Rubrics

-scoring guide
-assess student writing-can be used for other subjects as well
- 4 to 6 levels rating studend (high to low)
-same concepts are given at each level with varying degrees of achievement
-students are given rubric at beginning of assignment to know what is expected of them
-teachers score students' work while they're reading it or just after reading it
-the more levels available on the rubric, the more chances to see student growth
-helps students become better writers because there are clear expectations for them to work toward
-students can use rubrics to examine their rough drafts and make improvements for their final drafts
-makes grading easier for the teacher
-lots of ready made rubrics available, but make sure they are appropriate for your students

Steps for using rubrics:
1. pick rubric
2. explain rubric to students
3. kids use them on their own writing
4. teacher uses to assess writing
5. conference and set goals

Grand Conversation

Grand conversatons are students centered discussions as compared to teacher led conversations. The students are able to support their views with examples from the stories, make connections, question ideas, reflecting on their feelings in the connection with the story. They make connections; self to text, text to other texts, and text to world.

Students do not raise their hands, they take turns speaking, and they encourage their classmates to participate.

This is a two part process. Student centered and teacher , responding to the students , asking questions and providing information. Part two, the teacher focuses the student's attention on one or two topics thath they did not cover during the first discussion

Open-mind portrait

Device for character analysis:

To create:

"1) Make a portrait of the character.
2) Cut out the "portrait" and "thinking" pages.
3) Design the "thinking" pages.
4) Share the completed open-mind portraits" (Text page 449)

Cover page is a drawn picture of face of the character. Subsequent thinking pages are used to show character's thinking during events of the story. All pages are cut to be the shape of the characters head.

Readers Theatre

Summary- Readers theatre provides the students the opportunity to become the characters presented in the story. Students must interpret the characters emotions and feelings and be able to make connections to the character in the story that they are portraying. The students must present the content through their voice and vocal and facial expressions. The students are exposed to a variety of literature that allows them to interpret the text and have a better understanding of the text. It is a valuable resource for english language learners because it allows them to read the text in small chunks and gain more experience reading the text aloud. This will help increase their reading fluency. Students take an active role in choosing their parts, therefore increasing their motivation in the learning process.

Steps
1. Select a script
2. Rehearse the reading
3. Stage the reading

Story Boards

• Easy to make
• Cut apart pictures and text from books
• Glue pages on tag board
• Laminate for student use
• Use to sequence events
• Helps students visualize
• Good way for EL students to retell story
• Helps to review beginning, middle, and end
• Story structure
• Word wall word activities
• Helps them study the illustrations better
• Partners can work together on a detailed poster of the events of a chapter

Learning Logs

• Small content journals
• Student created, with notebook paper stapled between tag board (or laminated construction paper?!)
• Use one small journal for each unit
  
• Students can use journals to include notes on topic, drawings, vocabulary words, free writes, quickwrites and summaries.
  
• Teachers can read and reply in the journal
• End of unit, students can reflect on own learning.
  

Interactive Writing

Interactive Writing: Definition

• students work with teacher to write text on chart paper
• teacher guides writing word by word
• students take turns writing familiar words, adding punctuation, and spacing
• students reinforce writing by copying on individual boards or paper
• students read and re-read with classmates or on their own
• teacher corrects student mistakes (misspelled words, grammar, punctuation)

Interactive Writing: Application

• classroom news
• pre-reading predictions
• retelling stories
• thank you letters
• reports
• math story problems
• group writing

Interactive Writing: Differentiation Examples

• K - practice writing letters/whole words
• 1st - practice writing entire words
• 2nd - whole group stories

Interactive Writing: Objective

• concepts about print
• letter-sound relationships
• spelling patterns
• handwriting concepts
• punctuation skills
• conventions (spelling, grammar, etc.)
• organization
• writing fluency

Reading Logs

Reading logs are journals in which students write their reactions and opinions about books they are reading or listening to the teacher read aloud. The students could list words, illustrate, diagrams/thinking maps, and story elements (character, setting, background, etc.) in these journals.

Sometimes students could choose what they write about or they could respond to questions or prompts that the teacher has prepared. For example, the teacher would instruct students to draw and write about your favorite character in the story that was just read aloud. Students would follow three steps: 1. Prepare reading logs (teacher supplied and binded), 2. Write/draw entries, and 3. Share entries with other students. Obviously Kindergartners could not write in single or multiple sentences at the beginning of the year, therefore they would illustrate their thoughts through pictures.

Writing Groups

Writing groups are used during the revising stage of the writing process to help with CONTENT only! This activity is not used for mechanical errors. The process is a read aloud process so that the students do not get bogged down with the mechanical errors present in the writings. This process MUST BE MODELED in order for it to be successful. The writing groups form after 2 or more students have completed their rough drafts. During the group time students will complete the following steps with EVERY member of the group.

1.Read drafts: only the reader looks at the paper (does not focus on mechanics!)

2. Make Compliments: The listeners offer the reader compliments on the content of his or her story.

3. Ask Clarifying Questions: The writers ask the listeners if there are any spots that they should redo. This might be a time for the writer to ask for help on predetermined areas (writers block).

4. Others offer Suggestions: The listeners provide the reader with helpful tips to improve their writing. (It is helpful to create charts of examples of good ways to offer suggestions).

5. Repeat the process: Steps 1-4 will be repeated with all group members.

6. Make plans for revising!

Anticipation Guides

Anticipation Guides are pre-reading activities designed to activate students' prior knowledge about a book's topic. It can be used for either naraitive or expository text. The idea is to prepare statements concerning the topic. A few statements need to be true and a few false. Before reading, students choose which statements are true and which ones are false. After reading, students decide whether they were correct in there thoughts or not.

Procedures:
1 Identify several major concepts related to the reading assignment.
2 Develop a list of 4 to 6 statements.
3 Discuss the anticipation guide.
4 Read the text.
5 Discuss each statement again.