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Teacher Tools
Whether you are a classroom or preservice teacher, teacher educator, content leader, department chair, or administrator, the materials below can assist you in implementing the practices presented in the video clip.
Book Clubs
Book Clubs (Raphael) and Literature Circles (Daniels) have developed as effective ways to organize student discussion around multiple texts.
To learn more about book clubs, you may want to read "Book
Club Plus: A Conceptual Framework To Organize Literacy Instruction"
by Taffy E. Raphael, Susan Florio-Ruane, and MariAnne George,
which appeared in Language Arts in 2001. You can read
the full text of this article online.
Permission to reprint this article came from the National
Council of Teachers of English.
Using Bookmarks
Many teachers use bookmarks as a way of supporting student
envisionment building. Ms. Namba uses a simple generic form
that she hands out with each new novel, encouraging students
to use it as a place to record observations.
Golden Lines
Ms. Namba has adopted the term "golden lines" to refer to powerful
quotations from the literature that she asks students to identify
for group discussion. As described in Katherine L. Schlick
Noe and Nancy J. Johnson's Getting Started With Literature
Circles (Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon, 1999. ISBN 0-926842-97-8)
golden lines "automatically provide interesting discussion
material. Many students find it much easier to select something
the author said than to come up with their own reactions. Therefore,
golden lines are an easy and effective strategy for gathering
information to discuss" (48). To help students remember to
bring such passages to their discussions, Ms. Namba has included
golden lines on the bookmarks
she gives them to guide their reading.
Consensus Board
The Consensus Board is a strategy to help students identify
discussion issues for their next meeting. After one discussion
meeting, they are given a blank Consensus Board form, and asked
to spend 10 minutes recording their thoughts and personal connections
to the novel. After sharing what they have written with their
group members, the group reaches a consensus about the one
issue they wish to discuss during their next meeting. They
write this issue in the central rectangle on the Consensus
Board for ready reference later.
Responding Visually to Literature
Many language arts teachers have come intuitively to use visual activities to support their literature instruction. Non-verbal activities provide an opportunity for students to develop and display their growing understanding and enjoyment of the literature in informal ways as they develop visual representations of their thinking.
In his preface to Phyllis Whitin's Sketching Stories, Stretching Minds: Responding Visually to Literature (for the complete citation, see "Additional Resources" in the Library Guide), Jerome Harste reminds us that "literacy is much more than reading and writing" (x). He tells us that literacy is "the process by which we mediate the world" which "means to create sign systems-mathematics, art, music, dance, language"-which "act as lenses that permit us better to understand ourselves and our world" (x).
When we take what we know from one sign system and represent it in another-as when we take a written text and represent it graphically-we are using transmediation, a process that "is both natural and basic to literacy" (x). Such transmediation has enormous value in the classroom. As students resee, they rethink. Rethinking, they understand in fresh ways, and their pleasure grows with their developing insights.
For less-able readers, the very act of focusing on a brief passage or scene and doing what more skilled readers seem to do invisibly helps them develop the visualization powers to process texts effectively. Not only are they developing their understanding of a specific text, they are expanding their skill as readers.
Sketch to Stretch
Based on ideas developed by Phyllis Whitin and presented in
her book Sketching Stories, Stretching Minds: Responding
Visually to Literature, the basic premise behind Sketch
to Stretch is that creating a visual based on a literary
work stretches student thinking, helping them to see the text
in new ways.
Sketch to Stretch Samples from Ms. Namba's students
A Sketch to Stretch is not meant to be a literal representation
of a scene from the text, but rather a graphic interpretation
of a connection the reader makes between text and self. Many
of the Sketch
to Stretch drawings presented here have no direct link
to the text that inspired them. Only by reading (or listening
to) the youngsters' explanation of his work can others understand
the connection being made.
Assessment and Evaluation: Some Useful Principles
The terms assessment and evaluation are often
used as synonyms. Distinguishing between them can be helpful
as you plan instruction. Assessment means looking at what students
can do in order to determine what they need to learn to do
next. That is, assessment, whether of individual students or
an entire group, occurs as students are engaged in the act
of learning in order to inform instruction. Typically assessment
is holistic, often recorded simply as "credit" or "no credit."
Two assessment tools — Book
Club Observation Notes and Book
Club Participation Group Assessment — that Ms. Namba
has developed illustrate how simple checklists can help busy
teachers keep track of student performances.
Evaluation occurs after a concept or skill has been taught and practiced and is typically scaled, indicating the level of achievement or degree of competence a student has attained.
Many teachers ask students to complete self-assessment or self-evaluation
forms as a way of foregrounding important concepts. Ms. Namba
asks students to complete a Book
Club Discussion Self-Assessment to help them think about
their individual roles in the group discussion. Additionally,
she has them assess themselves as a group, using the Book Club
Discussion Group Self-Assessment. Completing the Book Club
Project Self-assessment prepares students for their final evaluation
conference with Ms. Namba.
Using Rubrics
A rubric is a set of criteria for assessment or evaluation.
Rubrics can be designed to assess single tasks (such as a written
assignment or a unit project) or several tasks collected in
a portfolio. Teachers find that helping students become familiar
with what it takes to do well on a task (the qualities included
in the highest level of the rubric) improves their understanding
of the components of a more sophisticated response. Student
thinking and writing typically improves as a result. In addition
to providing students with rubrics for self-assessment, Ms.
Namba uses them herself when evaluating student work. Her Journal
Response Rubric is an example of a rubric that she finds
helpful.
Text Pairings
As you plan literature experiences for your students, consider offering text pairings. Some teachers like to introduce students to a number of books by the same author. Others try to find books with similarities in theme or content. Books that have received awards and appear to be developing into contemporary classics are also favored choices. No list of suggestions can be complete or can address every criterion. However, the following list of texts may help you choose titles to complement the ones used in this lesson plan:
For The Great Gilly Hopkins
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Jacob I Have Loved by Katherine Paterson
For Just Juice
Nory Ryan's Song by Patricia Reilly Giff
Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse
The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Witness by Karen Hesse
For Maniac Magee
Tangerine by Edward Bloor
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Holes by Louis Sachar
Knots in My Yo-Yo String: The Autobiography of a Kid by Jerry Spinelli
Crash by Jerry Spinelli
Fourth Grade Rats by Jerry Spinelli
For The Pinballs
In My Own Words: Moon and I by Betsy Byars
Coast to Coast by Betsy Byars
The Not-Just-Anybody Family by Betsy Byars
Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
For War With Grandpa
Hello My Name Is Scrambled Eggs by Jamie Gilson
Kevin Corbett Eats Flies by Patricia Hermes
Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith
Jelly Belly by Robert Kimmel Smith
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