Slaves' Stories: Inferring Important Information

In Social Studies, we have been learning about immigrants. Today we specifically focused on African immigrants and how many of them were forced against their own will to come to America and were sold as slaves.

To incorporate technology, I had students visit a Slaves' Stories website that features historical fiction stories of four African immigrants. Yesterday I modeled how to infer important information from one of the slave's stories, and today students practiced inferring important information themselves while reading the other three slave stories. They recorded their inferences as evidence of their ability to infer important information from a text.

 

Here are some of their inferences:

Determining Importance Using Stickers!

Let me start by saying that when it comes to creating anchor charts, I'm totally O.C.D. The explicit wording of my teaching point, the color, size, style, and consistency of my letters, the spacing and organization, you name it... Because let's be real, if I personally don't love looking at it, I'm not going to love teaching with it, and if I don't love teaching with it, I'm not going to be able to engage my kiddos, which means we all end up having a crummy Reader's Workshop, and that's no fun for anyone. My point is that a lot goes into planning a reading mini-lesson, and by attempt number six of creating today's anchor chart, I decided I needed to walk away from the big paper and head to the big screen. Our typical "let's-all-sit-closely-on-the-carpet-and-gather-around-our-easel-for-our-reading" mini-lesson ritual was one I needed to let go of today. "Walk away, Miss Bongers, walk away..."

What ended up happening was for the better though because the kids ended up loving this lesson! I created the following slide to kick off today's reading mini-lesson on determining importance. Computers are wonderful for easy manipulating of fonts, colors, sizes, and locations of things. Nothing is permanent (unlike markers and paper) and on a day like today, I needed that flexibility. Also, put in your long term memory that KIDS LOVE STICKERS. Use them if you can! Red on a stoplight means STOP; green on a stoplight means GO. Kids' schema for these colors became important for practicing today's strategy on determining what about my text was important and essential versus the interesting, little details.

I scanned a section from a National Geographic magazine article called 'Doctor Bugs' (March, 2008). I first modeled the strategy by reading the first two paragraphs. I placed a red sticker next to the sentences where my inner voice said, "STOP! This information is IMPORTANT!" and a green sticker next to information where my inner voice said, "That's neat information, but I can let it GO." The first six stickers on the text below are what I modeled for students.

I also recorded my important and unimportant information on a T-chart. I had students glue a similar T-chart into their Thoughtful Logs to anchor our learning from today. The information above the wavy lines is what we recorded from my own modeling. (P.S. - I know I'm missing an apostrophe in "author's favorite insect". I'll ask the kids tomorrow if they notice any errors in my notes. A teachable moment, if you will. Overall, it's the co-construction of knowledge that's the most important. Even though I'm O.C.D., I've learned to let go of my handwriting being perfect when we record information together.)

For guided practice, I handed out the same piece of text and gave kids one red sticker and one green sticker. Their task was to read the rest of the text and place their red sticker next to a very important piece of information and a green sticker next to a detail they determined was more neat and interesting than important. Then they added their thinking to their T-charts in their Thoughtful Logs.

When guided practice was over, students shared out with their thinking. We added the bottom three stickers to the text based on what they shared and added their thinking to our T-chart (the information under the wavy lines!) I was excited because many of the kids put their stickers in the same places, meaning they agreed in what was important about this text and what wasn't!

Here is one student's Thoughtful Log:

Tomorrow we will build off of this lesson to discuss where important information exists in a text. In other words, sometimes important information is in the first sentence of a paragraph, and sometimes it's in the middle. People's opinions (like the fact that the author of this article once got stung by an ant) are not as important to remember, but they help to make the writing come alive. Stay tuned!

Comparisons, Writing About Our Reading, & Students as Teachers!

Our mini-lesson in reading today was how comparisons are used in many non-fiction texts to help us visualize something by comparing it to a familiar object. One sign that you might find a comparison is when you see a picture of something in a text that, at first glance, seems really out of place. Chances are the author is going to use a comparison to help you understand at a deeper level! I copied two samples from Zoobook magazines to use as my mentor texts for this lesson. I recorded the non-fiction topic, the comparison language, and the familiar object.

 

 For guided practice, I copied another page from a Zoobook magazine on kangaroos that had a comparison. Students recorded the non-fiction topic, the comparison language, and the familiar object in the genre learning tab of their Thoughtful Logs. In the guided practice text below, you'll see that one kangaroo jumped 44 feet which is almost the length of a school bus!
Guided practice allows all students to practice the strategy in a close proximity to a teacher.

Students returned to their desks to do a little more independent work with comparisons. I handed out a Zoobook magazine to each student and told them to skim and scan for more comparisons and to record examples they found. This student scanned his magazine on deer and thought that a man with big muscles seemed kind out of place, so he knew the author was probably making a comparison!

Here is what he recorded in his Thoughtful Log as proof that he could independently identify a comparison in a non-fiction text.

Did you know tigers' faces are like our fingerprints? No two tiger faces are identical, just like no two fingerprints are exactly the same!


We also read the book Hungry, Hungry Sharks as a mentor text for comparisons. Students glued the following chart into their Thoughtful Logs to anchor their learning.

 As students listened, they recorded the comparisons they heard!

 

Here are some examples of comparisons this reader found during independent reading:

 Here are more comparisons one reader found in a variety of Zoobook magazines!

In one of our guided reading groups, we have been discussing how we can learn important lessons from characters in texts we read. Today was Phase 2 for one of my groups. In Phase 2, students respond in writing to a deeper-level prompt using the text we read the day before.

We learn that providing evidence from the text is an effective way to support your answer. I love it when I see students doing exactly what Natasha is doing below!

Here is what one student wrote in response to the writing prompt:

Here is what another student wrote:

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Last week in Social Studies, I decided to flip flop roles with my students. I made THEM the teachers! I divided Chapter 1 of our immigrant textbook into 8 sections and created graphic organizers for each of the 8 sections to help guide students to pull out the most important information. After reading their assigned pages, they were to fill out their graphic organizer overhead to communicate what they learned. (It's amazing what a transparency and Vis a Vis marker can do to motivate kids!) Students had to share writing responsibilities, in addition to assigning which member of the group would 'teach' each piece of information to the class. Here are a few examples of some of the overheads. I encouraged students to refer to page numbers in our text as they presented to help give us visuals to deepen our understanding!

 

 Today it was time for students to teach the important information they read. I gave each group member a pointer to use, too, so they would feel even more like teachers!

After each group presented, we created an anchor chart of our learning. We discussed who immigrants were, where they came from, and why they wanted to come to America! In this activity, students were definitely in charge of their own learning.

Animal Research - Part 13, the FQR Reading Strategy, & a Hands-On Immigration Lesson

It's no April Fool's joke that we're continuing to become better readers and writers in 4B! In our last blog posting about our animal research (Parts 11 & 12), students were peer conferencing using the 5-4-3-2-1 peer conferencing sheet to make their writing better. Here are a few examples of their revised drafts! Peer pairs worked to add descriptive adjectives, lively verbs, similes, and sound effects to make their non-fiction writing a little more powerful.

All of last week, we started the publishing process. Some of you will remember I had the kids draft each section out of order. (Students drafted their introductions and conclusions after they drafted the body of their reports, that way, the kids actually had knowledge about their animals so they could write an effective introduction and conclusion). The first step to our publishing process was to staple each students' drafts together so they followed this order: introduction, paragraph on habitat, paragraph on diet, paragraph on defense mechanisms, conclusion, resource page. Next, I modeled for students how to organize the first page of their published copy so that it looked professional. I had them center their title, name, and date, in addition to gluing a picture of their animal they had printed off. (Please note, we took a day to go to the computer lab so students could find a picture of their animal and cite its source. If you're following our process for these animal reports, you may want to do the same!) I also modeled for students where the first word of their report should begin. (You'd think indenting would be a real simple skill for kids to remember. Unfortunately, it's a toughie for most fourth graders!)

Students used the rest of Writer's Workshop to publish the first two paragraphs (introduction and habitat paragraph) of their animal reports.

We took a total of three days to publish our reports. On day one, I set a goal for my students to get their introduction and habitat paragraphs published. On day two, they had their diet and defense mechanism paragraphs due by the end of Writer's Workshop. On the last day of publishing, students were to finish their conclusion and resource page. Students who did not meet their 'publishing goal' on any particular day were to finish their goal as homework. That way, we all started in the same place on each 'publishing day', and it assured their reports would be done by the end of the quarter.

Here are some of the first reports to be finished! I am so proud of all the hard work the kids put in doing their research: the planning, the researching of information, the rearrangement of their information, the drafting, the peer conferencing, the publishing; students definitely learned that research isn't something that gets completed in one day. It is a thought-provoking process that takes patience and determination. I can't wait to show these off by hanging them in the hallway. I will also be copying students' finished reports and putting them into an Animal Research class book we will store in our classroom so students can learn from one another!

Overall, this writing project took 4-5 weeks. If you are interested in following our process, you may want to  browse through each blog posting below and/or consider getting the student sheets featured in Parts 1, 2, 3, & 4 which can be found at my TpT store!

Our Process for Writing a Non-Fiction Animal Report
(Click on the purple underlined link for a more thorough explanation of each part!)

Part 1: Picking a topic (animal)/subtopics (habitat, diet, defense) & using the table of contents/index in non-fiction book to infer/record page numbers where we think our information will be (2-3 days)

Part 2, 3, & 4 

          Part 2: Citing our non-fiction book & taking notes on note strips (2 days)

          Part 3: Citing an encyclopedia & taking notes on note strips (1-2 days)

          Part 4: Citing a website & taking notes on note strips (1-2 days)

Part 5: Cutting our habitat note strips and rearranging them for best order (1 day)

Part 6: Cutting our diet note strips and rearranging them for best order (1 day)

Part 7: Cutting our defense mechanism strips and rearranging them for best order (1 day)

Part 8: Drafting our habitat paragraph from our organized habitat notes (1-2 days)

Part 9:  Drafting our diet paragraph from our organized diet notes & drafting our defense mechanism paragraph from our organized defense mechanism notes (2 days)

Part 10: Drafting the introduction (1 day)

Parts 11 & 12:
         Part 11: Drafting the conclusion (1 day)
         Part 12: Peer conferencing (2 days)

Part 13: Publishing (3 days)

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In other news, late last week we continued practicing our Facts-Questions-Response reading strategy (introduced on Monday of last week) for helping us remember information we read. Using high-interest topics is key to helping students practice this strategy, so I used a book about September 11th titled America is Under Attack by Don Brown as a mentor text for this strategy. As students listened, they recorded in their Thoughtful Logs the facts they heard, the questions that popped into their minds, and their inner voice responses. By merging what we read with our questions and inner voice responses, we can remember so much more of what we read because we connect with the topic on a deeper level!

I also used the FQR strategy in guided reading to support learners in our room who I thought could use a little more support with it. We used the second page of the polar bear article from the original FQR mini-lesson as our practice text. (That way, students had some schema of the topic and familiarity with the text.)

 In Social Studies, we are in the middle of our unit on People of the U.S.A. Last week, my lesson objective was to demonstrate that the United States is made up of people of all different nationalities. We all make up the 'American people', but our ancestors come from many different countries all over the world!

I decided to make this lesson a little more hands-on for my students to increase their engagement so they could physically touch the countries where many of our ancestors have come from and trace the routes our ancestors traveled to get to the United States. Most kids have schema that immigrants sailed across the Atlantic to Ellis Island, but most fourth graders don't have a clue that immigrants also sailed across the Pacific to Angel Island in San Francisco! To help teach this lesson, I rearranged a standard map, putting the U.S. in the middle and arranging the rest of the world accordingly. By making this adjustment, my students would be able to see the routes most European immigrants and African slaves took across the Atlantic Ocean and the route many Asian immigrants took across the Pacific Ocean. Each student got his/her own map to do this activity. (You'll also notice I have boxes with nationalities inside them already on the map and little letters going across each of the oceans to assist me in teaching this lesson.)

I also used color-coding in this lesson to help reinforce the 'order of people' in/coming to the U.S. The first people in the U.S. were the Native Americans. I had students color the first box on their map key pink or red (the first color of the rainbow) to stand for the first people who were already here (Native Americans) and handed out a picture of Native Americans that I had copied on pink paper. Students glued the picture to the box labeled 'Native Americans' that I had lightly drawn on the continent of North America. 

I had students color the next box on their map key orange to stand for the first wave of immigrants who came over between 1600-1750. I handed out pictures of English immigrants, Spanish immigrants, and African slaves that I had copied on orange paper. Students glued each of these pictures to the labeled boxes on the map, and then used an orange marker to trace the routes these immigrants took. All three of these groups traveled across the Atlantic. At this time, I explained that many Spanish immigrants and African slaves arrived at the southeastern border of the U.S. As one student inferred, "So, Miss Bongers, that's probably why slavery was so popular in the South ... because that's where most African slaves were when they got here..." I love it when those kinds of connections happen for our kids. The best part is that he made the discovery all on his own!

I had students color the next box on their map key yellow (to stand for the second wave of immigrants who came over between 1820-1870). I then handed out pictures of Irish immigrants, German immigrants, and Chinese immigrants that I had copied on yellow paper. Students glued each of these pictures to the appropriate places on their maps, and then used a yellow marker to trace their routes. Students could now begin to see that Chinese immigrants came across the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic. This was the perfect opportunity to discuss Angel Island in San Francisco (which, in a later lesson, will lead to a discussion on the Transcontinental Railroad!)

I had students color the next box on their map key green to stand for the third wave of immigrants who came over between 1881-1920. I handed out pictures of Austrian, Hungarian, & Russian immigrants and Japanese immigrants on green paper. Students glued each of these pictures to the appropriate places on the map, and then used a green marker to trace these immigrants' routes. Students learned that, like many Chinese immigrants, Japanese immigrants traveled across the Pacific Ocean. You'll notice on the map below that I circled Hawaii in purple. (I used purple simply because purple wasn't used in any other way in this lesson.) This was a perfect opportunity to point out where Hawaii truly is in relation to the continental U.S. So many maps the kids see have Hawaii right underneath New Mexico and Arizona as a way for mapmakers to 'fit' all 50 states on one page. Kids need to know that Hawaii isn't south of New Mexico and Arizona. It is nearly 2,000 miles west of the U.S. in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! I also explained that many people who live in Hawaii have ancestors from China and Japan.

Finally, I had students color the last box on their map key blue (to stand for the fourth wave of immigrants who originally started coming over in 1965 to now. I handed out pictures of Vietnamese & Filipino immigrants and Caribbean immigrants (Cuba, Jamaica, and Dominican Republic) that I had copied on blue paper. Students glued each of these pictures to the appropriate places on the map, and then used a blue marker to trace their routes. Students learned that Vietnamese and Filipino immigrants traveled across the Pacific, while Caribbean immigrants didn't travel across an ocean, they traveled across the Gulf of Mexico!

*Please note that the groups of immigrants and the years of their arrivals discussed in this lesson are the ones highlighted in our Social Studies textbook. I was sure to explain to students that there were many immigrants who came to the U.S. from countries that weren't a part of this lesson and that some people from countries all over the world continue to emigrate to the U.S. to make it their home. In general, European immigrants travel/ed across the Atlantic, Asian immigrants travel/ed across the Pacific, and Caribbean immigrants travel/ed across the Gulf of Mexico!