Still Learning to Read: Goal Setting

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

We have been busy setting short-term goals this week. Goal-setting has been part of our year since the first few days but as we get more intentional about personal goal-setting and are able to take steps to meet our own goals (as well as to see progress toward goals) we have changed routines around goal-setting a bit. This week, as we reflected on work and set some short-term goals (goals that might be accomplished or worked toward between now and winter break), students recorded their goals above their cubbies.  

(A pdf of the template is here.)

I created  a template that allows students to add goals on sticky notes for reading, writing, math and wonder workshop.  The squares on the template are the perfect size for a sticky note and sticky notes give the message that goals will change.  Having the goals in a personal space that they can see each day is important I think.  So far, each child has set a reading goal and a math goal. The writing goals we are working on are more connected to our narrative writing that we are finishing up this week so we'll create new goals soon.  I also plan to work with the kids on more long-term goals for Wonder Workshop.

The template is a simple one. I believe strongly in simple routines for important thinking.  I have seen the power in student goal-setting over and over again. As I think about my bigger goals of agency and identity, student goal-setting is critical.  

We are also using Seesaw as a way to track and reflect on our learning. I am amazed by this tool and the kids love it.  There are so many ways for kids to reflect on artifacts from the year.  Many of the kids used Seesaw this week to record the goals that they had written. Seesaw is a great place to track changes in learning. The share features really helps because as kids are invested in each others' goals. They also get new ideas for learning/future goals from peers through the app.

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August!  You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

NCTE 2017 Charlotte Huck Awards

I have served on the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children for the past three years. It has been an amazing experience. I've learned so much and have met so many great people.  I was never lucky enough to study under Charlotte Huck but her work has had a huge impact on me and my work.

Last year's Charlotte Huck Award committee presented the winning titles at this year's NCTE convention.

The Charlotte Huck Award is a new one and I was part of the first committee. The award's commitment is that it "recognizes fiction that has the potential to transform children's lives by inviting compassion, imagination and wonder." I have LOVED reading with the lens of the Charlotte Huck Award as the award recognizes the power of books for a child. 

I have also LOVED having the book awards announced at the Children's Book Award Luncheon at the NCTE Annual Convention. If you haven't been to this lunch, you are missing out on a fun time!  Previous year's awards are given to authors/illustrators, new awards are announced and there is an author at every table for lunch.  This  year, I got to sit with Mitali Perkins! And Mary Lee was able to sit with Loren Long!  Definitely a fun time!

Loren Long and Mary Lee at the Children's Book Award Luncheon!

This year the 2017 Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction was announced and here are the winners! I would definitely check out all of the books on the list--as it is one of my favorite award lists of the year!

2017 Winner

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

2017 Honor Books

Worm Loves Worm by J. J. Austrian

The Night Gardener by Terry Fan and Eric Fan

Ms. Bixby's Last Day by John David Anderson

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

2017 Recommended Titles

The Seventh Wish by Kate Messner

Luis Paints the World by Terry Farish

Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

A Bandit's Tale by Deborah Hopkinson

Hoot and Peep by Lita Judge

One Half from the East by Nadia Sashimi

Inquisitor's Tale or the Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz

The Princess and the Warrior by Duncan Tonatiuh

For past lists and more information on the Charlotte Huck award, visit the award page on NCTE's website.  You may also be interested in reading The Power of Children's Book Awards and 

The Ripple Effect of Award Lists.

And don't miss this year's Orbis Pictus Awards for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children!

Still Learning to Read: Tracking Our Thinking in Read Aloud

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

I want my students to have experience with a variety of ways to track their thinking during reading.  There are so many tools and right now, I just want them to see how powerful it is to stop and notice your thinking. I want them to be able to choose tools that work for them and I use the first 6-8 weeks of school to make sure they have experience with several ways to annotate.  Since our focus is on the thinking and process, the tool is really up to the child once they see some  possibilities. So for read aloud this time, I chose the book Lucy by Randy Cecil.  This is a book that I fell in love with this summer.  I chose it for several reasons.

• The illustrations in this book are key. There is a black and white illustration on each page and I want my 3rd graders to talk around both words and pictures. I find that often, at this age, readers are more apt to talk about what they notice or wonder in a visual than in text so this combination seemed perfect. I also know they will naturally find evidence in the illustrations as they talk and the "What in the book makes you think that?" type of conversation will grow.
• I was able to get 12 copies of the book from our public library.  This makes it possible for groups of 2-3 to share a book. 
• I assigned them a Thinking Partner for this read aloud. So they share their book with the same person and will think through this book with one person. Thinking with the same person across a book is different than thinking with different people every day.  There are benefits to both but as we build relationships and conversation skills, having the same partner through the book is important.
• There are 3 characters in the book whose story lines come together--Eleanor, her father, and the dog, Lucy.  As readers begin to read more complex text, I want them to think about characters and how characters stories and relationships are often key to narrative.

So each pair of students was given a copy of the book and a stack of sticky notes and they have been jotting and talking every day before we come together and share thinking as a group. 

The book and conversation are inviting great talk and we are learning so much about tracking our thinking, backing our thinking with evidence in the text, character development and having good conversations. 

(You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released last week!  You can order it online at Stenhouse!

Early-in-the-Year Messages About Learning

There is no rushing the first few weeks of the school year. No matter how much I'd love to be in Week 8 right now with routines set and thoughtful conversations happening every day, I know that you can't rush community building. As hard as it is to establish routines, there is nothing like these first few weeks of school--getting to know students, watching them get to know each other,  and listening in on these beginning conversations.

I can never quite pinpoint exactly how things evolve in the classroom--how kids get from where they are at the beginning of the year to where they are at the end of the year.  I don't really have a set of lesson plans that helps to build talk early in the year.  I don't really believe in those "First 20 Day" planning guides. But I am very intentional about my planning and try to be responsive to each new group of students.  Each group comes in with different expectations as learners and I usually take my cue from them on where to do.  By May, I am always so amazed by my students' thinking and growth but they are not as comfortable talking and sharing early in the year so I spend a lot of time planning things that give them important messages and experiences about learning.

The thing is, lots of these things don't happen in Reading Workshop. In Read Aloud and in minilessons, we are learning to have conversations around books. But it seems to be that it is the conversations that we are having during other times in the day that also help build the conversations we have as readers.  In a self-contained classroom, nothing stands alone.  Somehow, conversations in reading are possible because we spend time throughout each day thinking about learning and thinking and talking.  The conversations overlap and talk starts to get better each day in the classroom in all areas.

Learning Happens Everywhere and in Many Different Ways

For the last few years, we've watched Caine's Arcade on the first day of school to talk about Caine as a learner.  I want my kids to know that learning happens in lots of ways and that lots of learning will happen in and out of school. I want them to know that the kind of learning Caine shares in his story will be valued in our classroom. Some years we've created a chart or had a conversation discussing the ways Caine is a learner or how we know Caine is a learner.

We Learn When We Think Together

We mention in our book the idea of Thinking Partners.  A board in the front of our classroom has a heading "Who Are You Thinking With Today?". Below are 2 sets of individual photos of the students in our class.  I use this to quickly assign partners for various things when needed. Early in the year we talk about how you learn different things when you think with different people.  We've done partner talk in all areas learning how to turn and talk, sit "knee-to-knee, eye-to-eye", keep a conversation going for a short amount of time, etc.

Thinking and Talking about Our Own Learning (and others' learning) Helps Us Grow

I invite adults in the school to come in and share their lives as readers with us during the first several weeks of school.  This helps students learn about others which in turn helps them reflect on their own reading.  As they learn about different readers and see connections and differences, they begin to ask questions and learn to talk about reading habits and behaviors in new ways.

Mrs. Phifer, our reading teacher, sharing things about her life as a reader last week in our classroom.

A Learning Community Gives Feedback to Help Other's Grow

Austin's Butterfly is one of my favorite clips to show early in the year.  I think the idea of specific feedback and supporting each other as we all learn and grow is fascinating to students as they watch this clip.

Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work from EL Education on Vimeo.

Our Brain Grows

This year, I shared one of Jo Boaler's videos on Youcubed. "Four Boosting Math Messages from Jo and Her Students" invited powerful conversations about the brain, making mistakes, and other myths about learning (math and beyond).

We Learn When We Are in the Role of Teacher AND When We Are in the Role of Learner

In our classroom, we have Wonder Workshop daily. This is the way I make sense of Genius Hour and Makerspace ideas and bring them together to give kids a time each day to take total charge of their learning.To kick off Wonder Workshop, each child shares something they love or are good at with classmates.  This is an informal presentation done at tables with small groups.  This joyful time helps us get to know each others' interests and also helps everyone discover things they may want to learn or try during Wonder Workshop. By the end of the week, we'll have 23 new things are possibilities for Wonder Workshop. And we'll have experienced the power of learning from each other over and over again.

We talk about being an active participant in a session and this is easy for them to do and understand when they are in both roles. We don't do a typical presentation--instead kids teach at a table to an audience of 3-5 kids several times until all kids rotate through. This keeps kids engaged and gives kids lots of experiences as both a teacher and and audience. We reflect on our roles each day and we also discover what we appreciated about the ways different people taught and learned. This conversation will carry on throughout the year.

We Can Learn from Others Through Technology

I made it a point to share resources from online sources so kids know quickly that we learn from lots of people and technology allows that. (They know this of course, but I want them to know that this will happen lots in our classroom.)  I also want them to know that there are people out there who create things to share to TEACH others. (This will be good when they learn to research and it also serves as an invitation to create resources for others online.)

We've learned from Ruth Ayres (A Peek Inside My Writer's Notebook), Jess Keating (Write With Jess Keating), Amy Vanderwater (Sharing Our Notebooks) and Mr. Stadel at Estimation 180. The variety of videos, blog posts, activities created for learning all show that there are so many ways to learn from others.

None of these things can stand alone but together they work magic when it comes to evolving messages about what it means to be a learning community.

Still Learning to Read: Setting Up the Digital Classroom Library

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016.

School starts in a little over a week. My classroom set up is coming along (of course there is always something to do when it comes to setting up a room!)  This weekend, I worked on revising and updating the digital classroom library that will start our school year.  For kids to make intentional decisions, they must have choice.  I used to introduce a few sites for reading at a time and built over the first few months of school but last year I created a page on our Weebly with all of the sites kids could read. This year I revised it a bit by adding new sites and getting rid of those that were outdated or no longer active.

The Reading page of our Classroom Weebly is here.  I've found that Weebly is an easy website for young children to navigate because of the design and the visuals.  I am certain it will grow and change as the year goes on and I have no idea which of these sites kids will be most interested in this year (every class is different). But this is where we'll begin so kids know that digital reading is an option during Reading Workshop. They'll also have access to these sites at home by accessing our website. 

These are the sites that my 3rd graders can access from our website:

A few years ago, our class created a Symbaloo of Authors We Love.  We created this one day when we were playing with Symabaloo and it's become a great resource.  This Symbaloo links to many authors that kids love. It DEFINITELY needs updated and it seems like a good project for us once the year is started.  

Kidsreads is one of the best sites I know for kids to learn about books, authors, and series.  The website is packed with book reviews, announcements for new books and author interviews and it is perfect for middle grade readers.

Wonderopolis is a favorite source for shared reading and independent reading.  If you don't know this site, you should spend lots of time exploring!  There is a new wonder posted each day along with an article sharing the answer and more.   The site is searchable so kids can find past wonders that match their current interests. 

LivBits is a new addition to the Weebly this year.  Olivia has videos, Instagram post and more sharing her thinking about books, authors and reading. These are great videos by a reader close to my students' ages.  Love this site!

SI Kids, the Sports Illustrated site for kids has a variety of great reading material for kids.  The site is full of articles, videos, interviews and more and is easy for kids to navigate.

DOGONews is a kids's news sites. Articles are accessible to kids and most are about topics they are most interested in.  There site also includes book reviews "for kids, by kids".

Pebble Go is a membership site that is one of the best nonfiction sites I've seen for primary readers. There are several categories of nonfiction and kids learn to navigate for information in an authentic way.

Toon Book Reader shares early graphic novels with kids. We have many of the hard copies of the books in our classrooms.  Readers can choose to read on his/her own or to have the books read aloud. There are options to change the language from English to Spanish, French, Russian and Chinese also.

Friends with Fins is one of our favorite video sites for informational videos.   I know that learning from videos is important to digital reading so sites like this are critical for my students.  Watching videos to learn (as opposed to for entertainment) is new to many of them. The focus of this is on Ocean Conservation and the videos are the perfect length for middle grade readers.

I could spend all day on ZooBorns. The site focuses on baby animals in zoos around the world.  Each day there is an update about some baby animal somewhere in the world. So it is fun site to check in with on a daily basis. Or, readers can search by animal or zoo which adds to what is possible.  The photos on this site are fabulous!

Big Universe is another site that our school subscribes to for nonfiction reading. Students have an account and can read ebooks on a variety of topics.  They can log their reading, add books to their to-be-read shelf and more.

NewsELA is a site filled with news articles, text sets on current issues and more. There is so much to explore here! 

Animals for Smart People is another site of informational videos by author, Jess Keating.  These are a perfect length and the visuals she includes are supportive to understanding the topic.

Smithsonian TT Junior has daily news, photos audio and video. This has a good variety of interesting information for readers.

We discovered Emily Arrow last year and created a Padlet of her videos. This became one of our most popular sites as Emily Arrow is the best and the way she interprets books through song is fabulous!

I feel like this part of my "classroom library" set-up is as important as the bookshelves in my room. Knowing sites that are accessible to my middle grade readers and expanding what they "count" as reading is an important early-in-the-year message. I feel like we'll be off to a good start.

Are there any other sites you include in your digital classroom library?

(You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook starting September 1 by joining our group here.)

Our new edition of Still Learning to Read will be released on August 15 but you can preview the entire book online at Stenhouse!

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2016 NCTE Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts

THE CHILDREN'S LITERATURE ASSEMBLY OF NCTE 

PRESENTS 

THE 2016 

NOTABLE CHILDREN'S BOOKS 

IN THE LANGUAGE ARTS

28 Days: Moments in Black History that Changed the World Written by Charles R. Smith,
Illustrated by Shane W. Evans, Published by Roaring Brook Press.

An Ambush of Tigers: A Wild Gathering of Collective Nouns Written by Betsy R. Rosenthal,
Illustrated by Jago, Published by Millbrook Press.

A Spectacular Selection of Sea Critters Written by Betsy Franco, Illustrated by Michael Wertz,
Published by Millbrook Press.

Bigfoot is Missing! Written by J. Patrick Lewis and Karen Nesbitt, Illustrated by MinaLima,
Published by Chronicle.

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth, and Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore Written by Vaunda Micheaux
Nelson, Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, Published by Carolrhoda.

The Book Scavenger Written by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, Published by Henry Holt and
Company.

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Written and illustrated by Don Brown,
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Echo Written by Pam Munoz Ryan, Published by Scholastic.

Enchanted Air Written by Margarita Engle, Illustrated by Edel Rodriguez, Published by
Atheneum.

Enormous Smallness: A Story of E. E. Cummings Written by Matthew Burgess, Illustrated by
Kris Di Giacomo, Published by Enchanted Lion.

Flutter and Hum: Animal Poems Written and illustrated by Julie Paschkis, Published by Henry
Holt and Company.

How to Read a Story Written by Kate Messner, Illustrated by Mark Siegel, Published by
Chronicle.

Jumping Off Library Shelves Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Illustrated by Jane Manning,
Published by Wordsong.

The Marvels Written and illustrated by Brian Selznick, Published by Scholastic.

My Seneca Village Written by Marilyn Nelson, Published by Namelos.

My Two Blankets Written by Irena Kobald, Illustrated by Freya Blackwood, Published by
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The Plan Written by Alison Paul, Illustrated by Barbara Lehman, Published by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt.

Poems in the Attic Written by Nikki Grimes, Illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon, Published by Lee &
Low.

Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton Written and illustrated by Don Tate,
Published by Peachtree.

Red: A Crayon’s Story Written and illustrated by Michael Hall, Published by Greenwillow.

Stella by Starlight Written by Sharon M. Draper, Published by Atheneum.

The Thing About Jellyfish Written by Ali Benjamin, Published by Little, Brown Books.

Use Your Imagination (But be careful what you wish for!) Written and illustrated by Nicola
O’Byrne, Published by Nosy Crow.

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hammer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement Written by
Carole Boston Weatherford, Illustrated by Ekua Holmes, Published by Candlewick.

W is for Webster Written by Tracey Fern, Illustrated by Boris Kulikov, Published by Farrar,
Straus and Giroux.

Where’s the Baboon? Written by Michaël Escoffier, Illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo, Published by
Enchanted Lion.

The Whisper Written and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, Published by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt.

Willy’s Stories Written and illustrated by Anthony Browne, Published by Candlewick.

The Wonder Written and illustrated by Faye Hanson, Published by Templar.

A Year in the Life of a Complete and Total Genius Written by Stacey Matson, Published by
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky.


2016 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts Selection Committee Members: 
Chair -- Christine Draper-Georgia Southern University
Committee members -- Evelyn Freeman-The Ohio State University, Dick Koblitz-Webster University in St. Louis and University of Missouri, Pamela Jewett-Professor Emerita at the University of South Carolina, Diana Porter-Eastern Kentucky University, Jennifer Sanders-Oklahoma State University, and Holly Sims-Independence Elementary School, Oregon.

Two Great National Geographic Kids Books

Edible Science: Experiments You Can Eat
by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen with Carol Tennant
National Geographic, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

This book is going to be in high demand for Genius Hour projects! How much fun will it be to do science that you can eat?!?

This will also be a great mentor text for Technical Text.

The chapters include Mixing and Unmixing (with projects like Ice Cream in a Bag and Ricotta Cheese); Solids, Liquids, and Yum! (with projects like Baked Alaska and Maple Candy); It's a Gas (with projects like the ever-popular Egg in a Bottle); Actions and Reactions (Jiggling Gelatin and Banana Bread); and Biology in Your Kitchen (Mock Apple Pie and Mealworm Brownies).

All of the instructions are clearly laid out, with the things you need, the things to watch for, the steps to take, and the science behind what happens.

Brain Games: The Mind-Blowing Science of Your Amazing Brain
by Jennifer Swanson
National Geographic, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

This is a great book for browsing. It is organized with challenges for your brain, an explanation of what is happening in your brain during the challenge, and lots of extra information on the topic in the sidebars.

I was fascinated by the sections on long and short term memory, and what happens inside your brain when you try to multi-task. Hmm...wonder why those sections popped out at me?  :-)

NCTE Book Awards!

This year, NCTE Children's Book Awards were announced at the children's luncheon at convention. It was great fun to have them announced at the luncheon. It was also fabulous to hear the award winners speak at the luncheon. The luncheon has always been one of my favorite events at convention and now it's an even better event!  

Each year at the lunch, not only do you get to hear great speakers (and now be there for the live announcement of the award winners each year) but everyone gets to sit at a table with a children's author. This year, I was lucky enough to sit with Deborah Wiles!! What a treat!

I was lucky enough to serve on the Charlotte Huck Award Committee and have loved the conversations with others committee members about the books. I love everything about this award. If the award is new to you, here is what the NCTE website has to say about it.

The NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children was established in 2014 to promote and recognize excellence in the writing of fiction for children. This award recognizes fiction that has the potential to transform children’s lives by inviting compassion, imagination, and wonder.

This is such a great lens to read with and there have been so many 2015 books that definitely have the potential to transform children's lives.  I so love our list this year! 

You can find the list on the NCTE website.

The other award that was announced at Saturday's luncheon was the Orbis Pictus Award. This has always been one of my favorite lists because it is the place where I find so much great nonfiction. This year, I didn't have the time to read nonfiction that I usually do, because I spent so much time reading fiction for the Huck award. So I am anxious to check out many of the books on this list. The award is described as:

The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award  was established in 1989 for promoting and recognizing excellence in the writing of nonfiction for children. The name Orbis Pictus, commemorates the work of Johannes Amos Comenius, Orbis Pictus—The World in Pictures(1657), considered to be the first book actually planned for children.

You can find the Orbis Pictus list on the NCTE website too!

If you want to read more about NCTE book awards, there was a recent post on the NCTE blog.

I love award season and the season has begun! If you did not attend the Saturday luncheon on Saturday, you may want to put it on your list of convention to-dos for next year. It is great fun!

Professional Reading: Note and Notice

I have been trying to fit more professional reading into my life lately. There are so many great professional books that have been piling up. I have found that if I focus on one book at a time and try to read 20ish pages a day, I can finish a professional book in a couple of weeks. The 20 pages a day happened because I wanted to give myself a doable amount of reading to do in a day to get more professional reading in. But what I've found is that 20 pages a day gives me a good chunk of information to think about and a good amount of time to study a topic. So when I dig into a new professional book, I am thinking about the topic for two weeks, really giving myself time to digest and reflect on what I've read. In the past I have sometimes rushed through new professional books, reading them in a weekend and this seems to be a better way to read and digest the new thinking.  The 20 pages also makes sense for my reading life.  I don't have to "give up" fiction reading to read professional books if I am just holding myself to 20 pages a day. I can fit in both with that expectation of myself.

This week, I am reading Kylene Beers' and Bob Probst's new Nonfiction Reading: Notice and Note Stance, Signposts, and Strategies and I am so glad that I am taking my time to read it and not rushing through it. I am not far along as the book just arrived a few days ago but already I find myself rethinking much of what I thought I understood about nonfiction reading.  I am doing just what the writers hoped I would do. As they state on page 1 of the introduction, "And we do want this book to challenge you. We want you to pause to consider new ideas, mull over comments we make, mark passages you want to reread and discuss with colleagues."

I want to share with you the reason my new strategy of reading 20 pages a day of a new professional book is making good sense to me.  I started the book over the weekend.  On the first day with the book, I did a pretty heavy preview--looking through the book to see what to expect.  Then I dug into the first 20 pages.  And then I stopped for the day. On reflecting, I was amazed at how much I had to think about with just 20 pages of reading.

-I am thinking about the students we teach today and how their experiences are quite different from my own at their age. Beers and Probst state, "By 2016, every student in school will have been born in the 21st century. They will have grown up with the world at their fingertips."

-I am thinking about the idea of stance that is part of the subtitle of this book and what it means as a teacher of nonfiction.  Beers and Probst state, "This book had to discuss a stance that's required for the attentive, productive reading of nonfiction. It's a mindset that is open and receptive, but not gullible."  I have read and reread this line several times and love the idea of what it means.  One sentence that says so much about something far more important than the traditional ways I've been thinking about teaching nonfiction.

-I am processing the 5 day cycle of lessons that the authors share and how to build Big Questions along with understanding of signposts to build more time and engagement with nonfiction text.

-I am excited to look at the videos that show these things in action. Throughout the book are QR codes that lead readers to videos that go along with the thinking in the book.

-And I am fascinated by the authors' explanation of the way in which nonfiction has been defined over the years. "It's really not surprising that the meaning of nonfiction has shifted as well.  What was once a term used by librarians to signify that the text simply wasn't a novel morphed into meaning "not false" and even "informational". While note surprising, we do wonder if this shift has served us well."  This section of the first 20 pages fascinated me and made me think about the way in which I have defined nonfiction for myself and for my students and how that might evolve.

As you can see, my 20 page strategy is working for me. Giving myself time to read and think about the professional books that have been on my stack seems important. Even though I am dying to keep reading, I know that this is a better way for me to take in most professional books. This particular one is so packed with great thinking that I'd hate to rush past some of it.

I am excited to continue this first read of this book as I know my teaching will change for the better because of it.

If you don't have this book yet, I already highly recommend it. The first 20 pages are worth the price you'll pay--trust me.  Heinemann has some great videos of Kylene and Bob talking a bit about the book as well as some great Sneak Previews to give you a sense of what to expect.

Text Features vs. Text Structures

In fifth grade, we move past identifying text features in nonfiction, to looking at text structures -- the way the author has organized the information in the book.

For a refresher course on text features, my go-to book is:

Bloody Horned Lizards

This book has a table of contents, headings, text boxes, pictures and captions, key words in bold, an index, and a glossary. (As a bonus extra, it has a narrative lead, in case you collect nonfiction books with a variety of leads!)

Here is my stack of mentor texts for text structures:

A Chicken Followed Me Home!

Question/Answer structure

Colors of the Wind

Narrative structure

How To Swallow a Pig

How-To structure

A Friend for Lakota

Sequential structure

Lillian's Right to Vote

Organized around the metaphor of a mountain

Tree of Wonder

Organized numerically (bonus -- gorgeously written descriptive lead)

The Most Amazing Creature in the Sea 

Compare/Contrast structure

Living Color

Organized by colors

Snakes 

Main Idea/Detail structure

Trout are Made of Trees

Sequential structure (tells the end first, then goes back and tells the steps)

A Place For Turtles

Cause/Effect structure

W is for Wind

ABC structure

Cowboy Up!

Poem + Information structure

2 Nonfiction Picture Books

I am looking for more informational picture books to read aloud early in the school year. I am looking for books that might spark some notebook writing as we launch writing notebooks. I found 2 that I think will work out great for this early in the year.

A Chicken Followed Me Home! Questions and Answers About a Familiar Fowl by Robin Page
The premise of this book is that if a chicken followed you home, what would you wonder? Each page spread focuses on one of those questions and then gives readers an answer about chickens in general and then about the specific chicken that is following you home. This is a great Q and A format and it will also be good to talk about wonderings and questions you have throughout the day or about specific topics.  I love Robin Page's work and she is an author I want my students to know.

I'm Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton is one that will make kid laugh. The author hates spiders and is trying to love them. But she just wants to squish them (and she does squish a few). But as she learns more about spiders, she starts to realize they aren't so bad. A fun way to learn about spiders and a fun type of writing to try in notebooks early in the year, I think.