Building the Narrative Arc with Mentor Texts

Students are correlating the narrative arc from their reading to their writing. We are identifying story elements, theme, and plotting stories using the narrative arc. Using three different books, we are seeing the relationship between books that we read and how we are writers.

Books we have used as mentor texts:

                       

We will go back to these texts next week to introduce some reading structures from the text Disrupting Thinking by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst. Using a BHH model where we think about the Book's details, how it impacts our Head, and our Heart is where we are headed next.

Discerning fake news from real news

Students brainstormed what are the things that we look for when looking at digital content to decide if it is a credible article. Students
listed many things such as: reliable source, real author, watch for lots of capitals or punctuation, check the date, see whose perspective the story is told from, and is this in line with other sources that we have researched.

Students also used this recording sheet from Scholastic News to help them with guiding questions as they reviewed articles.

I will admit, I had a hard time not laughing when they were saying things like, "Come on, this is ridiculous!" or "This is not news". I said, "We see lots of things on tv news programs that are not news but rather are feel good stories and human interest stories".  

We had just read about Malcolm X; love that students remembered his real name-- Malcolm Little.

Picture book project

Students began our picture book project that will focus on a service project for our school while practicing fluency, reading with accuracy and expression.  

Students had to review three different picture books and choose a text that was a "just right" fit.  We are going to make a playlist of "holiday books", "bedtime books", and "old favorites" to share with our K-2 students at Paxton Keeley. 

Students had to practice reading the book silently to self and then out loud to self.

Students then have to read the text to two other students.  They are expected to use the right pacing and practice "reading like a teacher" with expression.

Students will import the images of the book into iMovie and record their voice over the text to create an "audiobook" with images.

Students will be read their selection to me before it goes public.

When we are finished, they will be uploaded and QR codes will be created for each playlist. Then, the codes will be copied to a "bookmark" that will be distributed to our K-2 students in the Friday Folders.

At the end of our project, students uploaded their projects into Google Drive. A QR code was made for the books and we distributed the codes to our students and teachers in grades K-2.