Storytelling and Critical Reading in Content Areas

[Day 5 Notes from Kathleen Tolan's Session]

Agenda:
Centers
Storytelling
Critical Reading


Summarizing:
You write the same amount of words about a small summary as you do about a summary of the whole book.
Summary: Just focus on boxes

Valley Forge a safe headquarters

•     high ground •     easy to defend •     woods to build huts for shelter

Storytelling: 

Take the box and bullets and create a little story/vignette around the box and bullets.

Tell the story of "Daniel" who lives in Valley Forge. Kids LOVE this!

Events make for the best storytelling.

• Take major events, and have kids get into storytelling circles to tell the events.
• At first, you want to start with just bare-bones of a story for the kids. (You don't want to intimidate kids about storytelling)
• Don't storytell only once! Retell over and over.

In storytelling, what would you want kids to hit, in a barebones-skeletal way, during storytelling.

It has to sound like story, not a summary!

Create a picture storyboard

As kids get to know the story better, they cut the pictures out, add other pictures/sketches.

Don't let is sound expository. It needs to sound like story.

Read another source to give a different perspective.

Ex: Read "Riding for Freedom" (the story of Sybil Ludington)

Now update the storyboard. Do you need to add anything?

Why is Sybil left out?

...and now we've lead kids into critical reading!

Who is left out? Why is that?

Critical Questions to Teach Children:

• Who created this image?
• Analyze the different  perspectives one can take from viewing this image?
• What perspective does this text offer on an issue or experience?
• Who was the image created for and how does it affect the viewer?
• What did the image creator want people to believe?
• Might the image have been exaggerated? If so, how? And why?
• Whose voice is heard?
• Whose voice is missing?
• Whose story is it? Who benefits from it being told this way?
• Who has power in the text? Why does he/she have it?
• What social norms do we see in the text?
• What values are upheld in this text?
• What values are challenged in this text?
• What experience does this text describe which we may be unfamiliar with?

Image created by Paul Revere to show people. He had an agenda with the creation of this image. This image outraged the people.

An image that shows a different perspective of the same event. (Probably more accurate)

...and now we've considered perspective and point of view!

Critical reading is easier to teach in history than in fiction.

[Center Activities]

Share out:

Share an occasion where a study carries information from one center to another.

Push your kids: What can you bring to your center that you can share with the other people at your center?

Assessment:

Little projects where kids create posters or projects

Museum: What big things have we learned during this unit?

Act out something they learned/storytell

Sign up for different ways kids want to show their learning

Collect and evaluate notebooks

Create a writing project (informational book)

Make a PowerPoint about a subtopic (i.e. Colonial Clothing)

Note Taking, Content Area Centers, and Mini Lectures

[Day 4 Notes from Kathleen Tolan's Session]

Day 4:
-Minilecture
-Center Time
-Critical Reading
-Notes using Structure of Text
-Read aloud to quick essays

*Inquiry Centers: We don't want to give kids everything. We want them to say, "We need..."

Real learning happens when we take what we have learned and then apply it.
When you really understand something, you can apply it.

Note Taking:
Until we teach them about taking notes, they shouldn't be taking notes.

*It's not just about taking the notes, it's about interacting with the notes.

Notes set up for Compare/Contrast

Types of notes: 

• Timeline (Forces kids to determine importance) [Could fit read aloud books, could include big ideas that you are growing]
• Sketching (What would you sketch to hold on to information)
• Sketch needs to move
• What will I put into the sketch that will hold information? -Powerful!
• Sketching across a section
• Sketching across what lead up to Boston Massacre
• Boxes and bullets
• HARD TOOL/OVERUSED: Venn Diagram (Would be better as a T chart)
• I wonder why... I think this is because...
• Specifics about what you notice/Bigger ideas or understandings

Text Structures can help you take more effective notes

What note taking strategy best represents our thinking about a topic?
Ask self, “What structure is my text written in?”	Ask self, “What note taking strategy will I use to best represent my thinking?”
Compare and Contrast	Venn Diagram, T-Chart
Cause and Effect	T-Chart, Cause/Effect T Chart
Time Order (Chronological)	Timeline
Clear Main Idea and Supporting details	Boxes and bullets
Pros/Cons	Pros/Cons T-Chart

Fun class game: Name that Text Structure

-Have 5 or 6 in a baggy

-As soon as they know what it is, they share

-Then they explain how they know

What are the clues that help you know?

Text structures are important. It's not enough to know whether a book is expository or narrative. Text structures can vary from page to page to page. Kids need to keep adjusting their reading.

Text Structure	Key Words
Compare and Contrast	on one hand/on the other hand
Cause and Effect	change, cause, effect, when
Time Order (Chronological)	before, after, dates
Clear Main Idea and Supporting details	one idea, another idea
Pros/Cons	on one hand/on the other hand

Content Area Centers:

Habit of mind: We are looking closely at something here, and really staying with it.

Decide, what are some big take-aways?

Then move on to next piece, but carry the angle in which you noticed something from the first piece. What's similar? What's different?

Ex: Cats

Look at 1 image. Break it into quadrants. What are you noticing about this cat?

Name out: When we go to a new image, what might we take from this image? (Markings, tail, ears)

Compare and contrast with partner:

Compare:

• ___ and ___ are alike because...
• ___ and ___ have some similarities...
• Both ___ and ___ experiences/problem/functions/features are the same...
• Both ___ and ___ have ___ which helps/protects...
• What can these similarities teach me?

Contrast:

• ___ and ___ are different because...
• ___ and ___ are different because one... But the other...
• Unlike ___ that have ___          ___ don't but ___
• This is different than...
• This is smaller than..
• This is bigger than...
• What can these differences teach me?

[Work with Center]

Come up with one or two bigger (tentative) ideas that your group is starting to grow.

Post ideas on front board and share out. Groups should listen and see if they could steal any of the big ideas.

*As kids are coming  up with big ideas, have them post it publicly in the room. Other kids can come up and look at ideas to grow their own thinking.

Mini Lecture

Feels like a combination of a mini lesson and a read aloud.

Has a focused lecture point. (Sounds a lot like a box for an essay) [Also called listening prompt]

Content Area Read Aloud

[Notes from Day 3 Session with Kathleen Tolan]

Boxes and Bullets need to be more than only paragraphs.
-Have to be able to do parts to whole, as well as just parts.

We have to make sure we are providing time for students to interact with content. Covering content isn't super engaging.

Have an overview book, then go to little excerpts.
-Example: Colonial Life (read aloud)
                 Kids are reading individually: Blacksmiths, Woodworkers, etc.

Have students come to the read aloud (The overview book) with their books so they can add more content in as you read (They become an expert that can add to others' learning) VERY ENGAGING!
-Gives students a forum to put what they have learned into place. SYNTHESIS

Might want to have some artifacts that go along with the read aloud (ex: a map)
-They might have a PARTNER folder for read aloud (Inside: Word bank)

• Example: Word bank of words that are essential to a unit on Colonial Life
• apprentice
• loyalist
• tories
• congress
• representation
• taxation

Content Area Read Aloud: Gorillas

Artifacts in the Partner Folder:

• Map of Africa (Shows something that might be in text, but also things that an author might assume you already know)
• Word Bank (words from read aloud, but also words from larger unit)
• Might have kids work on sorting words
• Creating synonyms
• Sort by positive and negative words
• Resources (kids might read it themselves before the read aloud)

Bringing Close Reading and Accountable Talk into an Interactive Read Aloud of Gorillas (3-5) from TC Reading and Writing Project on Vimeo.

What higher level comprehension skills do you notice?
-Turn and compare (gorillas and humans)
-Evaluating (Why do you think Hollywood portrays gorillas in this way?)
-Close reading of a map
-Citing evidence
-Adding on to thinking/pushing to deeper thinking
-Thinking across texts

You don't always have to say, "Tell me what you think because I'm going to monitor you." Sometimes you can just look around the carpet and use visual cues to know if the students are getting it. Sometimes you just know.

We want to make sure that children draw on more than just their opinion. Hold kids accountable.

Content Area Centers

[I worked on photo analysis center]

Halfway through stopped us: Find the 10 differences

What strategies did we use?
-big pictures
-sections
-comparing/contrasting
-categories
-prior knowledge
-foreground/background
-larger/smaller details

Now use these strategies with the materials at your center.


*Always make sure student work is going from the smaller work of the center, but bring it back to the larger work of the social studies unit!