Reading Comprehension...Where's the Beef? Take 2!

Students, take a look at this video! Why am I showing it to you, after today, do you think?

As I mentioned in a previous post a while back, in relation to student writing, there has been a need for more 'beef"...in other words, more specific details! (At that time, I referenced the Wendy's commercial from 1984.)

Since then, we have, in our reports and review writing, been working dilligently to add MORE BEEF...in other words, more specific details (which are to be well organized with transition words, such as 'first', 'next', 'then', 'also', etc).

However, as we are doing reading comprehension activities (for example, reading a game review and trying to explain the author's opinion by quoting details from the text), I find myself asking the SAME question as I peruse student answers...

STUDENTS, WHERE'S THE BEEF?

A reading comprehension task is, if you think about, a writing task because we usually ask students to WRITE their answer down. The same rules thus apply! All those skills we have been sharpening in our writing tasks work here too! Give me specific details (using those transition words to organize those details)! GIVE ME MORE BEEF!

Also, when reading other people's writing (especially non-fiction writing like this game review...which is, at heart, an essay) you will often find that those writers have themselves CREATED A BEEFY HAMBURGER!

So where should you go, highlighter in hand, to look for the BEST, JUICIEST, MOST SPECIFIC DETAILS?!

In the middle of the text...where THE BEEF is!

Most students at this school are familiar with the 'answer sandwich' when crafting a reading response (aka., the 'answer hamburger').

Students, writers of all types use this approach when crafting THEIR writing!

Their main idea or argument/opinion is the top bun. THE BEEF or MEAT of the sandwhich is their supporting proof/details. The conclusion, which is a re-iteration of their main idea or argument/opinion, is the bottom bun.

When you are looking for the main idea/argument, go to the buns.

When you are looking for good, supportive quotes and details, as we are now...GO TO THE MIDDLE, WHERE THE BEEF IS!

Go to the middle to get the best proof you need!

Poe's Tell Tale Heart HOMEWORK!

Students, we will be spending a few days before and possible after Halloween looking at Edgar Allen Poe's brilliant, classic, suspenseful and creepy short story:

The Tell Tale Heart.

In anticipation of beginning this project on Wednesday (barring no unforeseen interruptions!), please read this short story. Here is it ONLINE. For those that require a paper copy, you must let me know tomorrow (Tuesday).

CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK TO THE STORY!

If by chance you find the language too difficult (which most of you should not), you can copy & paste text a few lines at a time using Ivona.com and have it read to you.

Also, if you prefer, you can read along to the RADIO PLAY (audio only) on youtube. Here is part 2 of the radio play.

Please DO NOT look up video interpretations on you tube! We will be looking at these separate from the text.

We will also be comparing the story to Sponge Bob episode 'Squeaky Boots' (again, do not look this up if you haven't seen it! Save it for when we look at it in class!)

Novel Study & General Reading Update

This week, our class started their Independent Reading Novel Study. Students have chosen a novel and every morning they read for 10 mins. Then they are completing 3R Reflection & Picture journals. These questions (retell, relate, reflect) and the picture section address these curriculum points:

Gr. 7
1. 3 identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies (such as visualization)
1.4 demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex texts by summarizing important ideas 

1.5 develop and explain interpretations of  texts using stated and implied ideas from the texts to support their interpretations 

1.6 extend understanding of texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them  

Gr.8
1.3 identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies 
1.4 demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex and difficult texts by summarizing important ideas

1.5 develop and explain interpretations of texts using stated and implied ideas from the texts to support their interpretations 

1.6 extend understanding of texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other texts, and to the world around them 

The benefit of making this task independent is that students get to select their own reading material. Reading preferences are intensely personal and students should be allowed to read what honestly interests them rather than always 'assigned' texts.

The other areas of reading in class currently are: Nikolas & Company whole class read aloud with Visual Doodles (which models reading strategies, connections to text, the making of predictions, summaries, character/setting etc), music lyrics for connections to text (see my poplit lyrics website) and short video 'stories' on my poplit.net to explore summaries/retells, character/setting/plot.

Also, we have read one of Chris Simon's news report in the Innisfil Scope as a way to explore report writing.

Coming up soon! Poe's Tell Tale Heart, the use of lyrics/poems to determine 'main idea', and, once I have finished my individual reading assessments (I am meeting individually and reading with each student to confirm reading levels), guided reading practice!

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Reading is Thinking: Visual Doodles

Recently, we started reading Nikolas & Co, a YA fantasy adventure novel by Kevin McGill (who will be one of our guest speakers. He is a writing friend of mine via Twitter who lives in Dallas, Texas. He spoke last year at my J/I Boy's Literacy Event).

As I read the story aloud, students are creating Visual Doodles to represent the images they see in their mind's eye ('Reading is Thinking'). They will also be writing about the story as well (focusing on summaries, opinions, connections and story features like character/setting/plot, figurative language, etc). Here are a few of the first doodles. These doodles document the events in the first chapter. They are in pencil and a bit hard to see but check them out! You should be able to make out: mountains, digging for the artifact, crazy project leader, a hover truck, gold dust shimmering in the air, etc.

I will be sending this blog link to Kevin. Hey, Kevin, what do you think? Leave a comment below!

Making Predictions & Reading

Last year I hosted a J/I Boy's Literacy Event and writer Kevin McGill of Dallas, Texas, was one of our guest speakers via a Skype interview. Part 1 of his long awaited first novel has been published...part 2 is soon to arrive!

Here is the book trailer to his Young Adult novel 'Nikolas & Co: A Creature Most Foul'. What predictions can you make about the book based on this trailer and the title?




I will soon begin reading Part 1 in class...

Sept. 9, 2011

We have started talking about choosing books and the various ways we make decisions around what we want to read.

Here are 2 books for girls and 2 books for boys. Please look over these books & vote! In class, we will discuss our decision making process.

Which ever book wins for either gender, I will purchase & donate to the class library. You will be given the chance to vote via laptop on Friday, voting box on Monday and again with the laptops on Wednesday. Voting closes end of day Wednesday!

GIRLS

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It’s gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie’s estranged father—an elusive European warlock—only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it’s her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.-from Amazon.ca

Heartland is a horse farm with the special mission of healing abused or neglected horses and finding them new homes. Fifteen-year-old Amy works alongside her talented mother, a gifted horse trainer who uses techniques similar to those of the trainer in The Horse Whisperer. While rescuing an abandoned stallion in a thunderstorm, Amy's mother is killed when a falling tree hits their car, and everything at Heartland--and everything in Amy's life--is thrown into turmoil. Amy's older sister, Lou, leaves her job to come to Heartland to help, and Amy begins to cope with the new circumstances of her life, relying on her work with her beloved horses to help her face the future without her mom.

Fans of the Saddle Club, Pine Hollow, and Thoroughbred series of horse novels will enjoy this sensitively told story that combines lots of authentic horse-farm details with Amy's challenges in dealing with her bossy older sister and her mom's sudden death. The story of Heartland is continued in After the Storm.  -from amazon.ca

BOYS

Full-colour, full-action, full-throttle sports stories - that's what you get when you take "Stone Arch Books'" thrilling graphic novel format and infuse it with the insider knowledge of "Sports Illustrated Kids". Feel the tension between paintball teammates when one player refuses to run with the pack. Cheer on a gutsy skater as he grinds his way through hard times. These teens are more than just athletes; they are heroes in the making-from amazon.ca

Set in Saskatchewan during its dust-bowl years, Slade's novel begins eerily as seven-year-old Matthew vanishes on his first walk into town alone. Matthew's parents and the entire community appear to accept and forget his disappearance, but a strange set of circumstances leads his 11-year-old brother, Robert, to conclude that Matthew is still alive. It seems that Matthew's disappearance, as well as the vanishing of several other area children, corresponds with the appearance of Abram Hamsich, a stranger who promises to build a rainmaking machine that will end the terrible drought. Hamsich soon has the whole town mesmerized, except for Robert (and his uncle), who gradually realizes Hamsich's horrific true plans. Calling up Ray Bradbury's 1962 classic Something Wicked This Way Comes and the legend of the immortal soulless wanderer, Slade's haunting story shows the triumph of imperfect hope over manifest evil. --from amazon.ca