April brings us the annual celebration of Earth Day.  While it’s easy to incorporate Earth Day into subjects like science, it’s harder in Reading.  Fortunately, there’s some inspiration over at Scholastic by blogger Rhonda Stewart.  Read what she has to say below or on the Scholastic website.

Last December, my post, "Close Reading Using How The Grinch Stole Christmas," was well received. Thank you for the positive feedback and support. As a matter of fact, it went over so well that I thought that I would try it again using another Dr. Seuss text. The Lorax is perfect for April to help celebrate Earth Day. This timeless story still resonates with the message of taking good care of where you live, and not exploiting your resources. And besides, kids of all ages love this story.

I have been noticing that in one of my classes I am not getting the deeper thinking that I would like to see in the students' reading responses. They use sticky notes to help track their reading. They have a weekly reading response menu that they can use to select the prompt to write to. They turn and talk with partners during reading workshop. They work in small groups. Even with all of this support, I feel that their responses need to be richer. I would really like to see deeper connections being made from their reading or as we know it from Bloom’s taxonomy: analyzing the text.

Back to Square One

Usually when I feel that something is not working or just needs to be tweaked, I will consult with my students. I will present the scenario to them and ask for suggestions. I want them to be a part of the process, and they love having the opportunity to express their opinions. At times they offer some pretty good alternatives, which are not difficult to implement. This time, once again, they eagerly responded. The general consensus was this:

• They loved the option of choice. They wanted to be able to select the prompt to respond to.

• They wanted some type of reminder as they were reading, such as a bookmark, to help keep them focused. They thought that this would be very useful.

• They felt that the prompts should be rotated. I asked for elaboration. The message that they conveyed was, would it be possible to mix the prompts up instead of the same menu that they had at the beginning of the year? This really got me thinking. I could angle the prompts so that they either represent the unit taught, the applicable Common Core State Standards, or even better, my students could create a menu of reading response prompts instead of them always being generated by me.

Creating the Bookmark

When creating the bookmark, the emphasis was on keeping it simple and easy to use. We used the reading comprehension strategies PDF as our guide for which strategies to select from. Students came up with symbols to represent each strategy. Using an index card, students copied the strategy and symbol. To ensure a long life for their bookmarks, we laminated them.

Close Reading With the Bookmark

I wanted to have a test run to work out any bugs that may occur. Working with a small group of students, we began our trial run and got right to work. (Hint: It helps to have a fun/engaging text to use for the trial run. It is a great ingredient for success.) We reviewed The Lorax. Students had a copy of the bookmark and pages of the text. Students were informed that they were going to complete two readings of their text. They followed these steps:

1. Read to get a sense of the text
2. Reread using one of the strategies (Making Connections, Visualizing, Asking Questions, Inferring, Determining Importance, Synthesizing)
3. After reading, jot your thinking on sticky notes
4. After jotting, what are you noticing about the text? What does it make you think?

Take a look at a sampling of their responses. The second image highlights just the response from the text.

An added benefit of close reading is the rich discussion that the students have regarding the text. They make the revelation that more than one reading of a text makes way for better insight to what is going on in a story.

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