all members of our teaching team would have access and be able to contribute. We analyzed the standards that were applicable first, so we could ensure that our lessons were connecting to them.

We poured over other blogs, Pinterest, and more looking for fun inspiration for our kids. What would be new to them? What did they need? What interested them? We settled on creating a personal anthology. Last year, in 4th grade, we introduced them to different styles and terms of poetry. The kids were really drawn to the "funny" poems and just wrote what they felt inspired to do. This year, as 5th graders, our hope was for them to take their poetry to a more sophisticated level. We did some immersion of books and analysis for themes. We let them read as many poems as they could, take notes, and seek out common themes. We then had a grand conversation and created an anchor chart of their ideas.

Now that they had analyzed theme, we asked them to think about a theme that was personal to them. One that could represent something important in their lives, or a pertinent emotion to them. We, then, introduced the concept of a poetry anthology to them as a collection of poems surrounding an idea. Their task: To create a personal anthology of poems of any style of their choosing all tied to their "theme/big idea"

To support their writing, we provided them with an "ABC's of Poetry Mini-Book." This mini-dictionary has 60 definitions and terms tied to poetry. Each one also has an example with it. It was printed back to back and folded. They used this to draw ideas that they could incorporate into their own poetry.

Click image to be taken to our TpT store

In Reader's Workshop, we taught them how to closely read and analyze poetry (a tough skill for kiddos!) Each kid received a reading poetry packet to support their thinking. Within this packet, they had mini-anchor charts with questions to consider when analyzing poetry, figurative language helpers, and template they could use to help them analyze. As always, we provide this packet as a resource for our kids, but we also encourage them to create their own that supports their personal learning style best. We have many of our kids that prefer our templates. They really benefit from that guidance and support. On the other hand, we have a large percentage of our class that really enjoy creating their own, personal templates using tools like Prezi, Emaze, or Google Presentation.

This packet can be found on our TpT store, and not only includes the anchor charts, but it also includes the entire unit lesson plan for both reading and writing. It also has the analysis page templates for students, two different poems to analyze, and a 4-point assessment rubric.

Click image to be taken to our TpT store.

We began by doing a shared reading of a poem, "Millions of Strawberries" by Genevieve Taggard. We went over the different questions they could consider while analyzing poetry, then they read it by themselves for their first read. They tried annotating on their own. We got lots of "I don't get it", or "This is hard." Which, made us as their teachers, thrilled! 

Annotation of "Millions of Strawberries"

We, then, came back together to discuss what they noticed on this first read. Once they realized that their noticings were actually great analyses, then the room erupted in discussion/ideas! We wrote their annotations from their first read in one color on a class anchor chart. Then we sent them off in partners to annotate more! They wrote their new annotations in a different color. We then came back together for a final time to complete our analysis and theme thinking. The grand conversations that we had during this activity gave us goosebumps!!

Partner annotation

Our final anchor chart

In writing, we discussed different techniques that they could use in their poetry (example: figurative language, stanzas, line breaks, speaker point of view, etc.) We used some great tools to support that. The Brown Bag Teacher, has a great blog post about how to use "Let it Go" to analyze stanzas and theme! We also used fun online resources to practice line breaks like Magnetic Poetry and Storybird.

In reading, we then analyzed poetry of their choosing for these different things! We also tied into our Revolutionary War social studies unit by analyzing "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" as a way to tie all of their new poetry learning together!

We are about halfway through our unit, and the engagement is off the charts for our kids! We have had to build in extra "discussion" time for each workshop, because they are SO excited to share their writing and analyses! 

Their anthologies are starting to take shape! Even our writers that often struggle or dislike writing are engaged right now. Poetry is such a universal tool. There is something for every style, interest, and emotion! We cannot wait to see how this all wraps up! We'll post again soon with examples of their beautiful words!

How have you taught poetry? Do you have any other fun resources that you have found beneficial? Please share in the comments!

Happy Teaching!

~Angela

StoryJumper

We are knee-deep in our fantasy unit of study. We connected Reader's and Writer's Workshop for this purpose. In case you missed it, check out the reading connection HERE.

Our kids enjoy writing...when they have the choice! Nine times out of ten, they would choose fiction writing. That being said, we don't have a true fiction unit in our 5th Grade Units of Study kit. We have a narrative unit, but it is a personal narrative. Our kids hunger for fun, creative, fiction writing. When we began long-range planning, we knew we needed to incorporate as much fiction writing in...whenever we could get it! Our Reader's Workshop fantasy unit was the perfect time. This writing unit falls within the "If...Then..." book in the Units of Study. The section of the book is fairly wordy, so we mapped out our own lessons in conjunction with our Reading unit.

We launched the writing unit with a picture book study. We started with our general observations in partnernships, then layered in different fantasy elements. Our kiddos examined their chosen picture books for character archetypes and quest structures. We then moved into brainstorming their own ideas using things they were passionate about (example: one students is a baseball fanatic....he could write a story about a magical baseball card that transports him to the past).

They flash-drafted, selected their story of choice, completed graphic organizers, and are off and running with their drafts.

Now what??

Sure, we conference, pull strategy groups to target certain skills, model with mentor texts, and the like. But what will happen when the story is done? Sure, they could publish using Google Docs. We could print them and put them in the hallway. They could share them on paper with our kindergarten buddies. But we wanted something more and different!!

Enter the amazing resource: StoryJumper!!

Our absolutely amazing student teacher, Liz, was digging around one lunch hour while I was complaining about wanting something different for our kids to do. I wanted something more meaningful for them. She began digging and found StoryJumper. Check out this quick tutorial video. Trust me...it is worth the 7 minutes:

And the absolute best part of StoryJumper...it is FREE! I don't know about you, but we are all about FREE in our space! I love that they can upload their own images/illustrations. I especially love that they could upload a picture of themselves, and crop their face to put on the bodies from the StoryJumper toolkit! You can generate a permalink when you are done that will be perfect for their digital portfolios, too! It also offers tremendous security features to protect our youngsters!

Another great feature that ups the SAMR scale...they can share these with the world! You can publish them in the StoryJumper library for the world to read! Talk about changing the audience and motivation for writing! If parents/schools were interested, they can order hardcover books for $24.95 or softcover books for $12.95. Even cooler...they offer a school fundraising option! Who wouldn't want one of these awesome books instead of overly-expensive popcorn or wrapping paper??

Bottom line...I was SO, unbelievably excited when Liz found this! It absolutely made my day! We cannot wait to share this option with our students as a choice for publication (I'm guessing MOST will choose this amazing tool!). We shared this with all of our school peeps, as well! Our friend and amazing colleague, Lisa, from Growing Firsties, already wrote her own blog post about it! Needless this to say, this tool is FANTASTIC, and everyone should try it!

How do your kids publish? Have you tried StoryJumper? Do you have another amazing tool? Sound off below!

~Angela :)