ANNOTATING TEXTIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Anna Boyes

Summer Institute 2014

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• Can elementary students make claims and provide evidence in their writing?

• How can annotating help students in the lower grades better comprehend what they read?

• How can I get quality responses from each student?

PREWRITE ACTIVITY

With an elbow partner discuss what you know about the five second rule. What is it? Who uses it? Have you ever used it, or do you still?

After you discuss with a partner jot down your definition of the five second rule. Be ready to share your thoughts.

ACTIVITY ONE TESTING THE FIVE SECOND RULE

• TFK article http://www.timeforkids.com/news/testing-five-second-rule/152426

• Annotating- circle, underline, ask questions, and make comments as you read. Look for unknown words, key terms an anything else that catches your attention. Imagine that you are having a conversation with the text.

• Think about what the article and video are claiming. What is the proof? Where do you stand?

THE FIVE SECOND RULETO USE OR NOT TO USE

STUDENT WORK

• This writing lesson was fun, yet very frustrating at the same time. Our school has used Step Up to Writing for years and it is very hard to get rid of the formula in the students’ writing. As a comfort they all tried to go back to the formula despite having writing modeled differently for them numerous times. Great discussions came out of this, but not so much in the writing.

• How do we undo the process that has been engrained in their heads?

• Model, model model!!!! Any other ideas?

ACTIVITY TWO

• TFK Article “Good Enough to Eat”

• http://www.timeforkids.com/news/article-good-enough-eat/99001

BUGS FOR DINNER?

• With a partner or by yourself read the article “Good Enough to Eat”. Annotate as you read. Have a conversation with the text. Think about the claim that the author is making.

• Share out.

MORE BUGS

• As you watch the video think about how it connects to the article. You may take notes on the back as you will be making a claim and providing evidence from both the article and the video.

• https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=ted+ed+videos+about+eating+bugs&vid=16196985dfddf7fc187ab52d3e58bd4c&l=&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608040916897433092%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fed.ted.com%2Flessons%2Fshould-we-eat-bugs-emma-bryce&tit=Should+we+eat+bugs%3F+-+Emma+Bryce&c=1&sigr=11nr94s55&sigt=110kn78su&ct=n&&tt=b

FINAL STEP

Write a claim and provide at least three pieces of evidence from what

you read and watched.

THE FUTURE?????

MORE DATA

• This last writing followed the same format, but produced much better work.

• Notice there is less “Step Up” this time around.

• There is hope!

QUESTIONS

•Any questions or suggestions as this is a work in progress for me.

THANK YOU!

•aboyes@gwusd.org