WONDERful Jottings

Jottings are an important part of a Balanced Literacy framework. Yes, the sticky notes are abundant and can be found everywhere! How can you manage the jottings and use them for instructional purposes? When I assign students specific jotting topics, the students turn their writing in on the Parking Lot. I have students design the Parking Lot to reflect the current unit of study.

 

 

During our unit, Following Characters into Meaning, we read the book Wonder by RJ Palacio. Students designed their parking spaces in the style of August, the main character.

 

I can get an instant visual of who did not complete their jotting. I can quickly read over their jots to see who needs to conference with me. I will conference with students who used the targeted strategy incorrectly.

Character Traits the Common Core Way

One of the more difficult skills to teach third graders is to reference the text and provide evidence for their thoughts. During our current unit, I think I have encouraged and/or required my students a million times to show evidence from the text .

 

I try to provide them with a variety of activities to practice this skill. Some students catch on to the skill and are able to use it simply by writing a jotting on a sticky note. Other students need a template while still others must have a fill-in activity sheet to follow exact steps in a process.

 

Whatever type of response my students use, I always post examples on the Focus Board so they can reference it whenever they need to during their Independent Reading time.

 

 

During the unit, I was on Pinterest searching for some anchor charts to use. I found a couple of ideas I liked and tweaked them to create my own charts.

 

 

Pinterest Chart--above

 

 

 

My own chart--above

 

Student response activity after a lesson using the anchor chart

 

Pinterest Chart--above

 

My own chart--above

 

 

Student response after a lesson using the anchor chart

 

 

Student response after a lesson using the anchor chart

 

 

Student response after a lesson using the anchor chart...and what I discussed with the student during conferencing

 

 

This is what one student wrote about the character traits for the dog, Winn Dixie, in our read aloud lesson! Check out what he said for the evidence!

 

 

Students posting their jots about character traits

 

Student jots

 

 

Student jots

 

 

I conferenced with the student about how to find evidence in the text.

 

 

A-Z with F&P

I need to begin this post by giving credit to my Literacy Facilitator, Vicki Douvikas, for sharing this idea at a Balanced Literacy training. She showed us how to create a toolkit to help us have more effective conferences during Reading Workshop. I took her suggestions, added in my own ideas, and created my version of a conferencing toolkit.
 
The basic idea of this toolkit is to give teachers a readily available set of books and questions to guide your conferences with readers based on their reading levels.

 

I used a thick, 3-ring binder with plastic pockets. You could choose to color-code your plastic pockets with green for at-level, yellow for strategic, and red for intensive based on your grade level text. I did not color-code mine because I wanted it to be flexible just in case I ever have to change grade levels.

 

There is one pocket for each letter of the alphabet which corresponds to the Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading Levels. Inside each pocket there is a set of prompts to use when conferencing with your readers, one or two books at the particular level, and questions stems to guide your discussions.

 

 

 

 

I use books from the website Reading A to Z. I chose these books for a few reasons. They are readily available and you can print as many copies as you need. These books are leveled to the Fountas and Pinnell scale. The books are also part of RAZ Kids, so the students can independently read the books you use during the conference. There are a variety of genres and interesting topics. These paper books are not as bulky as real books.

 

 

**Please take note of the inside cover of the book--the correlation is sometimes a letter off.  Make sure you have the books leveled correctly. A Reading A to Z book may be a letter L, but its F&P level may actually be a K.**

 

 

 

I cover the stapled spine of the book with duct tape so it will last through many reads.

 

 

I also place jottings inside the book to help guide my discussions with readers. I will be honest and say I do not have all of my books coded with sticky notes yet because it is very time consuming. This binder is an ongoing piece of work. I am sure I will add, delete, and change several things as the year progresses. That IS what good teachers do--we change instruction to meet our learners' needs.

 

 

 

The books I put in my toolkit are not random.  For the lower levels, A-F, I used mostly realistic fiction. With levels G-U I chose to use as many fables, mysteries, and biographies as I could find because these are the genre that my students struggle with the most. I added in some nonfiction books and chose topics my students are interested in such as dangerous animals and the Titanic.

 

The prompts and question stems come from a couple of different places. One set of prompts is from our TCRWP coach. I'm sorry I do not have these to share with you. They were part of our district's training and I only have hard copies. If you are part of Balanced Literacy with Teachers' College, I would ask your coach for a set of them.You also could use any questioning stems or prompts you are comfortable with such as Marzano's or Bloom's.

 

The other prompts I use are based on Reading 3D and mClass (you know, the DIBELS people). They are taken from the TRC section. The website http://www.mybookezzz.net/mclass-comprehension-stems/ has PDF files of the questions broken down into F&P levels. If you look at the screen shot below, the first PDF file will give you a bulleted list of questions and the second one will give you a matrix version of question stems.

 

 

 

bulleted lists

 

 

matrix

This toolkit was time consuming. I had to use a lot of ink, a lot of paper, and spend a bit of money to purchase the materials. I think it is definitely worth it though! After you create your toolkit, you will have instant lessons tailored to your students' reading levels. You will have talking points all ready for when you conference with your readers.

Thank you again, Vicki, for the great idea.

 

Halloween Poetry Jottings

When Halloween falls on a weekday, teachers need to embrace it in order to make it through a successful day of learning! I took a break from our current unit, Following Characters into Meaning. Instead of reading from our unit read aloud Because of Winn Dixie, I used some holiday poems to keep students focused. They thought it was cool to stop doing Reading Workshop (they just didn't realize they were still doing it)! When you teach like a pirate, sometimes you have to hook students by letting them think they are getting away with something. If they want to think they aren't doing work because the activity is new and different, then by all means I will run with it! 

 

I selected a variety of poems: repetitive, acrostic, rhyming, free verse, musical lyrics, haiku. I chose poems that I thought fit the category of complex text. The poems had strong vocabulary, allowed students to practice oral reading fluency, contained literal and figurative language, and lead students to envision. 

 

Students read the poems with their reading partner. They made jottings focused on empathy, envisioning, and predictions.

 

 

Students placed their jottings on the back of the poems so that I can use these jottings to conference with them next week.

Metacognition Jottings

I don't normally buy things from Teachers' Pay Teachers. I usually create all of my organizers and templates and keep them as basic and simple as possible. I am not a cute glitter and bows type of teacher. However, my class this year has some challenging behavior issues and I need to find ways to keep their attention. If it is cute clip art, then I will go with it!

I purchased a file of jottings templates. It was only $3 and it has great stems to help lead reluctant writers to make more detailed jottings about their books. Today's lesson focused on metacognition. This can be an odd skill to teach students and sometimes an even harder skill to assess.

 

I am currently teaching Lucy Calkins' Reading Workshop unit, Following Characters into Meaning. I am using the book Because of Winn Dixie as the read aloud. I was impressed with the thoughts my students jotted after I read Chapter 4 from the book. In this chapter the main character, Opal, learns ten things about her mother who left her when she was young. The students were more insightful than I expected.

 

 

I'm thinking that Opal's mom is going to come home but have the same problem.

I'm noticing that Preacher does want his wife back but does not want the dog.

I'm realizing that Opal wants her mom back but not to fight.

 

I'm noticing that Preacher is very sad that Opal's mom is gone but at the same time he is happy because Opal's mom was not going to be a good role model.

 

I'm realizing that Opal misses her mom even if she doesn't remember her.

 

I'm thinking that Opal's mom was very bad because she left.

 I'm realizing that Opal loves the dog more than mom.

 

I'm thinking that Opal's mom would love to go back to see her daughter but Opal's mom is afraid.

 

I am thinking when Opal's mom left it had something to do with her drinking.

 

I'm thinking Opal's mom is filled with different personalities.

 

I think the Preacher is lieing about Opal's mom.

 

 

Well, when I came across this comment I knew I definitely needed to have a conference. Even though this jotting put a smile on my face, I had a feeling that this isn't what the student meant.

 

And...that is what she meant! So I had a nice conversation with her about the other things on the list that could show mom was smart. The student referenced the text and noted that if someone knows all of the constellations then that would mean they were probably smart. Such a better jotting!

 

This conference was delicate because alcoholism is difficult for children to understand. I talked with the student about the book so far and led her to the conclusion that this book is not about mom's drinking, but it is about Opal's relationship with people. So the student revised her jotting...

 

 

She told me she didn't think that someone could be drunk and run. She said the person would probably fall down. I suggested that it was odd that someone would do something healthy and unhealthy at the same time.