Mentor Text Linky: Integrating Social Studies into Language Arts

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!  I'm sure lots of you are so excited for this game tonight, but I'm not the biggest football fan in the world....so I'm just looking forward to some wings tonight!

Today I'm linking up with the Collaboration Cuties to share a Must Read Mentor Text.  I've blogged a bit about how our school adopted Pearson's ReadyGen literacy program this year. The BIG downside to this program is that I don't get to choose my own read aloud texts anymore.  The upside is that I've truly enjoyed the majority of texts we've read through this program!

We just finished Unit 2 Module A, which focused on understanding how people respond to injustice and inequality.  Our anchor text was Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans, written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. {This text is available through Scholastic Book Clubs this month as well!}  The text is told from the perspective of an older African American woman who is sharing her family's history through pivotal points in American history.  Her grandfather, Pap, was kidnapped in Africa and brought to America as a slave.  The narrator describes Pap's experience as a slave and the reader is able to understand how many African Americans experienced slavery.  The story continues through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Migration, World War I, the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement.

This is a powerful text, filled with dialect, figurative language and unmistakable voice.  Our shared reading prompted awesome conversation and excellent questioning from my students.  Even with a very limited understanding of American History, my students were able to build a tremendous amount of knowledge about slavery and the importance of the Civil Rights movement. Our timing helped as well: coincidentally, we concluded the text just before Martin Luther King Day.  To compliment the text, we viewed the full length "I Have a Dream Speech" and the biography channel's mini bio of Martin Luther King, Jr on YouTube.  I also have a small group of students working through I'm Lovin Lit's Martin Luther King Jr Timeline Packet (<- free for a limited time).

This book is amazing for teaching students how to identify the point of view of a narrator.  In her explanation of historic events, the reader hears the opinion of a narrator who has been impacted by her family's experience in America.  The author/illustrator helps the reader imagine life in the past through gorgeous images.  This was a major focus for our discussion of the text.  We analyzed images and made connections to the tone of the text (CCSS RL 5.7).

Image of a Sharecropping Family

Image of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

The text is quite dense, so it isn't a quick read.  We only read one chapter per day because there is so much in the text to discuss.  We read the book in 12 school days.

Here you can grab a copy of an organizer to help your students analyze images in text:
I included some prompts for the organizer on a teacher's page.

 Also, click here to grab a copy of the Choice Boards I made for Black History Month.  My students are working on these at home and will present their projects at the end of the month.  You might notice that I left Martin Luther King, Jr off the list of influential African Americans; this was not an error.  I want my kiddos to branch out a bit and hopefully learn about a new figure or time period this month.

Just a quick note: Some of the reviews on Amazon state that the book is too sad and presents a negative view of America.  I have to disagree.  I didn't find that my students focused on the sadness in the text because our conversations focused on how the people in the text responded to the injustices they experienced (forming the Underground Railroad, fighting to end Jim Crow laws, nonviolent protests, speeches, exercising the right to vote).

Student-Moderator Discussion Prompts in Action!

In my excitement about finding a means to make my scripted literacy program a little more student-led, I hastily threw together yesterday's blog post.  I shared some prompts for a student-moderator to use when leading a whole class discussion.  But I didn't share how I planned to use them.  Oops!  So sorry....and here goes:

 Prior to today, I emphasized making eye contact with classmates, using text based evidence, using accountable talk stems, responding directly to claims made by classmates and not taking differing opinions as a personal attack (this is still an ongoing lesson!).  Our conversations have been meaty and really interesting!

Today, I handed over responsibility for leading this discussion to a student.  Before the whole class discussion, the rest of the class prepares in small groups.  The students answer an opinion based question and defend their idea with details from the text.  While the class prepared, my student-moderator read the prompts and we briefly discussed ways to keep the conversation moving.  When she was ready, she jumped in a took over the discussion.

Of course, I handed off this responsibility to my most capable student, but I anticipate other students being successful and over time being able to ditch the prompts and lead the conversation independently.

If you want to grab a set of prompts, click HERE to download them. You can edit the portion that says EDIT to remind your student how to grab the attention of their classmates.  You will need PowerPoint to edit the file.

Enjoy!

Student Led Discussion Prompts - FREEBIE!

One part of our literacy program, ReadyGen, is called "Team Talk."  During this part of the morning, students respond to an opinion based question with text based evidence.  Since all of the students have copies of the texts, this has been a really productive portion of our morning.  I post the question on my SMARTboard and give teams a few minutes to discuss before we launch into our whole class discussion.

My school, like many others, has a focus on student led learning.  I much prefer to sit back and observe during these whole class conversation. I usually wait until much later in the year to relinquish responsibility to the students, because I believe that the teacher has the responsibility to challenge students with higher order thinking questions, but part of our evaluation refers to student led lessons.  To help my students along, I created these prompts to help my "Student Moderators."

I haven't used these yet, but I wanted to offer them up to anyone who wants to try them out.  I'm certain all teachers will be able to use them for their whole class text based discussions.  There is one editable frame for you to add in your routine for getting the attention of the class.  We are a Whole Brain Teaching classroom, so I use the "Class?"  "Yes?"  routine.  I tried embedding the font into the file, so please let me know if the font doesn't show up correctly.  (It's KG Second Chances Solid by Kimberly Geswein, if you want to download it.  And I did pay for the license...just in case you are curious!)

My routine for getting the attention of the class

Grab your set of discussion prompts HERE.  Let me know what you think!

Five for Friday! Character Organizer Freebie

Oh, sweet Friday!  I'm so happy it's here finally!

Here are a few things that have been going on in my room this week:

1.  We launched ReadyGen.  Our first unit is Depending on Each Other and we are reading Night of the Spadefoot Toads.  My students are really enjoying the story and having really great conversations about the book.  I am loving having a copy of text for each student!

"Team Talk" - students state an opinion and refer back to text for evidence

2.  We are studying character.

Our essential questions focus on character.  Our discussions have focused on how traits are revealed, external and internal conflict and character motivations.  ReadyGen does not come with homework, so I designed some graphic organizers for character study.  This week, my students worked on this mini organizer at home and at school during independent reading.  You can grab a copy of it HERE or check out the editable product on TpT HERE.  (It's on sale for the weekend!)

3.  We are wrapping up Back to School Math Centers!  This was a great way to assess the kids skills in a low stress way.  I used the data revealed through their work to help students write their beginning of year math goals.  They were also a great way to get kids into a math workshop routine!  Next up: Halloween Centers!

4.  We experimented with complimentary colors.  I have an amazing artists in my room....but one in particular who is just knocking my socks off with his awesomeness.

5.  My favorite kindergarten-er turned five this week!  I'm really looking forward to his party this weekend :-)

I hope you had a great week!  Be sure to check out DoodleBug's linky!