Exploring Nonfiction Text

This year I have had a difficult time motivating my lower readers. They seem to dread anything that resembles writing that they have to read and interpret. I have tried many different things to motivate them and they finally seem to be enjoying fiction a little more. The problem is, we have now moved to studying nonfiction text. The sighs and huffs began immediately.

I decided that if I used text that the students were interested in and allowed them to complete a ¨scavenger hunt¨ the students may be more interested in learning the characteristics of nonfiction text.

I created the following Nonfiction Exploration Activity:

First the students began by selecting a partner and then selecting their text. They enjoyed selecting a text a lot more than I thought they would. I tried to find books in the library that were about many different topic areas and that would spark their interest.

Then they took pictures of the text features they found in their book and added them to a Google Slideshow.

The exploration began! They looked at the text structure and vocabulary. They also tried to find the main idea of sections of their text.

Students became excited about their text and were truly enjoying learning about the topic of their choice. One student who is normally one of my biggest sighers even said, "Next week, can we choose a different book and do it again!" I'm still in shock! Like I have stated in a previous blog....choice is everything for students!!

Student Example #1

Using Google Forms to Allow for Student Reflection

So this year, a teammate and I have worked with our students to create digital portfolios. This isn't a new concept by any means. We decided it was important to add it into our practice to give students an avenue for reflection.

Students are given a slide show with standards and questions. They are to add artifacts and answer questions about the artifacts in relationship to the standards.

Go to the following link to see an example: bit.ly/ecesportfolios
(If you are going to NCTIES and are interested in getting more information, check out our session titled: e-portfolios: Growth, Reflection, and Personalization.)

I think the coolest thing out of this whole process so far has been watching students analyze their assessment data through the use of Google Forms!

If you didn't know already, Google Forms now has a quizzes section, which is amazing!

In true Google fashion, they have thought of pretty much everything. When creating the form you are allowed to add an answer key which also allows you to add feedback. You can add feedback for correct answers as well as incorrect answers and having this option allows for students to analyze their own assessments! It is AWESOME!

Like shown above, another incredible option is the link at the bottom of feedback. This link could take students to more practice or a deeper explanation of the question. So easy!! :-)

The beauty of this is when students take their assessment, it immediately shows them their results along with the feedback. You can also click an option where it will send their results to their email!!

We then give students the form below and have them analyze their results. They are to look at the standards missed (they know the standards missed because we put it in their feedback) and then they are to create their next steps to help them master the standard. 

I know you're probably thinking, "How in the world do you expect 4th graders to do this." I promise you, they can. With lots of modeling....they can and it is so great! Here are a couple of student examples:

Just like adults, students need to be constantly reflecting on their work. They need to know where they stand in their education journey. They need to be aware of what they are experts at and what could use a little more practice.

 

It's Time to Discuss

This week, my students made it to their first discussion. They were so excited to jump in to this discussion led by their classmates. This class that I have struggled to get to complete anything all year, was prepared, and actually excited about doing....WORK!

I gave each student a job sheet to record their information that they glued in their reader's response notebooks. The job sheets are below:

Question Writer
Story Mapper
Summarizer

Vocabulary Finder


I also used these job cards from Laura Candler.

For the discussion, the students were given buttons to wear. I know it seems small, but the kids were really excited about getting to wear their buttons.

Here are the buttons for purchase and here are the designs to go inside.

Clipart is purchased from ThistleGirl Designs

Instead of giving the students a sheet to fill in about their discussion, I decided to give them the freedom to record their discussions in the way they felt would work best for their groups. I had 1 group use talk to text on Google Docs. They opened the document, clicked talk to text and recorded their conversations. I had another group use Soundtrap. One of their teammates enjoys mixing music so their discussion was recorded using Soundtrap (this is something I would have never thought of!) Another group used a video recording and another group chose to type their main discussion points on a Google Doc.

I am so glad I gave the students the option of how they wanted to record their discussion. I feel like if I had given them something to fill out, a little of the excitement would have been taken away. Giving them the freedom to choose how they would record their conversations kept them motivated and made them feel like they were in charge of something!

Books Clubs...The Anticipation and The Excitement!

So in my last blog I made a resolution to ditch the normal read and answer questions and brought back book clubs. Why I ever left this to begin with, I'm not sure. I have also made a few changes to my old tried and true book clubs and decided to give a little more of the decision making to the students.

I began by giving students a choice of books they could read. I had two separate lists for my two separate blocks based on things I had heard the kids say they wanted to read and based on reading level and based on books I knew I could get at least 4 copies of (one great idea for this by the way is last year Battle of the Books books. If your school participates, they will have multiple copies and these books are always fantastic!)

The two lists can be found below:
Book Club List 1
Book Club List 2

I then told the students they would have 2 days to make their decision because this was something I wanted them to think about. This is when the anticipation began! The students could not wait and asked me every day to add the Google Form to Google Classroom so they could make their selection. So we ended up only waiting one day, and the next day I added the form to classroom for them to make their decision. I still gave everyone until Thursday to make their selection and by Thursday the students couldn't stand to wait any longer to receive their books.....

I made them wait....but only a day. I enjoyed the anticipation and I thought it made the excitement even more great on Friday. Today I gave the students their books, told them their group members name and introduced the nuts and bolts of book clubs.

In the past, I created these wonderful calendars that told the kids what they would read, when they would read it, and what job each person was doing at what time. This year I decided to give that up to the students. I wanted them to have both voice and choice. It was a lot of work to plan everything out for them and I don't think they appreciate being micro managed. So I gave them this sheet instead : Book Club Planning Sheet

I told them their management was up to them. I told them they needed to come up with what was expected and who was doing what job for their first meeting. You would have thought I had passed out a bag of chocolate to each student. They were salivating over the idea of doing things the way they wanted. They were excited, engaged, and wanted to start reading their selected books immediately! (Side note: This class has been extremely difficult to motivate this year, so seeing and hearing the excitement was heart warming!)

We then discussed how they could document each of their meetings. We decided they would complete their jobs in their reading response notebooks, then complete a Google Document describing what they discussed. I told the students this was very similar to our PLC meetings because we have an agenda and we also need to take minutes. For now, their discussion template will look something like this, but I am open to any changes the students have to offer.

I am hoping their excitement will continue as they journey through their first book club.

A New Year-- Reflection, Resolutions, Growth

2017 is upon us and like every other person I am thinking about New Years Resolutions. What will I do to make 2017 the best year yet? Will I join a gym, or find workout classes to attend? Will I start that diet I have been putting off? Will I take a budgeting class and truly begin saving money for that Disney trip?

At the beginning of the year, we are always so hopeful about the new year and what we can do to be the best we can be. This year, I am not only thinking personally, but also professionally. What can I do to make my classroom the best place ever?

I think this year I will start with changing things I know are not working. My husband began blogging this year and one of his blogs talked about throwing out the things you know are not working in your classroom, and I have decided I will do just that. Forever, I have done novel studies with my students. I have done this in many different ways, but for the past few years, I have given the students a novel and then given them chapter by chapter questions, vocabulary, and quizzes. Although I feel like the questions can be very thought provoking, because I wrote them myself... it isn't working with this group. Last school year, at the end of the year, I gave students a list of novels as a choice and then they had assignments that went along with their choice novel. The kids loved it! Why I didn't begin this school year with that... I'm not sure. I think a lot of times as educators, we fall into the rut of, "I already have these things created so why not!"

So, when we get back we are tossing out the teacher selected novels, and moving into student selected novels. We are tossing out the teacher created questions and I am going to allow the students to be their own "moderators" for novel discussions. They can come up with the questions for their classmates in their novel groups and they can lead the discussions.

If you have a class that would like to collaborate with my students on novel studies, please let me know, my students love an authentic audience! Also, I am open to any 4th grade novel suggestions!!

Below is the list of novels I used at the end of the year last year:

Extension for Reading and Writing Support

This was stolen from the JCS Tech Leaders Blog:

A wonderful Chrome extension called Read&Write for Google is now available with all advanced features for FREE to teachers! Read&Write works with Google Docs to provide additional supports for students including highlighting, vocabulary help, read aloud features, translator, and access to talking and picture dictionaries.

To unlock the premium features of this Chrome extension:

1. Install it from the Chrome Store by clicking HERE and clicking on the +Free button. 
2. You must register at http://rw.texthelp.com/drive/home/RegisterTeacher with your school email to unlock the premium features.

(Written by: Pam Batchelor)

Chalkup

This post was taken directly from freetech4teachers.com written by Richard Byrne:

Chalkup - Distribute & Grade Assignments in Google Drive Without Using Scripts

Chalkup is a neat service that combines the concepts of Google Drive and Edmodo into one slick package. In Chalkup you can create classes to which you distribute announcements and assignments in the message board style that you find in Edmodo. Your students can sign-in to see what you post, reply to your posts, and submit assignments. The best aspect of Chalkup is found in its Google Drive integration.

Through Chalkup you can distribute Google Drive files to your students and they can submit Google Drive files to you. Rather than running a script like Doctopus when you want to distribute an assignment template to your students, you can simply select a file from your Google Drive account and share it through Chalkup. When students submit assignments to you in Chalkup you can comment and draw on their Google Documents as well as give them a numeric grade for their assignments. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to distribute and grade assignments in Chalkup.