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.

Welcome to Opal's Party

Did I teach like a pirate? No, I taught like a superhero for this lesson! A pirate superhero--argh! My lesson was on pirate overload!

I used the Chef Hook. I also changed the lighting and added ambiance in the classroom using music. I recreated a scene from the book.  When my students entered the classroom this past Friday morning, they felt like they had entered the book Because of Winn Dixie.

 

I set up the party that Opal had in Gloria Dump's backyard. I had the pictures of dogs that Sweetie Pie brought for decorations. I had Miss Franny Block's Littmus lonzenges (butterscotch candies). I made Gloria's Dump Punch (using the ingredients listed in the book). I even brought Otis' big jar of pickles. I used lights for candles inside of brown bags, just like they did in the book. 

 

On the Smart Board I played the soundtrack from the movie. The students were amazed and their comments were priceless.  One girl wanted to go get her sister from another classroom so she could see it. A parent asked what was happening today and a student told her all about the party from the book--perfect retell.

 

Being able to actually participate in Opal's Party was a wonderful experience for my students. One student said, "this looks exactly like the mental movie in my head!" Another boy was drinking his Dump Punch and he told me it tasted just like the punch in the book!  A boy was sucking on his Littmus lozenge and he said he could really taste the sorrow. What better way to show children the purpose of a skill or strategy than for them to experience it? 

 

During the party, students took turns making jottings on the Smart Board. They shared their thoughts about the book using empathy, envisioning, predicting, and character traits.

Mental Movies

Our current unit, Following Characters into Meaning, focuses on four main skills: envisioning, empathy, making predictions, describing character traits. Using the book Because of Winn Dixie as a read aloud, I have taught my students that envisioning is like making a mental movie in their heads. To bring this point to the front of their minds, I created a movie poster using scenes from the movie Because of Winn Dixie.

 

I had an old book that I found somewhere (probably a freebie from Scholastic) that was a scrapbook of the movie. I cut out photos from the book and placed them on the movie screen after we read that particular portion of the book.

 

The students love looking at the display each morning to see what new photos have been added. Many times they comment to each other that this is not what they had envisioned during the book!

 

In the book, Teach Like a Pirate, there is a strategy called the Board Message Hook. This isn't a message on the front board, but I think it meets the same criteria. Originally I thought it was more of a Props Hook, but I've changed my mind! This display hooked my students and encouraged them to discuss the book outside of Reading Workshop. I say that is success!

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.

How Can You Assess Jottings?

My school district uses a percentage value to determine grades.  My literacy teammate and I had to spend some time at the end of the Lucy Calkins Unit 2: Following Characters Into Meaning deciding how we would assess our students.  In the past we would give a common assessment comprised of a few passages with some comprehension questions at the end. They would receive a grade based on how many questions they got right. But within a balanced literacy framework our assessments would need to change. We had to ask, "how do we assess the students at their own levels using jottings we have been using throughout this unit?"

This is what we came up with as our Jottings Assessment:

We chose fiction passages that had strong characters.  We chose a 1st grade passage, 2nd grade passage, 3rd grade passage, and 4th grade passage to reflect our students' reading levels. The passages are from HaveFunTeaching.com (next time though we plan to use the leveled passages from The Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project which we learned about after the assessment). Reading A to Z is also another good site to get leveled passages.

On the back of each passage was a sticky note labeled with the four strategies and skills the students had been using in their jottings during their fiction reading--envision, empathy, predicting, character traits. Each student read two passages and responded by writing their jottings on the sticky note templates.

 

Even my 3rd grade student who is at a Guided Reading Level A was able to be assessed. He dictated his responses to a scribe. My nonverbal student with cerebral palsey listened to her passage and pointed to picture responses that were recorded.

We created a rubric using Rubistar to score the students' jottings with a point value giving us our required percentage grade. Click here to download the rubric. We saved the entire assessment into student folders so that we could use them as talking points during parent conferences. The students really enjoyed the assessment. Afterwards they said it didn't seem like a test because they were just reading and jotting like always!

Fancy Sticky Notes

I am so excited to use these new sticky notes this week!  I found them at Family Dollar...only $1 for a pack of 3, so I stocked up! I think they will fit perfectly with our character jottings. The heart ones can be used for empathy jottings.  The t-shirt sticky notes can be used to record character traits or envisioning.  The arrows can be used for making predictions and they can point towards the details in the text that support the predictions. 

The jottings parking lot after Block I...the new stickies were a hit!

nice use of empathy

didn't use the heart for empathy, but great character description

she included the empathy label

more empathy...I think the fancy sticky notes are a winner

she'll need a little discussion on irregular verbs

this student is physically disabled with no verbal communication, but she still makes jottings with her aide writing as she points to facial expression pictures that demonstrate character traits

envisioning and character traits

character traits and empathy

empathy and envisioning

I found these sticky notes at Dollar Tree.  I am going to introduce them during our nonfiction study.

 

My lowest reader (level A) uses the skinny, pointed sticky note tabs to mark his pages when he wants to talk about that part in book clubs.

 

My students started using their sticky notes during Writing Workshop as well. This student revised the first sentence of a writing piece by writing a new beginning on her sticky note.

STEM and Literacy Connection

I have been using the book Because of Winn Dixie for my Reading Workshop minilessons in the Lucy Calkins Unit 2: Following Characters Into Meaning.  My students have been using evisioning, empathy, predictions, and character traits to better understand and comprehend their books.

AND

 



My school is a STEM focus school so I try to integrate my students' literacy learning into our STEM activities.  For those of you not familiar with the acronym, STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics.

AND

 

Each Friday my students use engineering materials to build.  They can work in groups or individually. They use K'Nex, linker cubes, Unifix cubes, dominoes, attribute blocks, and anything else we happen to get out!

SO

 



Last Friday we discussed all of the places Opal and Winn Dixie have been to in their town of Naomi.  The students used their engineering materials and designed some of the buildings that these characters have been to so far.  They envisioned the town and landmarks.  Some students made the Pick It Quick where the preacher had his church services.  Some children created Miss Franny's library. One made Opal's trailer and another made the Winn Dixie grocery store. See if you can look closely enough and see how some of the students even created the characters!