text + reader = idea

At the end of last week, we looked at ideas we'd collected from Rules, our read aloud, and decided which ones we'd hold onto to discuss later.  The work was to evaluate which ideas were big enough to hold onto, or to identify which ideas would lead to rich conversations later.  Many of the ideas we decided to keep felt similar.  Yesterday, students grouped those similar-feeling ideas together.  Today's work was to make one strong statement that ties together each group of statements from yesterday.  Before students could do that on their own, we had a meeting about how to make a strong statement.  We looked at four ideas students had about The Circuit, a short story I read aloud a few weeks ago:

• The family was poor.
• The family was being used because they were working really hard, but they didn't get paid a lot of money.
• Every time Panchito gets used to where he is, he has to move.
• The family had to break the law because they needed more money.

Then, the students identified the second statement as the strongest.  We talked about what made it strong, and concluded that it's strong because it has the reader's opinion or judgement in it.  Our goal is to make statements that are text + reader = idea, not just text = idea.

Before students applied this thinking to their sorted ideas about Rules, we practiced as a whole class by revising our thoughts about The Circuit.  Here's what we came up with. Revisions are in purple:

• The family was poor.  It's not fair that their lives are being controlled by money.
• The family was being used because they were working really hard, but they didn't get paid a lot of money.  That's a bad thing.  They're not being paid fairly.
• Every time Panchito gets used to where he is, he has to move.  Panchito can't be like a real kid--that must be hard!  I would feel really frustrated.
• The family had to break the law because they needed more money.  They needed to break the law to survive, but it's still not okay (or is it?).

Students are still working on their strong statements about Rules.  Stand by for those!

Have a lovely Thanksgiving if you're celebrating!  Happy long weekend to all.

Reading Portraits

Happy Saturday!

We finished our reading self portraits last week!  They are glorious.  Over the last month, students have been collecting information about their reading lives, analyzing the information and synthesizing the information into a map of their reading brains that tells the story of who they are as readers.  They looked at favorite books, excerpts, characters, settings, authors, series, you name it--and then they thought about what all those favorites told them about themselves.  We read to affirm what we  believe.  We read because it changes our minds and moves us forward.  We read because it makes us want to change ourselves and the world.  That is the work of these portraits--to put students in touch with those ideas, and to give them a chance to see for themselves the connection between their identities and their reading lives.

Reading Portraits

Enjoy!

Thoughts about Rules by Cynthia Lord: Keep or Kill?

This week in school, we started a new read aloud: Rules, by Cynthia Lord. Over the course of the week, I collected students' thoughts about the book. Today, we looked at all the thoughts from this week and decided which ones we'd keep and which ones we'd "kill." The decision was based on whether or not the idea felt like something that would lead to a good discussion. If it was something that felt more like a fact from the book or a small idea that wouldn't lead to much conversation, we "killed" the idea. Check out our list of thoughts and see what we kept and what we killed. (If we were on the fence about keep it or kill it, we kept it just to be safe.)