Story Elements

Last week we were working on story elements. Now of course we talk about these things with ALL of our stories that we read, but this week was spent really focusing only on Character, Setting, Problem, and Solution. So I started thinking about what things I could do that my kids would be engaged in, all doing something similar, have choice, AND differentiate. Yep, you read that right... I wanted to get that ALL into one lesson. And I think I successfully did. We started using this freebie I found on TpT from Jessica. We used the question cards that fit with our week and made an anchor chart about Tops and Bottoms (that was our story last week). 

We are also working on speaking and writing in complete sentences so while we were figuring out the story elements to Tops and Bottoms I made students respond in complete sentences and I wrote what they said. The next thing we did was split into groups. Each group was able to choose which story they wanted to work on next. Three of my four groups picked Prudy's Problem (I don't blame them...I LOVE that story). I had one group that all but one child wanted to do Prudy...that one boy wanted to do Alexander Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday. The rest of the boys in the group agreed to switch so that he didn't have to work alone (LOVE my kids and how they work together). What my students didn't know is that I had them in differentiated groups. There was one boy who wanted to join the other boys with Alexander. Reading level wise- he wasn't in that group, but he is close and I figured I should push him and I let him join. Students went to lunch and I got chart paper ready for each group. When they came back they were so excited to get started. 

Each group opened up their books to their stories and got to working. Now I am sure some people might be thinking, ok, you have them in leveled groups but they are all doing the same thing... how is that differentiated? Here is how I did it. My high group was not given ANY slack. I expected amazing sentences with proper capitalization and punctuation and a well written summary. My intervention group worked with me where I scaffolded instruction to work at their pace and level. Each student in my group got a chance to write and while they were answering and writing we were talking about how to give me answers in complete sentences, capital letters, punctuation, and spelling sounds. This group was VERY capable of giving me the correct answers, but the writing and sentences structure was our goal together.

Once everyone was finished, we hung up their posters and each group got a chance to share. I told them that every person in the group HAD to speak. Even my little ELL girl who is afraid to speak because she doesn't speak English had to say SOMETHING. I worked with her getting her to say "The title of our story is Prudy's Problem" and everyone was proud of her. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my class community?! They clap, cheer, etc for each other ALL THE TIME!)

With three groups out of four working on Prudy's Problem, we had a lot of similarities. We talked about WHY the answers were the same and how some things could be slightly different even though they were talking about the same story (ie more than one problem or interpretatin of the problem).

This was the first time they did any kind of group presentation and I realized a few things. 1. They LOVED it. 2. It meets speaking and listening standards of common core as well as our literature standards. 3. We need to work on using a teacher voice and facing the audience when we speak. Overall, I thought it was a good lesson and my kids were truly engaged for every single minute!

We had a General visit...

and by General... I mean the one and only General Ization. Never heard of him? It's ok me either until this year (and if I am the only one who has never heard of him, keep that to yourself so I don't feel like a big loser). So who is he? Well he is a HUGE help in teaching about generalizations. Every year my kids struggle with this concept. It is very difficult and I have truly never found anything to really help them get it. Until this year.

Amanda at One Extra Degree (surely you know of her... and if not, get out from under that rock and get to her blog quick- it is amazing!) has created an amazing generalizations pack. I started teaching the skill with a powerpoint (not found in Amanda's pack) and we talked about clue words that a sentence was a generalization. We talked about how a generalization applies to most or all of a population, but I did tell them to be careful about using words such as ALL and NONE (all children like chocolate... I have a niece that will very nicely tell you you are wrong if you make that generalization). We came up with examples and decided if they were good generalizations or not.

The next day was when we had a visit from the General. I told the students that he had seen us at recess and made some general statements. I started with giving them ONE example of a general statement he made about kids at recess. And after that... they were on a roll... just take a look at the picture below.

The last thing we did was to become Generalization Gurus... it seriously could just be how cute the kids are on the cover of Amanda's file but I had to just use that term. Students were split into random groups and given a marker (the marker traveled with them so that we knew which group wrote the sentences on the posters). They started at one poster and wrote as many generalizations as they could come up with. I think I gave them 4 minutes at each poster. When time was up, they rotated. They did a total of 4 different posters. When we finished, I gathered up all the posters and ready some examples and even some non examples from the posters. Students identified which ones were not generalizations and explained WHY they were not. (And we told the group that wrote that one "it's cool" because it is completely acceptable to make mistakes as long as you are trying your hardest.) For example, on the spiders poster someone write spiders are scary... we talked about how this is an opinion and isn't something that can be supported by evidence and that to make a generalization you "kinda hafta have proof".

We played generalization scoot using the amazing Rachel Lynette's task cards. I have a few sets of her task cards and I use them as assessments all the time. The kids look at it as a game/challenge to get them done quickly AND correctly (which is helping with keeping on pace when we have timed tests) and as I was walking around I noticed they were doing really well! I was so proud!!

If you need to teach generalizations and want to pull your hair out every time like I do... check out both of those mentioned activities because they are positively amazing. I have never seen the light bulb turn on so quickly with this skill like it did with these kids!

Also, I forgot I had some pictures of my class working on my Snowy Suffixes unit, so I added those last night. Check them out here. And don't forget to enter my giveaway for the most amazing pencil sharpener here.