Reading: Micro and Macro

One of my favorite parts about reading is the way that readers constantly go back and forth between the micro and the macro. At the micro level, readers think about words and ideas; at the macro level, readers think about the overall structure of the text and the main ideas.

In the past few weeks we have been working on the micro level idea of using different transitions to connect sentences. This is so hard for fourth graders! Over five weeks, however, I have seen progress. Students are using "but" and "so" confidently, and are experimenting with more sophisticated transitions like "although" and "despite". Their experiments are not always successful, but they are becoming more aware of these words and the ideas they convey.

Combining sentences with the words although and despite from Emily Kissner

At the macro level, we have been looking at text structure. We started with chronological order, and now we have moved on to cause and effect. But even when looking at the big idea in a text we still have to consider the smaller ideas in the individual sentences, and notice how some individual sentences carry big ideas. With this cause and effect text, students used specialized annotations to look for the sentences that show cause and effect relationships. These annotations brought up some bigger questions about the structure of cause and effect--why is it often in chronological order? How can we tell that something truly causes an event?

This ability to talk about the micro and macro confidently emerges late in the fourth grade year. And so while I enjoy our new conversations and rich discussions, I do feel a twinge of sadness that I will soon be sending these readers on. Tweet

Understanding Text Structure

Back in 2008, as I was doing presentations about summarizing, I was surprised that teachers wanted more about text structures--more examples, more resources, more teaching tools.

I created a PowerPoint to share some short paragraphs. This PowerPoint has been around for what seems like an eternity online, with 85,000 downloads on TpT and just about as many views on Slideshare. (I did take it down from Slideshare over the summer when I found it reposted all over the place, so it's starting fresh with the views.)

When I looked through it again a few months ago I thought...well, it was definitely due for an update. So I have refreshed it with new photos and some new paragraphs while still keeping many of the examples and review slides. Here it is:

Understanding text structures from Emily Kissner

You'll notice that I finally gave in with the text structure of "Description". Originally, I had called this "Statement and Support" or "Main Idea". However, the term description has come into more frequent use, and I decided to go with it. (I guess I really gave in to this two summers ago when I created the sets of Description texts.)

I put this back on Slideshare because I think it would be a great resource for a flipped classroom, or to embed on a classroom website. Do let me know if you are planning to use it in an interesting or exciting way!

News
-November homework will be coming soon!
-I used the story "Pumpkin Seeds" from the October Reading Homework this week. We had a great time acting out the story and finding the theme.
-I've updated the author links on my classroom blog ...kids said they had the best reading class ever when they visited the Jack Stalwart site, the Babymouse site, and the Skeleton Creek site! You'll find the author links over on the right side, under the popular posts. Tweet

Causes, Effects, and Chronology

This week, we have been working on cause and effect text structure. Cause and effect is deceptively difficult for young readers. On the surface, it seems simple--cause and effect text structure just shows causes and effects. Easy, right?

In text, however, causes and effects are often more difficult. Cause and effect text structure often has a strong chronological aspect. Causes always come before effects. However, many authors of cause and effect texts state the effects first.

Why do writers do this? In many cases, the effect is more interesting than the cause. Authors start with the cause to get the readers' attention. In other texts, the causes are somewhat mysterious or counterintuitive. The author puts the effect first in order to build some suspense and show how the causes were discovered.

Texts that are organized like this present a problem for the standard cause and effect graphic organizer. Where to put the cause? Where to put the effect? Should an organizer reflect the way that the text is organized? Or should it reflect the way that the causes and effects happen in real life? I lean toward representing ideas as they actually happened instead of how they appear in the text, and this is what I've done with my fourth graders this week. (I generally try not to mess with the rules of causality.) A clever reader could probably play around with an interesting way of representing these ideas in a way that shows both the order in the text and the order in real life.

Tips for teaching cause and effect text structure

Look for causes and effects in real life: There are many opportunities throughout the school day to reinforce cause and effect. When the announcement came on Thursday morning regarding indoor recess for the millionth day, I said, "The cause is cold weather. What is the effect?" and the students groaned, "Indoor recess." Sometimes you can create chains of causes and effects.

Have students think forward about possible effects: People are notoriously bad with this forward thinking. However, considering possible effects of events is an important life skill. Trying this with normal, everyday events helps students to think about effects. "What if tomorrow were 60 degrees? What would be an effect of that?" Students: "We would be happy! We could play outside! We could have recess!" (You may notice a theme of cold weather here...it has been an unusually cold March. Sunshine and a high of 25 degrees on the second day of spring is no fun.)

Look for causes and effects in read aloud: With my struggling readers, I read aloud Face to Face with Lions this week. There are examples of causes and effects on just about every page. We made charts of these causes and effects. We also watched this video about chinstrap penguins, which has some interesting causes and effects. (Cause: Penguins eat krill. Effect: They have pink droppings.)

If you are looking for cause and effect texts, you may want to look at these resources:
Text Structure Pinterest board
Cause and Effect Texts
Introduction to Text Structure

Notes from this week
-The revised Figurative Language pack is available. Lots of standardized test practice if that is on your mind right now!
-Links to videos are on my Reading Videos Pinterest board, along with indications for which texts or activities they go accompany.
-I'm working on materials for comparing texts...write to me at elkissn@yahoo.com if you'd like to field test some comparison charts and texts!

Teaching Text Structure: Spider Magazine

I'm always looking around for good examples of text structure to share with my students. (And, of course, when I can't find what I want, I write my own.)

As I was browsing at a new bookstore this week, I picked up the latest issue of Spider Magazine. (My youngest son, who used to subscribe, requested Ranger Rick for Christmas this year instead--oh, well!) I went ahead and bought the issue because it includes a short article about polar bears, "The Dark Past of the Polar Bear." I was excited to find several great features in the article:

Action lead: The first four paragraphs of the article introduce the reader to the polar bear by showing the polar bear in action, catching a beluga whale.

The sun rises above the Arctic Ocean, spreading a fiery glow over the pale ice. Across the frozen sea, a white bear lumbers.

Compare and contrast: Four paragraphs in the article compare the polar bear to the brown bear. Words like difference, better suited, and but help to make the differences easy to understand, while also serving as good examples of text structure cue words in real life text.

Cause and effect: Many real-life articles combine text structures. In this article, there are several examples of causes and effects both at the sentence level and the paragraph level. Several sentences in the compare and contrast section show why certain adaptations help the polar bear. At the end of the article, a cause and effect paragraph shows why changes in climate affect the polar bear.

As I'm just about to start teaching about animal adaptations in science and text structure in reading, I'm looking forward to sharing this text with students.

Text Structures: Compare/Contrast and Cause/Effect

This week, I've found two online texts to complement what I'm teaching in the classroom.

Compare and contrast: We are currently reading about Antarctica as we explore nonfiction texts. I have the MV FRAM Expedition Blog in my Google Reader, and I share it with students. It is well-written and interesting, and the kids are enjoying tracking the progress of each trip to Antarctica.

This post is a nice compare and contrast piece. The picture tells the story, and the text uses parallel structure and longer sentences to explain how the two days were so different. I like having quick little texts to show students as we transition from guided reading to core instruction, or to share during bus time and all of those extra minutes through the day.

Cause and Effect: We've been studying ecosystems in science. Last week, we studied how ecosystems change by reading A Place for Butterflies by Melissa Stewart. Then, we played the Project WILD game "Oh Deer!" to look at how a population can change.

Apparently, 2011 was a bad year for acorns. A lack of acorns will lead to changes in the populations of mice, squirrels, and deer, but may have other effects up the food chain.  I happened to come across this article a few weeks ago, and it turned out to be perfect for a discussion of cause and effect. It's a little difficult for my students, so I projected the printable view and summarized it. We made a chart to show the causes and effects

This is a nice counterpoint to the zoo mystery article from a few months ago. In that article, we had known effects, but questionable causes; in this one, we have a known cause, but anticipated effects.

I made a little debriefing sheet to talk about it with my students. Here it is on Slideshare.

Oh deer debriefing

View more documents from Emily Kissner

Cause and Effect Text Structure: Zoo Animal Mystery

A collection of cause and effect texts for your classroom: Cause and Effect Texts for Teaching Text Structure

The behavior of animals at the National Zoo before this week's earthquake has puzzled many scientists. Here is a link to the Washington Post article about the phenomenon:

Zoo Mystery: How did apes and birds know quake was coming?

This article uses a cause and effect text structure pattern, but with several twists. First, the effect is presented before the causes. From a writer's point of view, this makes sense. After all, the effect is the interesting part that will intrigue readers into wanting to read the rest of the article. Chronologically speaking, of course the causes happened first. But writers can play around with time to show ideas in the way that makes the most sense for readers.

Another twist on the usual cause and effect pattern is that this text shows possible causes. The writer uses many words that show the lack of a definite answer--speculation, mystery, lore, suggested, unresolved.  When teaching cause and effect text, it's important to show students how authors signal the degree of certainty with causes and effects. With persuasive texts, unscrupulous authors often avoid these uncertainty words to make their cause and effect relationships more convincing.

How would these ideas be presented with a graphic organizer? Even though the text plays around with chronological order, I'd show the causes and effects as they happened. Here's my attempt:

For students, I'll encourage them to use a question mark, as well as the headings "possible cause" to show that we just aren't sure if these causes lead to this effect. If students are drawing graphic organizers, wavy lines or different colors could also be used to show uncertainty.

It's often interesting to see how different writers present the same ideas. Here are some other articles about the same incident. How are they similar? How are they different?

National Zoo official press release (Notice how this states only the effects, with no mention of possible causes. Why do you think they did this?)

Live Q and A with zoo keeper (Great for comparing firsthand and secondhand accounts!)

Live Science article (This one includes only a very short paragraph to guess at causes. Based on the National Zoo info, would students agree that the animals "went berserk"? Why might the author have chosen this heading?)

National Geographic article about 2004 tsunami (This article discusses similar incidents before the 2004 tsunami, and discusses a possible "sixth sense" that animals have. How is this description similar to the Washington Post article? How is it different? How has scientific thinking changed?)

Other cause and effect posts:
Cause and effect graphic organizer
Teaching about causes and effects

Causes and Effects

This week, I switched our focus from looking at chronological order text to looking at cause and effect text. Students often confuse these two text structures, and with good reason. After all, cause and effect text usually uses elements of chronological order. Causes come before effects!

As I was thinking about how to introduce causes and effects, I remembered the frog Powerpoint that I made two summers ago. I made a quick little "cause/effect" table for students to fill out as we looked at the different pictures. Because we had just learned about physical adaptations, the frog slides helped students to see a content area connection. In addition, they learned that "result" is a synonym for "effect".

Cause and Effect Text Structure: Causes and Effects with Frogs

View more presentations from Emily Kissner.

After we looked at the frogs, students generated their own causes and effects. Some of them were definitely inventive! We used the "give one/get one" activity to share our causes and effects. Students walked around the room and shared their causes and effects with one another. Then, once we got back together, they nominated their favorite causes and effects to be shared on a group poster.

Of course, learning causes and effects is lots of fun. But we do have to apply this knowledge to text. Our next step will be to look at a short text about the Boston molasses disaster, and use the idea of cause and effect to represent the information with a graphic organizer. (If you are looking for cause and effect text, natural disasters are often a good bet!)

Cause and Effect Text Structure

In the text structure of cause and effect, an author explains one or more causes, and then explains one or more effects. Young readers can have many different problems with this structure. (Classroom-ready texts for teaching cause and effect: Cause and Effect Texts for Teaching Text Structure)

The underlying thinking: Kids have many problems with understanding causality. If students are having trouble finding causes and effects in real life, they will also have trouble with causes and effects in text.

Multiple causes, multiple effects: Depending on the topic, there can be multiple causes and multiple effects. Readers need to be flexible in their thinking as they read.

Tricky graphic organizers: If you are teaching students to map out ideas on a graphic organizer, cause and effect may lead to some problems. You may need to customize a graphic organizer for a text, matching the number of boxes to the number of causes and effects. Or you may want to have students draw their own depending on the text. If you use a generic organizer, be ready to tell students, "You don't have to fill in all the boxes" or "You may need to add some boxes"--over and over and over again.

Changing order: In real life, causes come before effects. But authors sometimes start a paragraph with an effect. For example, in Extreme Animals, author Nicola Davies often describes the inhospitable environment that an animal can live in--the effect--and then explains the adaptations that the animal has to live there--the causes. The cause is that the animal has many adaptations; the effect is that the animal can survive.

Picture Book for Teaching Cause and Effect
Aliens from Earth: When Animals and Plants Invade Other Ecosystems

Here is a great little book that uses a clear cause and effect text structure. On each spread, the author describes an invasive species, explains how it arrived in the new habitat, and outlines the effects of the invader. Working in groups or at a center, students could map out the causes and effects on each spread.

Text Structure: Cause and Effect

Back when I went to school, I remember filling out worksheet after worksheet on cause and effect. Yet we never linked those worksheets to actual texts. Finding causes and effects was something that we did during our quiet work time--certainly never something that we tried to do as we were reading. (Or, in my case, as I was surreptitiously reading a book balanced under my desk!)

But the cause and effect text structure is vitally important for our young readers. I've been surprised at how much trouble fourth graders have with this concept--and I suspect that it's a problem that continues up through the grade levels.

At its most basic, the problem is one of vocabulary. My students have trouble with remembering that causes come before effects. The clue words for cause and effect--therefore, as a result, consequently--are not generally used in everyday speech. To help students understand cause and effect, then, I have to first surmount the vocabulary obstacles.

For the past two weeks, a part of my Morning Message has been dedicated to cause and effect. One morning I write causes and have students write effects; another morning I write effects and have students write the causes. To keep it interesting, I added some student names at first (using silly causes and effects--nothing that would hurt feelings!) Turnabout is fair play, so students started adding my name. This week, one of the messages read, "Cause: Mrs. Kissner crashed her bike into the shed. Effect: Her bike was broken." Ah, well--they were certainly amused to think about me riding a bike into a shed!

We have also done some matching of causes and effects. Here is a little activity that I wrote for students to practice this. As students work, watch them carefully. I was surprised to see how many of them had trouble considering additional effects for the causes. Left to their own devices, some groups came up with additional causes.

Of course, I had to apply the cause and effect thinking to actual text. It's tough to find "pure" cause and effect text, as it's frequently used in conjunction with other text structures. I do want to show this to students eventually, but when they're just getting started, I don't want to confuse matters.

I wrote a short text about tsunamis, which can be found in Text Structure Resources. When we read the text, we talked about how to find both the causes and the effects. Then, students worked to create a graphic organizer to show the causes and effects. (I showed them the basics--to put "tsunami" in the box in the middle, and then put causes on the left and effects on the right--but they were able to actually find what to put in the boxes in the text on their own.)

Over the next few days, we'll be working to use the text structure to help us find answers to questions. In cause and effect text, this is hugely important. It's too time-consuming for a reader to scan back through an entire text to find an answer. But with a firm grasp on the idea that "causes come before effects", students will be able to target their search and find answers more efficiently.

Cause and Effect with Frogs

Here is a projectable book that introduces the text structure of cause and effect. Eventually, I'll format it for use as a regular book as well.

I'm getting better with the projectable books...of course, it's helpful that the frogs at Kings Gap are so cooperative! This is just an introduction to cause and effect, of course, and isn't meant to be the literature that you teach. It would work well as a shared reading with a cause and effect graphic organizer.

Any comments?