ELA Test Prep: Picture Book Literature Circles

The week before state testing has a strange tension in the air. Students know that something different is coming, but aren't sure how to express their worry. Teachers fret by the copier, making packets of test prep and trying to figure out which standards haven't been covered.

This year I decided to take a different pathway. I knew that I wanted to review literary elements with students, especially theme. But what materials to use? On the one hand, I have years worth of state testing samplers. Some of them aren't terrible. On the other hand...I didn't become a teacher to use state testing samplers, if you know what I mean.

What about picture books? We have a lovely book room with lots of complex picture books. This book room has been rather quiet since our district adopted a reading series. I decided to gather some of my favorites and let the students pick which ones they'd like to read.

To add some accountability, I used a version of my literature circle materials for students to complete independently.

The results astonished me! Kids showed tremendous enthusiasm for their self-selected books. They sat and read together, working diligently on their packets and talking about their opinions. "Is there a way that we could figure out the specific year for the setting of The Memory Coat?" one group asked. In another group, the topic of whether Weslandia was a fantasy or realistic fiction led to a spirited discussion."Obviously it's fantasy, because he'd need a building permit for all of those structures. Especially in that neighborhood," said one civic-minded student.

Listening in on the students' conversations allowed me to provided just-in-time reteaching and reviewing. I was asked to explain again the difference between point of view in a narrative text and point of view in an expository text. "What's that word that starts with a c, that means how people feel about a word?" another student asked. (Connotation!) Another group had totally missed the details that lead to realizing that Nim and the War Effort takes place during World War 2, so I used the pictures and the text to demonstrate.

I also wanted to review the process of finding theme. This is so important for standardized testing, and so difficult for students to grasp. Students have used their Common Themes list all year long, but
I wanted them to revisit the different themes and practice supporting a theme with details from the text. So I showed them to how to make a Theme Graphic organizer, modeled writing a paragraph to express the theme of a story, and directed them to work with their groups to select a theme, find text evidence, and write a paragraph to support the theme.

It was amazing! The conversations were rich and complex, and students really went back to the text to find support. As a teacher, I could not have asked for anything more. We spent our last few days of instruction before tests doing real reading work that everyone loved.

As you think about last minute test preparation, consider using picture books! Not only will you find students engaged with rich stories, but you will also have the chance to hear student conversations and support students at the moment of need.

How to craft a text-dependent analysis prompt

   

 Text-dependent analysis essays! From the moment that I first saw these forms of writing on our state tests I have both dreaded and admired them. On the positive side, text-dependent analysis essays inspire students to analyze texts and think more deeply. On the negative side, sometimes I feel like these essays have eaten all other forms of writing in Pennsylvania. 

    However I'm feeling today, these are tough forms of writing for students to undertake. This year, I've tried to focus more on creating a classroom that builds the deep thinking needed to analyze texts. This means that I need to create plenty of text-dependent analysis questions based on the texts that we are reading.

    Some may try to mystify the process to make it look like creating your own questions is beyond the capability of an ordinary classroom teacher. But don't believe it! With a little bit of thinking and the right kind of knowledge, you can create your own text-dependent analysis questions.

One text or several?

     This is the first question to answer for yourself. Do you want students to analyze elements within one text, or analyze connections between texts? 
     It may seem as if working with one text is easier. From a writing standpoint, using a single text will make transitions easier. However, from an analysis standpoint, sometimes it's easier for students to work with two very different texts. It's been my experience that readers will generate ideas more readily and have stronger conversations when working with multiple texts.

Choose strong texts

     Whether you are working with one text or two, be sure to use strong texts with lots to analyze. (This is one of my issues with the endless weekly assessments in the Wonders program: they are all focused on staff-written short texts that meet a certain word count and Lexile criteria, and don't offer much variety or depth.)

Two elements

     This is the key to writing a strong analysis prompt! PSSA text-dependent analysis guides state that the tested questions will always have two textual elements for students to link together. Sometimes these textual elements will be stated; sometimes they will be unstated. (Oh, joy!)
     Here are some guidelines for starting your own questions. Not every question works for every text, of course. It's best to read the text you want to use and think, "What would be fun to talk about?" This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list, of course, but a set of ideas to get you thinking.

Narrative element starters

• Analyze how the events of the plot reveal the theme.
• Analyze how the character's actions convey the character's traits.
• Explain how the use of figurative language enhances the reader's understanding of the imagery.
• Analyze how the use of stage directions impact the reader's understanding of the events.
• Analyze how the character's actions impact the unfolding of the plot.
• Explain how the author's choice of setting affects the events of the plot.
• Analyze how the narration of the story would be different if the story were told from a different point of view.
• Explain how the word choice creates a mood within the reader.

Expository element starters

• Analyze how the text structure conveys the main ideas of the selection.
• Explain how the author's word choice shows the author's point of view toward the topic.
• Analyze how the text features help readers to understand the main ideas.
• Analyze how the inclusion of firsthand accounts affects the reader's understanding of the main ideas of the text.

Talk time

     After I create a few analysis prompts for my students, I copy them and have students meet in small groups to discuss them. "You don't have to write an analysis essay," I tell them. "Instead, I want you to take great notes: write down text evidence, make connections, show your thinking!"
     Over the course of the year, I've seen an improvement in students' willingness to grapple with these conversations. It's hard! As I listen in, I've noticed that some groups focus on just one of the elements and forget to make the connection to the other one. I ask a few questions of these groups to get them thinking and help them to see how to make connections. 
     Taking the time to write these questions and elicit these conversations is well worth the effort! What prompts have you found helpful in your classroom?

For some text-dependent analysis prompts, try this resource:

Sea Turtles and Expository Text: A Peek Inside

I love writing short expository texts, and I love sharing the texts that I create with other teachers. 

But I can't deny that there is always an uneasy tension between my inner writer and my inner teacher as I start a new project. The inner teacher says, "Wouldn't it be cool to have a set of texts with x, y, and z?" The inner writer groans--"You want what? Do you realize how hard that will be to write?"

So there is a sense of compromise between teacher and writer. I have seen enough hideously contrived texts to know that I shouldn't keep going if something isn't working. Teacher and writer must negotiate to come up with a workable compromise. (And all of this is going on in my head!)

Lights Out: Problem/Solution

This spring, I started to write a series of texts about sea turtles. The project began with a problem and solution text about the importance of turning out lights during nesting season. I find problem and solution to be one of my favorite text structures, probably because it is inherently optimistic. I also love the symmetry of problem and solution. It's fun to write.

I generally prefer to do all of the writing first before I mess around with formatting. Adding the formatting gives me another chance to reread every bit of text. I often read everything aloud to my family as well--my ten year old is a great listener and offers useful criticism. 

After the text has been written, read, and reread, the teacher side takes over and works on questions and activities. Waiting several weeks between text and questions helps me to look at the piece as a teacher instead of as the writer. This year, I've been experimenting with adding synthesis tasks to reading sets. These are very similar to the performance assessments that we used in the late-90s, but with a Common Core twist. Yes, they tap some of the skills that will be needed for high stakes testing, but they are also activities that are real and relevant for students.

Compare and Contrast

After I finished the problem and solution texts, I moved on to the bigger challenge--two compare and contrast texts, each one about two different sea turtles. 

These texts were hard to write. The writer in me balked at writing them, but the teacher stood firm--these are necessary. Compare and contrast is one of the hardest text structures to use. There are two topics, and the writer must work hard to balance them and make clear transitions back and forth. All too often, compare and contrast ends up sounding choppy and awkward. And conclusions? Natural, fresh conclusions to compare and contrast texts are especially difficult.

Of course, this is the lesson that the teacher-me wanted! I saw the need for two texts, both compare and contrast, but using different styles of organization. Compare and contrast texts can be alternating or clustered. Before students look for these structures in the real world, it's helpful for them to see study texts that present each. Texts on similar topics will help them to focus on the structure of the text instead of the content.

The first text, "Loggerheads and Green Sea Turtles" is written in the alternating style. This took a great deal of research and many hours of time. I found conflicting information from various credible sources, and delved deep into Google Books and other sources to find the best information possible. From a writer's point of view, I did create a comparison chart to gather my details. (I hate Venn diagrams for writing.) 

The second, "Leatherbacks and Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles", was a little easier. I used the clustered style, which deals with each topic in turn. Writing these two texts really helped me to see the strong similarities between description text structure and compare and contrast. After all, clustered compare and contrast could be looked upon as double description. 

The close reading activity that accompanies these texts is the one that my teacher self envisioned at the start of the project--using colored pencils to underline sentences referring to either kind of turtle. As I made the answer key, it clearly showed the difference between alternating compare and contrast and clustered compare and contrast. Victory!

The final activity of the unit challenges students to create their own compare and contrast text, using whichever style they would like. A chart of information is provided to make the task more of a writing task instead of a research task. 

Thank you!

Combining teaching and writing is a challenge. I'm so grateful to everyone who has purchased my texts on TeachersPayTeachers and offered such positive feedback. Thank you! 

You can find the texts and activities here:
Sea Turtles Expository Text

Teaching Compare and Contrast Text

This week I decided to turn text structure on its head and and start with compare and contrast! I made this decision to provide some additional continuity with our texts, and compare and contrast was the perfect bridge between our Antarctica theme set and text structure.

In the past, I've always started text structure with chronological order. This is the easiest text structure for many students to understand, as it is the structure of narratives and everyday living. But of course there is no rule for where to start, and I have to admit that I thought it would be fun to try things differently.

The teaching is much different, too, when compare and contrast is the first structure for careful examination. Here are some things that I've (re)discovered this week.

1. Not all transition words show similarities and differences.
Compare and contrast text is the perfect place to explore this! Teaching guides for text structure include lists of transition words...but these words often serve multiple purposes. Is the word while showing a similarity or a difference? Or is the author using it to connect two ideas? What about the word like? Even struggling readers can find looking for clue words and analyzing their use to be very meaningful and engaging.

2. Move to student-made charts as quickly as possible.

Beautiful graphic organizers just look so nice, don't they? But I've learned to get kids into making their own charts as quickly as possible. For looking at compare and contrast text, I prefer charts to Venn diagrams. This helps students to think more carefully about how information is organized in the text. Generating criteria for comparison gets readers looking more deeply at what aspects of the topics are being compared.

Student-made charts are gloriously messy. Kids think and rethink and change their columns. And that is all part of the process. When students decide, "I don't like the way I represented these ideas--I'm going to change it," major thinking has occurred! 

3. Connect, connect, connect!
Complex texts reflect complex thinking. Showing connections to the wider world helps students to see how ideas are reflected in the text.

After we read "Peregrine Falcons and Red-Tailed Hawks", we watched the peregrine falcon cam live from Harrisburg. This is always a student favorite. (I love it too!) Then we looked for sentences in the text to support what we were seeing. This got students diving once more back into the text, looking for connections between the live video view and the words on the page.

Our next text, "Vernal Pool or Puddle?", is the foundation text for a short text set about vernal pools. Students will read about vernal pools across several different text structures, hopefully helping them to see how content and organization connect.

Looking back
Teaching the text structure of compare and contrast turned out to be a great introduction to text structure. 

Have you tried changing up the order of any topics in your classroom? What have you noticed?

Texts mentioned
"Peregrine Falcons and Red-Tailed Hawks" is included in Introduction to Text Structure
"Vernal Pool or Puddle?" is included in Compare and Contrast Texts for Teaching Text Structure

Making Inferences in Nonfiction

It sure has felt like Antarctica at school this week!

    As intermediate readers move into more complex, dense informational texts, they need to make more and more inferences. Talking about these inferences and the thinking behind them is essential.

    I created a new text with embedded questions to help readers get to this level of inferencing. Embedded questions are great for helping readers to notice key details in texts. The text is chunked so that it looks less intimidating, and readers know where they will find the clues they need to devise answers.

Visualizing
    Visualizing is a kind of inference! After all, authors never explain all of their details in a description. Authors depend on readers to fill in critical details from their own prior knowledge. In turn, those details help readers to fill in other gaps in a text.
    Consider the text at the right. How did people try to find a southern land mass? The word "sailors" is a key here. 

1. Read the text aloud with students.
2. Ask students, "Can you find the sentence that helps you to visualize how people tried to find a southern land mass?" Some will be able to; others may be confused by the mention of Greeks at the beginning of the passage.
3. Demonstrate underlining the sentence. 
4. Think aloud: If sailors tried to find Antarctica, what would they be using? Ships! Would they have modern ships? Why or why not? Students may recognize The Age of Exploration as a clue to the time period, or they may not. 
5. What other details from the text could we add to our visualizations? Icebergs, sea ice

    This led to such interesting questions and comments from students. Some students didn't recognize that "southern land mass" refers to Antarctica. Others started wondering--why didn't the sailors steer around the icebergs? Why was the sea ice such a problem? I followed up with a video from my Antarctica playlist to answer their questions at the end of class.


Pronoun/Antecedent Inferences
    Pronoun/antecedent inferences are essential to understanding expository text. Often, students have trouble tracking these, especially when the pronoun is in a different sentence from the antecedent.
    In this example, we marked the text with arrows to show the relationship between the pronoun and the antecedent. This helped to prepare students for the inference question: What is the name of one of the three research stations? 
    If this seems remarkably easy, I assure you that it is not simple for many struggling readers, especially ELLs. We had to discuss whether the station would be "Nathaniel Station" or "Palmer Station", and why! 
 

    Making inferences helps readers to put the pieces of a text together. These kinds of inferences need to be explicitly taught and discussed. 
    To make your own embedded questions, take a look at some informational text that you are sharing with students. Cut it apart and add inference questions--visualizing, pronoun/antecedent, text-based inferences, and reader-based inferences. How do your readers respond? 


For more on kinds of inferences, you can see Chapter 4-7 of my book, The Forest AND the Trees: Helping Readers to Use Details in Texts and Tests.

Here is the Antarctica text that I used in my lesson:

Making inferences from Emily Kissner

Notes
Looking for more texts to compare? I just finished Spring Paired Passages, which includes texts about weather sayings and tulips. Great for test prep, but with interesting enrichment and extension possibilities as well!