Note-Taking, Close Reading, and Partner Work in the Content Area

[Day 2 Notes from Kathleen Tolan's Session]

Full fledged mini lessons for kids to go off and read from their bins of materials. (Bins organized by reading level, or bins can have a range of levels, and students might look for a color)

Day 2 Agenda:
-Partner work
-Write around
-Read aloud as a method of teaching in content area
-Vocabulary development
-More on note-taking
-Center work

In order to build content, students have to read widely in content area.
If you are in a building content mode, you read a lot.
Point of view is very important when we choose the books we buy. (Spend your money wisely)


Sometimes when we are reading content, we need to do a lot more work figuring out what the book
The Liberty Tree

Why is this section titled this?
Boxes and bullets

Three types of boxes and bullets
1. Factoid
     ex: In 1770, a crow of angry American colonists surrounded the house of a man named Ebenezer.
2. Box and bullets from last paragraph
     ex: American boy shot
             -His name was Christopher Snider
             -Mr. Richardson shot him with a musket
             -The British were blamed for his death
3. Box and bullet that covers across
     ex: British sent soldiers to scare American colonists to follow their laws
             -British soldiers armed with guns

Take the information, then revise: What larger category does this information fit into? Geography? Politics? Religion? etc. Does it fall into more than one category? What line from the text supports your decision?

Teach them through their own "today life." Economics = Money!
-Start introducing lenses 2 or 3 at a time

Video of struggling 5th graders:

An Inquiry Group of Students Synthesize their Findings on the Clothing Worn by Pilgrims and Cavaliers (3-5) from TC Reading and Writing Project on Vimeo.

The larger categories the boys discussed:
-Economics
-Gender
-Religion

The cited text evidence in their conversation.
*Sometimes we get too caught on conversational moves.

Thinking through these lenses will transfer nicely into fiction: Big ideas, Themes, Theories

Sample 3rd grader's binder tabs:
-Geography and Climate
-Life in China
-Jobs and Economy
-History
-Culture, Language, and Art
*Students added notes throughout the year into the binder, placing it into the correct category


Use reading partners in the content areas
-make plans
-set goals (How much will they read?)
-talk together to make main ideas and grow ideas
-ask questions and each one carry the other's questions as they read
-reread a part and do a close reading of it
-study graphs together/analyze diagrams and charts together
-practice taking notes together
-swap notebooks with each other steal each other's notes
-revise notes (So often kids take notes and we don't show them how to revise. Sometimes notes are inaccurate!)

Partner video:
What work are they doing together that we would want to bring into the content area?
[Showed Video from Units of Study DVD: U3-11 "Thinking About Camouflage in Wolves and Toads"]

-Using vocabulary accurately
-Clarifying information for each other
-Keeps teaching until he gets a response from his partner
-Asks a question, then is silent and waits for partner to talk


Centers
Centers tap into many skills
Some centers are skill centers!
High level work!! Sophisticated work!
Everything fits into a little folder and Ziploc bag