Novel Studies: Monitoring Comprehension

With the novel we are reading I allow time for group reading, whole class reading, partner reading, and individual reading.

You know how it goes...you tell the students to read to a certain page, you walk around to make sure everyone is on task, you do the associated activities, the bell rings, and you are left wondering who really understood. 

I wanted a quick way to tell what students got it and what students needed some additional help.  So, I came up with 6 quick formative assessments to monitor comprehension.

 

 With my students who struggle with reading, I do a lot of the I Remember and Determined Doodler to make sure they are understanding the basics of what we read.  The higher level students benefit from the Possible Predictions and Notable Quotes. 

I print off the sheets {you can get them here} 

and have them readily available for a ticket out the door.  With a quick glance I can tell who needs extra help.   It's a easy way to make sure students are not falling through the cracks.  

Happy Teaching,

Middle Schoolers & Poetry

I wanted to share a picture of my 7th grade students studying and talking about poetry...Annabel Lee by Edger Allan Poe to be exact. 

Real Life Poetry Seminar!!

Implementing seminars {<---- click here for the original post on how to run a poetry seminar} is one of the best things I have done as a teacher....the students take charge of their own learning, they are actively engaged and excited about reading poetry.  {!!!!}

For the month of February my starter Poetry Seminar lesson plan is FREE!!  Click here to get it!

Hope you enjoy...let me know what you think!!

Happy teaching,

  

Teaching Poetry to Middle Schoolers

Me (in my most excited, I love teaching voice): "We're starting poetry next week!!"

{insert student groans}

Them (in their bored, disinterested voices): "We hate poetry.  It's stupid! It's SOOOOOO hard!"

Me (taking my excited voice up a notch):  You'll love it!  I promise!!

{insert skeptical looks and eye rolls}

So....how do I get my students to love {like/tolerate} poetry?

I let them take control of the lessons.  I am simply a facilitator posing debatable questions to poems they have read.  The students discuss the answers with each other {NOT ME} constantly referring back to the poem to support their answers!

Through the process, they organically understand theme, mood, author's purpose, etc without me beating them over the head with it!!

How it works...
1.  Introduce your poet.  Do a web hunt, have a guest speaker, watch a video. Whatever you need to do to get the students to understand who the poet was/is.

2.  Introduce and work with vocabulary from the poem.  I have my students look up the words, draw cartoons to go with each word, and perform actions to go with each meaning.

3.  Sit your students around one table {or a lot of tables pushed together.  We do our seminars in the school library}

Read the poem and annotate/jot.  I tell them it may be hard and they may have to read it more than once to get an understanding.  Let them know that is ok and normal!

4.  Pose debatable questions to the group.  The questions should be open ended...not yes/no.

5.   Give a writing prompt to go along with the poem.

We might spend a week on one poem and author, but that is OK!  They really understand {and dare I say it...like} the poem at the end of the week.  They will ask you if you can do seminars everyday, all day!!! 
Quality over quantity.

Has anyone else used the seminar method to teach poetry?  

If you would like an example of a poetry seminar lesson plan, click here. 

Happy teaching,

Idea: Picture Collages to Summarize Reading

So I was wasting time on Twitter when I should've been grading and I came across a fantastic post from this dude.  

 It's all about creating picture collages using Pic Collage.  

It got my brain going!

What if...

1.  Students
read a book

2.  As they read the recreate important scenes from the book and photograph them.


3.  They import all the pictures into Pic College to create a final product to visually summarize their novel! 

What a great way to work on visualization while reading! 



I love the idea!  I will have to try it out soon....if someone beats me to it, let me know how it works out!

Happy teaching,