Spotlight Table of Contents to this Poetry Unit Poetry Lessons for Teachers and Students I have tried to preview all links; however, time constraints and constantly changing links create some uncertainly about all links being absolutely safe links at all times. Hint: Good introduction to poetry - Show the CD, "The New Kid on the Block." OBJECTIVES for this unit: .............. Here are some links that will help (several links are for locating images and sounds) introduce your poetry unit: Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes. Joseph Roux (1834-86), French priest, writer. Introductory to Poetry *Please notice that many of these poetry lessons includes a lesson for students and a teacher lesson plan for help in delivery of the lesson. If time permits, as a culminating project, allow the students to write their own poem(s) and use PowerPoint or Hyperstudio to make it or them interactive like the CD, "The New Kid on the Block." Lesson 1........Figurative Language for the student Lesson 3........
Inferencing Mini Lessons These lessons were modified and modeled from ideas in Strategies that Work by Harvey and Goudvis and Reading With Meaning by Miller. I am currently working on my Masters. One of my projects for a class was to create this HUGE unit using the Understanding By Design Backward Planning Model. Click here to see a content map of all the objectives taught in this unit. Books Used in the Unit Mini Lesson Plans Printable Copy of Plans Printable and Activities Used in This Unit Other Links and Resources Books Used In This Unit: A Study of Eve Bunting: Train to Somewhere Smoky Night The Blue and the Gray Fly Away Home Books for the Browsing Box: A Day's Work The Wednesday Day Surprise Gleam and Glow How Many Days to America: A Thanksgiving Story Dandelions Red Fox Running Cheyenne Again The Wall Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island Story A Picnic in October *Bunting has TONS of books out there. Study of Biographies: Teammates Big Book about Beatrix Potter (not for retail- came with curriculum school purchased) Anchor Chart
Reading and Wriitng Notebook FAQ I just started reading The Cafe Book yesterday by The Sisters and I am already so excited to make some changes in my classroom because of it. You can bet that I will be doing some serious posting about it during the next month as I begin to launch it in my classroom. I got a really great email from Lindsay today and thought I would answer her questions on the blog about my reading and writing notebooks. I thought that some of you might have the same questions yourself. The first question she asked was, "Do your kids have both reading and writing notebooks?" The notebook that I use in my classroom is a combined reading and writing notebook. The second question was, "Are they responsible for bringing the notebooks to class each day or do you house them in your room? I am lucky enough to have the capabilities to store the notebooks in my classroom. I do a mixture of both. As we rebuild our notebooks, I am planning on sharing more details about them with you all.
Writing Prompt Ideas to Inspire Young Writers {photo credit} This post is written by contributing writer Becky @ This Reading Mama. Writing can be one of those dreaded subjects. Real-Life Experiences Thank You Notes or Cards One way to prompt some writing is through real life experiences. Practical Day-to-Day Writing Maybe you can inspire your child to write by integrating authentic prompts into your day. Field Trips Did you just take a field trip? Younger kids can write their favorite part of the field trip down or simply write predictable sentences based on this prompt, “On our trip, I saw…” Based on pictures that you took while you were there, kids can also retell the field trip by sequencing the photos and writing about them. Write About Yourself Encourage kids to keep a Writer’s Notebook or even a daily journal of the things that happen to them. Great Literature Reading and interacting with great literature is also a great springboard or prompt for more writing! Seasonal Writing Prompts Writing can be intimidating to kids.
Blooming Orange: Bloom's Taxonomy Helpful Verbs Poster Here’s another poster to help get you thinking about how you can apply Bloom’s higher-order thinking skills with your children. This poster shows the segments of an orange with each segment relating to a thinking skill and some helpful verbs to serve as prompts. While there are many more verbs that we could have added, we felt that including just seven in each segment would make them easier to remember (For more information, see Miller’s paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” We thought it would be interesting to depict the verbs in a circular form as opposed to a hierarchical list, given that these skills don’t often occur in isolation and are interconnected. For those of you who prefer it, we’ve also created a grayscale version of the poster. Let us know what you think – you know we’re always listening! Download the pdf’s here:
Daily Writing Prompts As always, The Teacher's Corner is looking for ways to make your life easier. We hope that our newest addition, “Daily Writing Prompts,” does just that. On as many days as possible, we have selected an event from our monthly event calendars to be the focus of the writing prompt. These writing prompts can be used in a number of ways: Daily warm-up activity Practice in prompt writing for state assessments Daily/weekly writing prompt “Anytime” activity Student work center “When You’re Done” activity Substitute teacher activity One added advantage to TTC’s “Daily Writing Prompt” is that they can easily be displayed through an LCD projector in your classroom. You will find that our prompts are written for different grade levels. One of the Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers" (2008 & 2011) January Writing Prompts - Writing Prompts include: author J.R.R. March Writing Prompts - Writing Prompts include: Yellowstone National Park, Mardi Gras, Harriet Tubman Day, St.
Comprehension Strategies - Making connections, questioning, inferring, determining importance, and more from Strategies That Work, Mosaic of Thought, and Reading with Meaning, this page gives you information on the six comprehension strategies known as making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, and synthesizing.
Tone and Style ( Read ) | User Generated Content Lesson Objectives Distinguish between informal style and academic style Learn how to write clearly Diagnose and fix vague sentences Distinguish between denotative and connotative meanings Learn how to avoid gender bias Identify characters and actions in sentences Apply the old-before-new and short-to-long principles of style Learn when to use and not to use minimalizations and passive voice in sentences Learn how to write coherent and concise sentences Learn how to emphasize sentence elements Definition of Tone and Style Tone refers to the type of language writers use to address their audience. When writing an email to a friend, for example, you may choose to use an informal or colloquial tone, whereas an essay for an English class requires an academic tone. Compare the two examples below: Example 1: The city should just start paying for our rides to school so we can use the bus money for other stuff. Style, on the other hand, involves more than just formality and informality.
Synthesize Strategy lessons: Synthesize Students stop often while reading to synthesize the information gained from texts to form opinions, cite evidence to support their conclusions, change perspectives, develop new ideas, and, in general, enhance a personal understanding of the concepts presented in a text. Learning targets I can explain the difference between retelling, summarizing, and synthesizing. Getting started: Are we retelling, summarizing, synthesizing? Below is a silly story I heard on the radio. There once was a squirrel who went into an ice cream shop and asked the clerk, "Do you have walnuts?" "No. The squirrel went away, but came back an hour later and said, "Have you got any walnuts?" The clerk looked at the squirrel angrily. The squirrel went out the door, but in an hour came back again. "I told you we don't have any walnuts. The squirrel went out again but, sure enough, an hour later he was back. The clerk looked surprised. "Great!" Retelling Summarizing Headline summaries
Reader's Workshop This website is designed and maintained by Karen A. McDavid © 2004. Ideas, content, activities, and documents for this website are copyrighted by Karen A. All graphics seen throughout this website should not be removed, copied, or downloaded. You may download the banner below with a link back to this site. Graphics by Literature Circle Models After experimenting for many years, I discovered an approach that's easy, fun, and effective. I refer to it as Classroom Book Clubs because it's a more relaxed method of doing Literature Circles that doesn't involve roles. You can view a narrated slidecast to this model by scrolling down to the Classroom Book Clubs section. On this page you can also learn about different types of Literature Circles. I've had some success with all the models below, but all models haven't been successful with all groups of students. Ways to Structure Literature Circles Classroom Book Clubs - My favorite method at the moment is a flexible approach to Literature Circles that does not require the use of extensive handouts and assignment booklets. Classroom Book Clubs I love this model because it's a very flexible and fun approach. Mini Literature Circles (Using Leveled Readers) Are you required to use a basal reading program in your classroom? Literature Circles with Roles Nonfiction Literature Circles
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