As my Book Club students grasped text-to-self connections, it was time to move to text-to-world. To help them understand this, I created a PowerPoint/Google Presentation and walked through it with them. Continue reading
Text-to-World Connections
Standard 2
“Piano Lessons” – Close Reading & Question Set
Ahhh…close reading passages, a necessary evil. Students aren’t big fans of close reading, but these mini-readings are important for their skill building, especially if there is a set of questions that are relevant to the skills they are practicing. Continue reading
Monster in the Barn
For Book Club, I’m always looking for good resources to help my students make connections to their reading. I came across this great source from ReadWorks, and I created two sets of questions to correspond and help with text-to-self and text-to-world connections! Continue reading
A House, A Home
After reading “House on Mango Street,” the first section in the book, this is a great way to help students visualize the Mango Street house and compare/contrast it to their own. Continue reading
Integrating Hunger Games Movie Clips
My eighth graders finished the Hunger Games today. Boy, did I forget how heart-wrenching the ending of the first book was! In addition to the Character Symbol activity I had them working on, I also wanted to integrate the movie in some way, so I used YouTube clips and a discussion post on Google Classroom to enhance and deepen student understanding of the end of the book. Continue reading
Peer Reading
Okay, I thought. We’ll see how this goes. I stood at the front of the class. “Today we’re going to finish the book. I’d like you to find a partner of your choice and read this final section, ‘Afterward’ aloud.” Continue reading
Seeing Through My Students’ Eyes
In my sophomore Honors English class, I assigned a pop quiz over chapters 3 and 4 in To Kill a Mockingbird. As I went to grade the quizzes, I saw that one of my students didn’t hand in a quiz–and she was in class! I chalked it up to the fact that she probably hadn’t read, and when I saw her next, I told her I didn’t get a quiz from her. “I couldn’t see the board,” she said simply. Continue reading
