Story Elements

After covering the elements of nonfiction, I moved onto story elements. I chose to focus on characters, setting, problem, solution, plot, and theme. This is the anchor chart I used to introduce the concepts.

The pictures I used on the anchor chart can be found at: http://www.teachingblogaddict.com/2012/08/teacher-featurea-year-of-many-firsts.html. Students glued a copy of the anchor chart into their reader's notebooks under the tab "charts." This way students could refer to the chart anytime that they needed it. I loved seeing kids going back to their charts without any prompting!

Folktales are one of my favorite genres for teaching story elements. They usually have very clear problems, solutions, and themes. This also gave us a chance to discuss the genre and add a tally mark to our genre tally list! Beth Newingham has a great "genre overview" handout and "genre tally sheet." (http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2009/11/readers-notebook) My students and I add a tally mark for everything that we read. It is a great way to continuously teach and review genres.

For this lesson, I used the folktale "Papa's New Pants" from an old edition of Highlights magazine. I found the story on www.infohio.org. In this story, Papa buys a pair of pants that need hemming. Everyone in his family is too busy to help him hem his pants. Eventually his family feels guilty and each one of them hems his pants without the others knowing. His pants end up way too short! Then the family works together and makes the pants into shorts. The kids really loved this story.

After reading and discussing the short story, students answered the questions: What kind of family does Papa have? How do you know? in the writing section of their reader's notebooks. Then we completed a story map together.

Sorry for the glare! Lamination and fluorescent lights do not mix well! We went through each element for "Papa's New Pants" and added them to the chart using post-it notes. You have probably seen charts like this all over Pinterest! At this point, students referred back to the anchor chart in their reader's notebooks if they needed help.

Author's Purpose

This is a lesson I did with my third graders on author's purpose. With the anchor chart, I introduced the three main author's purposes: inform, entertain, persuade. Students glued a copy of the anchor chart into their reader's notebooks. On future days, students referred to the anchor chart to refresh their memories. I like to encourage students to use their resources to find the answers to their questions.

Together we identified the author's purpose for last week's informational text. (to inform) Then, I read aloud: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. This book provided a great example of the author's purpose persuade. Together we completed the author's purpose graphic organizer for this book. The free graphic organizer can be found here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Open-Ended-Authors-Purpose-Graphic-Organizer

The next day, we read Jimmy's Boa and the Big Splash Birthday Bash by Trinka Hakes Noble. After making predictions and reading/discussing the text, we completed the author's purpose graphic organizer for the story. (entertain) For their reasoning, students explained that the book was a story with characters and a plot. Also, this book was funny and clearly meant to be entertaining! When finished, students completed a written response in their reader's notebooks about whether they think the narrator exaggerated the events. Again, students must support their thinking!

Nonfiction Text Features

As an intervention teacher I work with a variety of grades in small groups.  With these lessons, I tried to work with grades 3-5 on the elements of nonfiction. The activities remain similar, but the texts are at the appropriate levels for the students in each group. To preassess, I had students brainstorm a list of nonfiction elements they knew. I wanted to see what I was working with. Then, I shared my anchor chart with the students:

I chose to focus on heading, table of contents, bold print, captions, diagrams, index, and glossary for the anchor chart. I took a picture of the anchor charts and students put them in their reader's notebooks. Now the chart is there for future reference. The graphics for the chart came from: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonfiction-Text-Features-Posters-Free

To begin with, each grade level read a short nonfiction article. One of my favorite places to find articles is: http://www.infohio.org/ER/secure/EBSCOsearchasaurus.asp. Hopefully your school has a username and password! My fifth graders read a Scholastic News article about telepresence robots used in schools. The fourth grade group read a different Scholastic News article about robots designed with animal characteristics. My third graders read a Scholastic News article about the metamorphosis of frogs. With each article we began with an overall question to guide our reading. For example: What are telepresence robots and how are they being used in schools? We recorded this question in our reader's notebooks and drafted a response together when we had completed the reading. Once finished, we went back into our articles and found examples of the different nonfiction text features and cut/pasted them in our  nonfiction text feature books. (found at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Nonfiction-Text-Features-Book)

The pages include the name of the nonfiction text feature, an example, and a written description of the text feature. These text features and explanations match the anchor chart. Once finished, we continued working on the nonfiction text feature books using leveled books from the book room.

Welcome!!

Welcome to my blog! I am an intervention teacher working with grades K-5. This is my first attempt at blogging. I am hoping to share ideas and become part of a larger community of educators. Take a look around and share your comments!