Celebrating Kindness #weholdthesetruths

Hey, everybody.

Let's talk.

This country is a big place, full of lots of people. There are many different kinds of people, with lots of different backgrounds, beliefs, and goals. We don't always agree. 

Growing up in a time like this can be a challenge. Little people feed off the energy of big people. 

This is evidenced by conversations my students have on a daily basis. The fears of their parents become their fears. The anxiety of their teachers becomes their anxiety. The concerns of the world rest in their ten-year-old faces. 

It's a hard life. 

So I think it's time (and so do many other amazing Teacher-Authors) to pause and take inventory. All we really have is each other. That includes the little people. And we might be sending some mixed messages. 

But when you come right down to it, what's the most important message? Kindness.

If we can choose one thing for our kids to learn, it's kindness. Kindness towards themselves, kindness towards other Americans, kindness towards the rest of humanity, and kindness towards the Earth.

And that's why I've teamed up with so many amazing TPT Teacher-Authors to create some free resources for you to use in sharing the message of #kindnessnation and #weholdthesetruths with your students!

Here's my contribution: Sí, Se Puede: A Partner Play about Cesar Chavez.

What does Cesar Chavez have to do with kindness? He stood up for underprivileged Mexican Americans because he believed they deserved to be treated like people, too. Sometimes kindness takes courage, and Cesar had it. 

This Cesar Chavez partner play is a great way to introduce upper elementary students to Chavez's life and accomplishments, while developing comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency, too! And the best part: It's a FOREVER FREEBIE! That's right! All of the products mentioned in this post will be forever free!

 

But this freebie is only one of dozens! Visit Teachers Pay Teachers and search for #kindnessnation or #weholdthesetruths to view all of the incredible freebies about these important topics:

-Understanding our Branches of US Government and the US Constitution
-Democracy
-History of civil rights movements, including suffrage
-Environmental issues including climate change
-Critical thinking and examining media bias
-Kindness, empathy, compassion
-Anti-bullying
-Equality and inclusion for all people
-Understanding and respecting of cultural differences

I've selected a few of my favorites for upper elementary to share with you here.

    Empathy Interactive Notebook Kit by Adventures at Home  

I am really impressed by this product. It's beautifully designed and thoughtful. Students think about empathy and how they can demonstrate it to others - what a powerful message!

 

 

Dr. King's Positive Peace. What Does it Mean to be an Ally for Justice? by Angela Watson

This 32-slide presentation guides students through the ideas of positive peace and negative peace, and includes some excellent discussion starters to get them thinking. 

           

American Dream Posters by Two Boys and a Dad Productions

These eye-catching posters include important themes and great Americans. The quotes are inspiring and serve as great discussion starters, too!

       

Keep being kind, America!

Want to find even more awesome freebies? Check out the link-up below!

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An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

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Structures and elements of dramas and plays *Freebie!

Do you spend much time on drama? Like, after PE or lunch?

Hahahaha I am cracking myself up.

Well, obviously, that's not the kind I'm talking about. For the past two weeks, I've been working in some fourth grade classrooms.

Our current unit in reading is drama: plays. We've been working on the structures unique to dramatic literature (cast of characters, stage directions, scenes, etc.), and making inferences to describe the characters in dramas. 

And it's been so much fun!

We started out by introducing the various structures of drama and just finding examples in a dramatic text.

We used Storyworks by Scholastic. There aren't a ton of stage directions at the beginning of each scene, but they're engaging plays for kids. 

These are the structures we introduced. For each one, we had students practice a gesture to help them remember the meaning. For example, the gesture for "dialogue" is to place your open hand on your mouth and move it away from your mouth to show the lines the characters say. These gestures helped students recall the meaning of the structures.

The second day, we started out by identifying the genre (again). It's so important for kids to practice identifying the genre of a text and think about how that will impact their reading - the strongest readers change the way they read a text based on the genre. That's why teaching reading by genre is so important!

We used our genre cards on rings to identify the genre and then I gave each student about ten tiny post-its. They had five minutes to hunt through the genre and identify the structures we introduced the day before.

After the kids hunted through their dramas and labeled the structures they could find, I handed out this table. You can download it for free from Google Docs. It includes the main structures of drama and the definition. As we read, we tried to explain how that dramatic structure helped us as a reader and filled in the third column.

The next few days, we worked on describing characters in drama using their words (dialogue), actions (stage directions) and what other characters said about them (others' dialogue). To do this, we used one of the sheets from my Scaffolded Reading Responses for Drama and Plays.

Students collected details about the main character in the play, named Felipe. They noticed his dialogue (he often told lies), the stage directions (he whined, stomped his feet, and crossed his fingers behind his back when he made a promise), and what other characters said about him (his servants didn't have a very good opinion of him).

Then students used the sentence starters in the middle of the page to write a response using their evidence. Students were able to write about the character using specific details from the text and make accurate inferences. It was a good start in helping students understand dramas and plays!

For more ideas about teaching dramas and plays, check out my Teaching Drama pinterest board here.

 

Grab my Scaffolded Reading Responses for Drama and Plays on TPT!

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How to Teach Reading by Genre

A few years ago (maybe five or six) our state standards changed for reading, pretty dramatically. I know all of you who have been through the Common Core Craze can understand that.

I, however, am from Texas, where we do what we want *snap snap*, and Texas moved to genre-based standards several years back.

At that time, my reading program was based on the Reader's Workshop model, with adjustments to suit me, and my shared reading three days a week was fiction. The other two days was informational text.

This was great for me (I love fiction, and I tied my informational articles to science, so double whammy), but it didn't exactly address my new genre-based standards, which included literary genres: fiction, poetry, drama, literary nonfiction (biography), and informational genres: expository, persuasive, and procedural. I had some work to do to teach reading by genre.

One of the first things I did was take a look at my standards and figure out which standard was expected to be taught (and honestly, tested) in which genres. I used the document below to figure out where I had to teach different standards, like cause-and-effect, predicting, making inferences, and sequencing.

Then I chose some titles for each genre that I wanted to focus on as mentor texts for really understanding how that genre worked and how good readers approach that genre. My kids and I worked through a variety of texts, noticing the features of each genre and recording them, and other important characteristics (like author's purpose, which is actually the essential reason genres are different), and charting them on some giant charts.

To help kids make the distinction, I divided them up onto literary and informational matrices.

During the study of each genre, we examined several texts and isolated the essential elements and strategies to use to best comprehend that genre.

Poetry
Poetry was a struggle for many students. They didn't really know how to start! To give them a handle on the main elements of poetry, we used an acronym that my colleague and I created: POETS. The chart below shows what students would look for in a poem. They marked evidence in different colors for each element, trying to put them together to make meaning out of the poem.

This chart shows how we read for the elements, whole-class, and mark our evidence.

I love reader's notebooks. For each genre, we responded using different strategies. The strategy shown from my model notebook below was great for poetry. I honestly can't remember the name, but this is how it works:

1. Read a poem aloud to students - each student has a copy to mark up as you read.
2. Read again, slowly, instructing students to find a spot to respond to. Students underline the line and put a star at the end of the line. They quickwrite in response to the poem.
3. Read the poem again, very slowly. As you get to the place where students responded, they jump in and read the response they wrote.

The first time we did this, my kids were a little uncomfortable and nervous. But you know, learning happens when we don't quite know what's going to happen! I did it again, with a poem called "Shelling Pecans," and they seemed to have a better experience, because they expected to share. It was a very interesting strategy that I would use again! 

Other posts on teaching poetry

Fiction
When I introduced fiction, I made sure to introduce a variety of genres - I really spent some time here, choosing texts from each genre to make sure that students had a good understanding of the varieties of fiction they might enjoy reading. We read historical fiction (Nettie's Trip South), and science fiction (Sector 7). We read myths and folktales! And at the end of the unit, one of the kids' most interesting responses (I always ask for their input) was "I never knew there were different kinds of fiction."

How rewarding is that?

An important part of a strong reader's workshop program is independent reading. While it's important for students to enjoy reading (really the most important thing), you have to find different ways of ensuring that students are applying their strategic thinking in their independent reading. One fun way is the question ring below.

I hole-punch the cards in the corner and put them on a binder ring. I hang them in the classroom library, and students can choose a question to respond to in their independent reading. There's a ring for each genre. We practice using the rings to respond to our reading during our whole-group lessons, and then, as we practice with each genre, I add the rings to the library.

Other posts on teaching fiction

Drama

Drama is a very unique genre as well. As we read dramas, we add to our chart of drama features. It's important to do more than simply name the features. We need to help students understand the purpose of that feature, so they know how to use it. For example, students very readily point to words in brackets and pronounce, "stage directions!" But do they use those stage directions to understand how a character is feeling or acting? If not, then we have to teach them how to do that!

Other posts on drama

Expository
Expository text is very focused on pulling out important information. We practice my favorite summary strategy: providing each team with a sentence strip. They write the main idea of their paragraph and then we put them all together to build a super summary! You can read more about that here.

I also added my Expository question ring to the classroom library!

Other posts about teaching Expository text

Persuasive
Persuasive text is a very specific type of informational text. It's informational, but it's tinged with someone's bias and persuasive techniques. I used this persuasive cube in partners to help students think through a persuasive text and identify the persuasive techniques and arguments used by the author.

As I introduce new genres, it's important for students to learn how to navigate between genres. I use these three questions to help students think about what genre they are reading. It's so important for students to naturally think about texts differently to determine what's important about each genre. Students who are fuzzy on this read each genre the same, usually like fiction, and studies show they are the least able to navigate those genres. So we spend a lot of time on it!

The chart below helps kids remember to think differently on three major genres:

Genre bookmarks are a great way to help kids be independent in their identification and thought about genre during independent reading. If you provide them with each bookmark as you learn about each new genre, they can pull their set of bookmarks out during independent reading.

I copied them onto colored cardstock and provide them to students, one at a time. Students "grow" their set, and when they choose an independent reading book, they identify the genre, pull out the bookmark, and think about the questions or items under the "Look for" part of the bookmark.

And then there's testing.

Dun-dun-DUNNNN!

I know, I hate it, too. But if we teach our children to be real readers and real writers, we can more easily teach them to navigate the test structures and be successful. When we focus only on testing, we neglect the real thought and rigor of the world of reading and writing. Instead, focus on real reading and writing, and then bridge it to the test. This is how I bridge genre instruction:

We reviewed each genre with a mini-selection. Each student had a copy and they practiced using the three questions to decide on their strategy for approaching the text (ex: Do I look for characters? conflicts? main ideas? arguments? stage directions?). We marked the essential elements, and decided on the author's purpose. Then we brainstormed the kinds of questions we expected to see on the test and recorded them on our chart.

We repeated this for the most frequently tested genres.

And we built our test-genre wall!

 We developed a strategy chant to remember what's important about each genre! It goes to the tune of a cadence, like "Sound off- 1-2". The first four stanzas are the verses, and the last stanza is the sound-off.

I cut up a million questions from the released tests, and students sorted them into different genres, based on the evidence they could find in the question and answer choices. It's incredible how much they could infer, just from the questions and answers!

These activities are part of my 200-page Teaching Reading by Genre materials on TPT. It's full of teacher planning tools and printables, lesson ideas, anchor charts, and strategies for each genre!

And my Genre Study Book is a great way to provide students some reader's notebook pages or a folder book for reference, as you undertake your genre study!

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Four reasons to use reader's theater scrips in the classroom *Freebie!

I LOOOOOOOVE Reader's Theater scripts. They were a staple in my classroom, and I always found a way to integrate them into at least a few units throughout the year.

  1. Building fluency and expression   This one's obvious. Repeated readings build fluency because our decoding becomes more automatic and we can think about expression, intonation, and phrasing!  

  2. Integrating content I want students to learn and recall   I love to use Reader's Theaters to build up content in math, science, or social studies! I do this by writing my own scripts that include the information that students need to learn in a story format.  One easy way to develop your own reader's theater scripts is to adapt books. I have adapted several Magic Schoolbus books into scripts by assigning roles to each character, adding in a narrator for the backstory, or assigning the backstory to a character. It's easy to do and really helps make the content engaging and suitable for rereading!   Inspired by my students, I wrote these math Reader's Theaters: Goldilocks and the Three Angles, and Parallela and Her Wicked Stepsisters. We had a blast with them, reviewing lines and angles in a fun story!

3. Engaging students in enjoyable reading

This one's kind of DUH! We want reading to be enjoyable and reader's theater is a great way to do that! Look at how engaged these readers are!

4. Encouraging students to create and perform using their own unique skills   The first three reasons are pretty academic, but the fourth, bringing out what students have inside, is probably the most important. This story shows one of the many reasons why I love Reader's Theater scripts:   One year, I had a student who struggled to control his behavior. Let's be honest - it wasn't just one year. But that's the one I'm writing about today! He had anger issues and had seen a lot of violence in his home. He had a severe stutter, especially when he was agitated, and it was very hard to reach him. He had his positive moments, but on average, it was a struggle. Let's call him Philip.   That year, I had my students practice a Reader's Theater script I wrote for the book The Giving Tree. I love Reader's Theater scripts and frequently wrote them and used them in my classroom. I divided up the parts by difficulty and then "randomly" distributed them - it was still pretty much random, except for a handful of more simple parts that I reserved for my kids who needed something more simple to read.   Well, you may guess where this is going. When I handed out the parts, I - completely honestly randomly- handed Philip the part of the tree. Oh, my Lord. The tree. The one who keeps giving. The one who says, "Here, boy, come and play on my branches." The one who loooooves the boy so much.  

  So I wasn't so sure if this was a good idea. For one, he didn't seem that excited about it. I pretended like I didn't see what was wrong with it, and I said, "You're going to do a great job! Just practice, and think about what voice the tree would use!"

He did. He practiced, and practiced, and he learned those lines. And on the day we performed, after the narrators had introduced the plot, Philip opened his mouth, and in a high, loving, woman's voice, said, "Come, Boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my shade and be happy."
No one dared laugh. The other kids looked at me, wide-eyed and wondering. We all kind of sat there, stunned, for a second, until the next reader realized is was his part to read. It was incredible. I almost cried (and I almost laughed). This script brought something out in Philip that I would never have seen otherwise. He continued the voice throughout the whole play.
So that's why I love reader's theater scripts.

  This Thanksgiving, I decided to create some Reader's Theater scripts for two readers. They're suitable for partner time, such as Buddy Reading or Read to Someone. They're written specifically in two parts!   One of my good friends took the scripts and laminated them. They're each two pages long, so she used a large piece of construction paper and put the pages side by side. Each student receives a copy.   

Then she put the scripts in her Read to Someone station. Are these readers adorable or what? 

Want to see a play in action? Check out my poor, abused hunnybun in our Easter Partner Plays video!



 You can grab my Winter Partner Plays at TPT

Thanksgiving Partner Plays at TPT.

Christmas Partner Plays at TPT, too! I got a little excited - love the holidays!

  And Easter Partner Plays!  

     You can get all the holiday partner plays in one bundle for a great price!  

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Earth Day: The Great Kapok Tree

So one fun part of my job is that I sometimes get to pull out kids to do fun stuff instead of test practice. This is what happened last week and the week before. I worked with a group of third graders and a group of fourth graders who had been successful in their test-taking, and we didn't want to waste their time with more of it before the test. So we learned about Earth Day!

I mentioned previously, in my Five for Friday post, that I had started working with this group of kids, and I shared a couple charts we made. That's what we did first, before we read The Great Kapok Tree. We also read this freebie article about Earth Day from Rachel Parlett. You can grab it free at TPT and we charted out some basic points about Earth Day.

Using the structure I posted in my Five for Friday, post, the students wrote brief paragraphs about Earth Day and published them on some cute writing paper.

The next day, we read The Great Kapok Tree. 

My purpose for reading this book was to, of course, introduce students to reasons for conserving our rainforests, but also, to have them take the fictional story and rewrite it as a drama. I wanted them to think about what would be the role of the narrator, which character voices they would need, and what would be included in stage directions.

We started off together, charting the introduction to the drama. After a conversation about how we should differentiate between the narrator and stage directions (the kids decided that they wanted the narrator to tell the actions, and the stage directions to describe. This was with some guidance, of course!), this is what we came up with:

Then, I divided the students up and gave each one a chunk of text that introduced a different animal. I had a small group of students, and there were many animals, so only two students had to buddy up. They wrote their chunk of the story as a drama and published it, using their animal's fur or markings to illustrate the border.

After that, each student got a paper plate and enough construction paper to fill their every heart's desire.

 And this is what they made:

Sloth

Yanamamo Boy

Snake

Jaguar (looks pretty tiger-y to me)

Monkey

Porcupine - just noticed she made mistakes in her drama. Poop. Gotta go back and have her redo that one!

Anteater

Toucan (kind of)

Bee.... with a ghostly reflection of myself in the background. 

How funny that, in all the pictures, the only one I came out in is the Bee!

There's also a frog, but he's not done yet.

Stay tuned for my upcoming hallway display debut: It took me two weeks, but it is almost done!

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