Book Clubs - Mary E.
Mary had us do a bit more Argument Debate work related to yesterday's Keynote! First she pointed out that even quiet kids participate when you use this structure because the quiet friend only has to talk to one other person! Also, when she has students write long and strong after a debate, the struggling writers are able to write so much more because they had time to orally practice and hear ideas from their partner. And the stronger students start to add counter-arguments to their writing.
She said the next step after holding many read-aloud debates is to have students start to create their own debate topics. So she asked us to do this using our nonfiction book club books. Our table was reading about the rainforest, others were reading about tsunomi and hurricanes. She suggested debates such as:
* Hurricane are worse than tsunami VS Tsunami are worse than hurricanes
* Destruction of the rainforest is worse for natives VS Destruction of the rainforest is worse for the world
* Is the effects of a hurricane worse the day after OR months later?
* Should ALL be prepared for a tsunami OR just those areas where tsunami's tend to occur?
At our table of four, two of us were Partner A and two were Partner B and two AB partners were formed.
She coached us orally by saying: Write down your claim, your reasons, your evidence. You can use Boxes and Bullet notes . Look back into your book for a quote, a statistic, an image. Once we went through the Argument Protocol, she had us write long and strong about our topic. I had SO much to say!!
Then we switched gears into NOTETAKING. Since we are getting ready to leave our NF book club book, she asked us to take 15 minutes alone and decide HOW to best make a notebook page to hold onto the information we read and the thinking we did. She emphasized that it is important to have students make notetaking decisions so when they get to HS and college, they can handle taking notes while reading the dense texts they will be assigned. I chose to make 3 columns - one with facts about the rainforest, one with the problems rainforests have now, and one with my written reflection related to my reading. Then Mary had us take a MUSEUM WALK so we could see ALL the different ways notes were taken. Two cool electronic pages of notes were created using POPPLET (http://popplet.com/) and PicCollage (http://pic-collage.com/). Museum walks helps us to see the many ways to organize information!
SS Centers - Kathleen Tolan
Kathleen also talked about NOTETAKING today. She suggested modeling HOW to take notes during a read-aloud so students can see different ways modeled. She also emphasized that students must gain independence in this skill. We need to model and then let them decide what works best for them. She shared examples of Boxes and Bullets, Bullets and Boxes, Sketching, a chart, a web, and a timeline.
To help us get good at this, we played NAME THAT STRUCTURE!
She shared a text and we needed to name its organizational structure and why we thought this. Is it cause and effect? How do we know? Is it pro/con, problem/solution, chronological, main idea.details, or compare/ contrast? She suggested and I plan to find examples of text of each structure to add to my ToolKit!
Closing Workshop - Alexandra Roman
Using Drama and Role Play to Engage NF Readers
If anyone looked in on HM Room 140 at 1:30 today, they would have wondered what was going on?! Alexandra taught us how to read NF text and have partnerships Turn and Act. She read a bit about bats. Then Partner A acted as the bat who eats fruit and Partner B as the one who eats insects and soon arms were flapping and mouths chewing!
I am sold. TURN AND ACT is a new directive I plan to use often during a NF minilesson!
Keynote - author, Jacqueline Woodson
She was introduced so beautifully with these words - "With her books, we don't have to walk through the world alone." If you don't know this author, check out her website to see ALL the books she has written:
http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/
I got such goosebumps as she recited from memory a part of her book, Locomotion. She spent much of the hour reading from her work, including Feathers, Each Kindness, and her newest book due out August 28th a memoir called Brown Girl Dreaming. (You can order it on Amazon now -http://www.amazon.com/Brown-Girl-Dreaming-Jacqueline-Woodson/dp/0399252517 )
She is the first person I have heard who uses the SRA kit as a mentor text! She admitted reading the SRA cards in school growing up and to her, they were vignettes, small moment. When she writes now, she is writing one vignette after another, much like those cards from yesteryears!
She also recalls being read The Little Match Girl and The Selfish Giant, two books that have inspired her writing today.
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