READING
Nonfiction Smackdown!
Upper elementary students read two nonfiction books on the same topic. Then they evaluate and compare the two titles, recording their thinking on a worksheet that other students can use to help them make book choices.
Nonfiction Smackdown!
Upper elementary students read two nonfiction books on the same topic. Then they evaluate and compare the two titles, recording their thinking on a worksheet that other students can use to help them make book choices.
Sibert
Smackdown!
Similar to Nonfiction Smackdown!, but books are selected from a list of picture books contenders that I compile on my website. The worksheet uses a kid-friendly version of the criteria considered by the real Sibert committee. Several librarians have also used their own creative ideas to record students’ thinking, such as Padlet, Flipgrid, posters, and voting forms where students write the rationale for their choice.
Similar to Nonfiction Smackdown!, but books are selected from a list of picture books contenders that I compile on my website. The worksheet uses a kid-friendly version of the criteria considered by the real Sibert committee. Several librarians have also used their own creative ideas to record students’ thinking, such as Padlet, Flipgrid, posters, and voting forms where students write the rationale for their choice.
March Madness Nonfiction
Inspired by the annual March Madness basketball tournament,
students participate in a month-long, whole-school activity to select their
favorite nonfiction title. Can be combined with the Nonfiction Smackdown!
http://www.melissa-stewart.com/pdf/March_Madness_NF.pdf
Nonfiction Family Tree
A system for sorting nonfiction to help students predict the type of information they’re likely to find in a book and how that information will be presented. It can also help them identify the kinds of nonfiction books they enjoy reading most.
Read aloud and briefly discuss a picture book every day of the school year. Display book covers, so it’s easy to refer back to them for comparison to new texts (theme, text structure, voice, writing style). They can also be used as mentor texts during writing workshop. You can work with teachers to get them started and make book recommendations or you could adopt a classroom.
After
reading a variety of age-appropriate books, K-2 students use the text features
in those books as models in creating their own text feature posters.
PRE-WRITING
Choosing a Topic
Choosing a Topic
Ideas are all around us. I can get
inspired by things I read, things people say to me, or things I see or
experience myself. For me, the challenge is keeping track of the ideas, so I
have one when it’s time to begin a new book. I have an idea board in my office,
and I use it to remind myself about ideas I’ve had.
An Idea Jar
Why Students Copy Their Research Sources and How to Break
that Habit
Why do students copy rather than
expressing ideas and information in their own words? Because they haven’t taken
the time to analyze and synthesize the material they’ve collected so that they
can make their own meaning. In other words, they haven’t found a personal
connection to the content, and that’s a critical step in nonfiction writing.
Pairs or small groups
participate in collaborative note taking on paper or using google docs, so that
struggling students can access the thought process of more advanced students.
This activity also reduces copying from sources materials.
Sources
Students Can't Copy
Encourage students to use a wide variety
of source materials, including some that it's impossible to copy, such as
personal observations, webcams, and interviews. To facilitate interviews, your
school can develop a list of adults in the school community with knowledge in
particular area.
When students take the time to represent their notes visually as infographics or other kinds of combinations of words and pictures as part of their pre-writing process, they will find their own special way of conveying the information. And using that lens, they can then write a report that is 100 percent their own.
Invite students to synthesize their research and make personal connections by using some of the following thought prompts:
—The idea this gives me . . .
—I was surprised to learn . . .
—This makes me think . . .
—This is important because . . .
Struggling with Structure
While
writing Can an Aardvark Bark?, I
experimented with 4 different text structures over a 4 year period before the
manuscript was accepted for publication. The timeline on my website shows the
details of my process through a series of 8 video, which take about 11 minutes
to watch. The timeline also features
downloadable version of 4 rejected manuscripts, so students can see what
changed over time.
Text
Structure Swap
After
reading No Monkeys, No
Chocolate, upper elementary students make book maps to get a
stronger sense of the architecture of the main text’s cumulative sequence
structure. Then each child chooses one example from the text and rewrite it
with a cause and effect text structure. The third and fourth links are for
worksheets that guide a similar activity based on the content in Can an Aardvark Bark?
http://www.melissa-stewart.com/pdf/Text_Structure_Swap_1.pdf
http://www.melissa-stewart.com/pdf/Text_Structure_Swap_2.pdf
http://www.melissa-stewart.com/pdf/Text_Structure_Swap_2.pdf
Same Structure, New Topic
Students read a selection of my books and chose one to use as a mentor text. They created a book that emulated the structure and style of my book but presented information about a different topic.
http://celebratescience.blogspot.com/2017/09/in-classroom-what-great-idea.html
A Feel for the Flow/ Colorful Revisions
Typing
out a mentor text can help students get a fee for the flow. They can study how
the text was constructed by highlighting various elements with different
colors. They can use a similar technique to look for ways to improve their own
works in progress.
Radical Revision!
First graders write a piece of nonfiction. When the students are in second grade, teachers share the No Monkeys, No Chocolate Revision Timeline on my website and ask the children to revise the piece they wrote in first grade. Both drafts are placed in a folder, and students revise again in third, fourth, and fifth grade.
First graders write a piece of nonfiction. When the students are in second grade, teachers share the No Monkeys, No Chocolate Revision Timeline on my website and ask the children to revise the piece they wrote in first grade. Both drafts are placed in a folder, and students revise again in third, fourth, and fifth grade.
After K-2 students write nonfiction about a topic of their choice, children in another class at the same grade level illustrate the text. Then the original writers review the artists’ work and write a polite letter asking for any necessary changes. This activity mimics the process nonfiction picture book authors go through when they review sketches created by an illustrator.
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