Book Timelines!

We are knee-deep in our 5th grade historical fiction unit right now. This is always a favorite each year. We've blogged about our various HF adventures HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

In 5th grade, kids have already completed a HF unit when they were with us in 4th grade. During that time, they all read the SAME book. This year, to take them a little deeper, the kids main focus is studying the ERA they selected. Due to this, kids are all reading DIFFERENT books that are within the same era as their book club members. Our students also had to select a different era this year from the one they studied last year in our space. Eras we focused on this year: Colonial America, Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, Civil War, WW2, and Civil Rights. Our favorite part of this, is that kids of all levels are in book clubs together, really creating fantastic discourse tied to era understanding and how their book fit together.

A huge part of any historical fiction unit is nonfiction understanding of the era they are studying. We spent the first week+ immersing ourselves in nonfiction materials tied to our era. Kids shared ideas with each other and created a group timeline outlining important events from their era.

As we have been working through our books and discussions, they started to bring up and share where their books fit into these non-fiction timelines. Last year, we made "double timelines", which were fun, but only one book could fit in that framework.

This year, our amazing student teacher, Megan Leverence (she's looking for a job, people...anyone hiring?? :) found a great blog post. You can read it HERE. She took the idea and changed it up a little bit, and found a way to connect it to the timelines the kids created.

Rather than write up "reviews," like the blog suggested, she had the kids create "book timelines" of the books they had been reading. She had them find 5-10 important events in their books (no spoilers allowed), and create a timeline "flipbook."

Once the kids created their "flipbook timelines", they placed their books on the nonfiction timelines. This created a fantastic visual of where all of the books we were reading fit across history. We utilized a huge bulletin board in our hall to hang all the timelines and books on. It's been a great discussion and visual tool for all of our kiddos.

How have you taught HF units? How do you bring in nonfiction? We'd love to learn with you!

Happy Teaching,

Angela

Launching An Argument Unit

Photo Credit

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

Hosting a Book Tasting

Kate and I follow a lot of blogs. We LOVE learning from others! And when we started seeing this activity pop up on a few of our favorites, we knew we HAD to try it out! And, boy are we glad we did! The first one we read was TEACHING WITH A MOUNTAIN VIEW. If you don't follow her...you SHOULD! She's amazing! This activity was a PERFECT way to launch our Reading Workshop this year! We will definitely repeat this one probably mid and end year! We ran ours a little bit differently than Mary did, but you really have to work with what you have and what your needs are! So, here's the deal:

The premise is that you are "hosting" a "book tasting" for your kids. Kids will get to "taste" or sample different books from different genres. They reflect on what they liked and didn't like in their "menu." They were given opportunities to read, write, and discuss their "tastes." From this activity, we launched our Reading Workshop with a fantastic discussion about "Who are you as a reader?" Our next step will be to set some goals (but we didn't get that far yet). 

We really played this up and welcomed them to the "TEAM TOGETHERNESS Restaurant!" in the hallway by handing them their menus before they even walked through the door. I even wore a paper chef hat and apron (thank you to my kindergarten friends with their endless dress up materials) Check out this incredibly unflattering picture Kate snapped of me. The kids really thought I was crazy...remember...we did this on the 2nd day of school! :) Thankfully, we have looped with this class up to 5th grade, so they all already know that we have a flare for the "dramatic" and are never afraid to make fools out of ourselves!

After this, I explained the process. They were going to experience a "5 course meal" of books! Each course would be a different genre. I went over the menu, the timing, and put them into random groups of 10 (we have 50 kids). Then, we got started!

We completed all 5 rotations in about an hour. I gave each "course" about 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes included:

• 5 minutes of pure stamina reading
• 2 minutes of jotting down their thinking in their "menu"
• 2-3 minutes for discussion and clean up to move to the next rotation

At the end of the "meal", kids wrote down their "must reads" on a bookmark to keep. Then we followed up the activity with our lesson of "Who are you as a reader?" The discussion was absolutely amazing!

Have we piqued your interest? Are you ready to try it yourself? Here is what you need to do!

1. Purchase THIS RESOURCE from "Head Over Heels for Teaching"! It is worth it! Everything you need to print out is in it! She also has lots of pictures and examples! She even provides multiple options, so you can pick what you like! Print the resources from here that you want! We used the teaser posters, the "menu", the table numbers, the place mats, the bookmarks, and the genre descriptors.

2. Head to your local dollar store. I purchased 5 table clothes, 5 plastic platters, and sets of battery operated tea lights

3. Decide on what genres you want your kids to "taste"--the resources has LOTS! We used her posters as mini anchor charts and hung them in our room. We ultimately only had time for 5, but you could always do more. We chose: Realistic Fiction, Fantasy, Biography, Mystery, and Historical Fiction for our "tasting". Collect enough books for each table. We had 10 kids per group, so I made sure to pull 10-12 books per genre. We are fortunate to have a fantastic classroom library, so almost all of our books were from there. I pulled a few copies from the school library of titles I have "lost" over the year and need to replace.

4. Set up your room. Each table had a table cloth, a "serving platter" filled with books, a table number, and a genre description. I put a few of the tea lights around for effect, as well. I also put a few of the place mats from the resource on the tables. We did this after lunch, so I could surprise the kids when they came back. It was so much fun to see the looks on their faces. We don't have a lot of "traditional tables" in our space, so we made the best of what we had. We also didn't have "seats" or "place mats" for every kid. With 50 kids in our space, we certainly don't have 5 tables of 10! The main genre table was set up, and kids sat anywhere near that table. Some sat on the floor or other cushions. They were only reading for 5 minutes, then they got up and joined their group again.

5. HAVE FUN! Fun is a HUGE part of our school this year! We want our kids to have fun with learning. We need to have fun, as teacher, too! Dress up! Be silly! Use a funny voice! Even 5th graders get a kick out of it!

6. Follow up with a discussion. This was critical. Debrief. Share. Use it as a launching pad for your year! Or, possibly, a check in mid year. Or even an end of year reflection...have your tastes changed? Have you discovered a new genre that you love that you didn't think of trying before? What do your tastes say about you as a reader? Where could you stretch yourself?

It truly was a magical hour of reading fun! The kids loved it, and I'm sure they will remember it for quite some time ("remember that time when Mrs. Patterson dressed up like a weird chef??") I hope they remember that it felt good and was FUN!

I hope you all have had a great launch to your year, as well! Rest up on this long weekend!

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

Diving Deep into POETRY!

Ahhhh...spring! April is here and with it, we got SNOW! Not exactly the fresh face of spring here in Wisconsin that we were hoping for! Still wearing hats and mittens after spring break was a bit of a shocker, but the weather is starting to look up!

In addition to the hopes of spring weather, April also brings us state TESTING month! In 4th grade, we have 7 and a half hours of testing to work around! YIKES! We did not want to lose too much momentum with our instruction, so it was a perfect time for our reading and writing poetry units!

Poetry units are so great, because kids can pick up a new poem or anthology at any time, without losing plot or character development. So, this unit has been a wonderful thing, as we lose blocks at a time of different subjects due to our state testing schedule.

We always launch our poetry studies in reading. We blogged about how we did this last year in 5th grade, as well! This year, we are fortunate, because the Teacher's College released new curricular calendars for poetry! We are Teacher's College district, and we were so excited to dive in and see what TC had to offer! We were pleased to see that their ideas did match up with what we already believed for poetry. We combined their ideas with some that we felt our kiddos needed and developed a rich, creative unit!

Teaching kids how to read poetry is so much fun! Poetry is full of inferences, imagery, and creative sentence structures. So many kids try to tackle it the same way they tackle a chapter book! And they run into trouble! To start this work, we spent two reading blocks just immersing ourselves in poetry. What did we notice? What did we like? What stood out to us? What confused us? We had a grand conversation about our initial thinking. We logged in on an anchor chart.

After our immersion, we teach them how to annotate and read a poem right away. We chose a Langston Hughes poem for this work ("Dream Variations"). When Kate and I were planning it out, we were a little hesitant on choosing it. We were worried that they wouldn't "get it." We questioned our choice and had a more literal poem on standby ("Since Hanna Moved Away" by Judith Viorst).

We read the poem all together, and we only told them that Langston Hughes was a famous author. Then we sent them off, independently, to try to capture their thoughts. After about 5-7 minutes (or when they started to get squirrely), we had them get into groups of about 3 to compare their ideas. Kate and I moved between groups and kept catching each other's eye...we couldn't believe what they were discussing! 

Following this group share, we came back together for a final grand conversation. I kid you not, this was one of those "goosebump moments" in teaching for me. Their interpretation of this poem left me speechless. I was even on the verge of tears at one point. #unbelievable #proudteacher #loveourstudents

If you follow us on Twitter, Kate periscoped this conversation. All of these were THEIR words! I still can't believe how well they did! It really helped us to reflect on when we doubt their capabilities...DON'T! They will always surprise you with what they can do and handle! Give them the challenges! They will RISE to the occasion! 

After this, we created a new anchor chart of all the different things we can think about or look for when studying poetry.

We did this, initially, but then went back and revisited each of these skills (and more) in our mini-lessons.

We give our kids a lot of choice in our room. One of the ways we try to incorporate their voice, choice, and personal learning styles, is how the respond during independent time. We have a lot of kids that struggle with organization. For them, we have a packet full of templates that they can use to track their thinking. Many of our kids know their own learning style and preferences so well that they create their own. They use everything from Google Slides, to Docs, to Google Keep, to regular old sticky notes or journals.

So, we continue to support them as they explore mood, tone, themes, and speaker point of view! We absolutely LOVE conferring with kids during this type of exploration. Each kid approaches a poem differently and interprets it in their own way. We also find that "share time" is incredibly crucial during a poetry unit. Kids not only want to discuss their poems with others, but they need to! They have theses ideas swirling around in their head or they found the most perfectly hilarious poem and they absolutely MUST share it with a friend!

We are going to be using all of these skills in analyzing poetry to help them write their own poetry anthology tied to a theme! Check back later for a future blog post! :)

In the meantime, we hope your April is sunny, and that your room is filled with the sweet sound of engagement and LOVE of poetry! Happy Poetry Month!

Happy Teaching,

~Angela

Wrapping Up Historical Fiction

We made it! What an amazing unit that was! The kids impressed us with their passion to learn new information and how they could connect the "dots of history" from book to book! We just finished up our Historical Fiction unit in Reader's Workshop. You can read about how we launched it HERE. 

This unit has been so much fun! We loved meeting with the book clubs each day. To help manage our time in Reader's Workshop, we used a rotation system for this unit ONLY. Now, we are not "centers" teachers. That being said, in a book club unit, kids will talk FOREVER if you let them! Not that that is entirely a bad thing, we wanted to make sure they still had time for independent/choice time during this unit. Due to this, we created three, 15-minute rotations to support this work. This allowed for book clubs to meet every day. It also limited the noise level in the room to not have every club meet at the same time! :) Below is an example of a daily rotation chart:

This was made in a simple Google Slide Presentation. We had a different slide for each day of the week...why, you might ask? Because we met with groups on different days. You might notice the letters in the book club rotation are black and some are red. The red letters are the groups that meet with an adult that day. We are fortunate to have 3-4 adults in our classroom during our Reader's Workshop block. This allows us to have much smaller groups to provide much more tailored support. Some groups meet with us every day. Some groups meet with us every other day. And a few group only met with us twice per week. It was all based on the individual needs of  our students. You might also notice that Group B meets with an adult for two rotations every day. They are our neediest ELL readers that benefited from extra vocabulary and graphic organizer support each day.

Topics we tackled in this unit included: Character development and tracking, Theme development, Power struggles, Secondary Characters, Literary point of view, Character Perspective, and even Connecting nonfiction topics to our historical fiction texts. Kids created double timelines to show where their books fit within the actual historical timeline.

Kids tracked their thinking in multiple ways throughout the unit. We provided them with a packet "template" that had various ideas, etc. They could house their sticky notes in there and find helpful graphic organizers. Some groups chose to use it daily. Other groups created their own way of tracking their ideas. Some through Google Keep, others through Google Slides, and even a few through Google Docs. We allowed them to choose the best way to document that met the needs of their groups/individual learning styles.

Again, we also utilized Google Forms as a formative assessment check-in system. About every week and a half, we sent out a new Google Form that targeted a skill we had been learning about. This allowed kids to have time to come across a part in their book(s) where this might be applicable. So often, when we teach a new skill, kids aren't at a perfect point in their books to apply it. This gives you that "guarantee room" to have had it come up!

A sample of one of the Google Forms we used. 

The nice thing about Google Forms, is that we set it up to have every weeks' responses go to the SAME Google spreadsheet! This allowed us to view our unit in one glance. It also allowed us to score the responses right in the spreadsheet using a simple 4,3,2,1 system. This let us sort them lowest to highest (or vs. versa), and immediately pull strategy groups or have immediate 1-on-1 reading conferences with kids to address needs!

We always give kids multiple days to complete the form, as well. Due to this, we encourage our kids to type a "draft" in a doc first. If they don't finish in one day, they can continue the next. If they try to type it in the Google Form directly first and don't finish, as soon as they close their computer, they lose their work! Word of caution to prevent tears/frustration! :)

To wrap up our unit, in addition to the Paper Pencil Teacher's College assessment we use, we give kids the opportunity to show their learning in any way they would like to using a Learning Model style. Now, this was the first literacy Learning Model that our students completed. The format is very similar to our Math Learning Models, but definitely requires more typing! I started it off by providing every kiddo with a copy of this GOOGLE DOC:

I also shared with them my own example that I made using emaze.

We went over the expectations on the rubric with them, answered questions, then the kids then got to work! I have to say, we were super impressed with their final products! Here are a few kid examples:

EXAMPLE USING EMAZE

EXAMPLE USING GOOGLE SLIDES

This was such a fun unit! We had a blast, and so did the kids! How do you teach Historical Fiction? We'd love to learn from you!

Happy Teaching,

~Angela

Book Bands: Changing the Conversation

Our district has a great literacy department! We have amazing reading specialists that have been highly trained, having made multiple trips to New York to learn directly from the Teacher's College. We also have a fantastic communication and roll out system through what they have coined "Literacy Leaders." Each grade level, at every building has one (or sometimes two) "literacy leaders." These teachers receive professional development and have helped to organize our reading units to best meet the needs of Elmbrook Schools. They work hand-in-hand with our amazing reading specialists. I have the good fortune of sharing this role for our 4th grade team with our amazing teammate, Lynn. 

Recently, we had a literacy leader meeting that focused on the research happening surrounding "Book Bands." Many of you, like us, utilize Fountas and Pinnell leveling with our classroom libraries. The research and information that has been coming out lately surrounds not just the individual levels, but rather BANDS of levels. Each band of books carries with it specific characteristics that are often found in books at those levels. Knowing these levels and the attributes of each, can really change the conversation and awareness of reading.

In our space, we used our historical fiction unit to introduce these ideas to our kiddos. We incorporated it into part of our launch. We took each band of books, and went through what kids could expect from the bands. We referred to them as "Pillars of Reading"--because like structural pillars, this knowledge will support our comprehension and work while reading. It will "hold us up" as we read. 

We, then, had them take the conversation to their book clubs. Within their book clubs, they discussed the bands, and what tricky parts they might encounter. We, then, had them set a personal goal of a component to work on or make note of while working in their book club book.

We also created "pillar" anchor charts that will now permanently hang in our classroom.

Following this work, as kids continued working in their book clubs, we found they needed something more immediate to support this new learning. So, I created a personal bookmark for each band. It works just like a personal anchor chart, is two-sided, and it also has a spot to write their personal book band goals.

Click the image to download this for free! :)

It certainly has helped keep the book bands in the forefront of the conversation and their independent reading.

Have you been using book bands? If so, how? We'd love to learn with you! Sound off below!

Happy Teaching!

~Angela