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Educational resources
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Essay planning tool from readwritethink
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49 Cool Summer Sites for Kids and Teachers
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Blog with suggestions for mentor texts.
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Free Youtube Tools for Teachers
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Diigo bookmark (weekly)
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Nonfiction Reading Part Two: Text Structure
In the fall, I read so many books about sharks with my student, who asked me for more shark books every time I saw her. This spring, we created our own book about sharks organized by topics such as habitat, diet and physical characteristics. Many nonfiction texts are organized this way: creating a KWL organized by topics can help students anticipate this type of text structure before they read. I saw a great guided reading lesson at a workshop with Irene Fountas where she demonstrated that a picture book may have both an overlying structure such as a narrative and an underlying structure, such as describing the life cycle of an animal.
I’ve also been encountering many books such as Surprising Sharks that have a persuasive message, in this case that sharks aren’t as aggressive towards humans as we might have been led to believe. (A colleague calls this structure “exploding the myth.”) These books often have an environmental message as well. Suprising sharks concludes that sharks should be more afraid of humans than we are of sharks. There are many books like this about other animals; for example, Bats by Gail Gibbons and Seymour Simon’s Wolves.
As an avid reader of fiction from childhood, I’m used to reading for plot and don’t always pay close attention to text structure. I need to plan to be explicit about text structure for nonfiction as my student and I continue to explore books on high interest nonfiction topics.
I’ve also been encountering many books such as Surprising Sharks that have a persuasive message, in this case that sharks aren’t as aggressive towards humans as we might have been led to believe. (A colleague calls this structure “exploding the myth.”) These books often have an environmental message as well. Suprising sharks concludes that sharks should be more afraid of humans than we are of sharks. There are many books like this about other animals; for example, Bats by Gail Gibbons and Seymour Simon’s Wolves.
As an avid reader of fiction from childhood, I’m used to reading for plot and don’t always pay close attention to text structure. I need to plan to be explicit about text structure for nonfiction as my student and I continue to explore books on high interest nonfiction topics.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Nonfiction reading part one: the impact of experiential learning
When we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo last summer, we were highly amused by the friendly beaver and stood for a long time as he swam back and forth in front of us. I marveled at his long orange teeth and flat tail and how he held his front paws in front of him, seeming to coyly show off in front of the crowd of visitors. Solana spent quite a bit of time filming these antics on my phone. (As an aside, how cool is it that the Lincoln Park Zoo is free?) I can’t say that I was ever interested in beavers before, but when we came home and I saw some books on beavers at our local library, I wanted to read more about them. I was so much more engaged having had the hands on experience of seeing one up close. It really made me experience as a reader the impact of experiential learning and background knowledge on motivation: ideally something to replicate in the classroom either through virtual learning or hands on science centers.
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