Thursday, March 22, 2012

Members

Theresa Asfoury
Beth Borgna
Sharon Camp
Michele Hammond
Patrick Patterson
January Pratt

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Final Report

Observational Data:
  • Student engagement: think/pair/share; individual thinking and sharing; whole group thinking and sharing; reading and rereading text; writing on paper; writing on whiteboards
  • Anecdotal: "this is fun"; "this makes you think"; "I'm tired from all of the thinking"; amazing what kind of thinking the children come up with; paragraph 3 question was the hardest for the children--wanted to name the shapes of the snowflakes instead of the factors that determine their shape
Constructivist Learning:
  • Thru the use of think/pair/share the students were able to work together to construct their own knowledge.  For each question the students were actively involved in discussions of the the answers to the questions and how the answers were reached.  In one class, the children's immediate answer to the question: Do ALL children know that these are things you could do in snow? was that of course children know what to do in snow.  But through discussions with one another they realized that not all children live in areas that have snow.  The children constructed their knowledge by talking with one another.  They encountered something new and had to reconcile it with their previous ideas and experiences. 
  • End of the close read reflection discussions enabled the students to reflect upon the activity and discuss how their understanding of snowflakes and close reads in general had changed. 
Students engaged in 21st Century Skills:
  • Critical thinking and problem solving (thinking in depth about the text and questions)
  • Communicating and Collaborating (working with classmates and sharing with whole group)
  • Flexibility and Adaptability
  • Social and Cross-cultural Interaction
  • Productivity and Accountability
  • Leadership and Responsibility
NYS Common Core Standards: 
  • Reading: Key Ideas and Details; Craft and Structure; Responding to Literature
  • Writing: Text Types and Purposes; Production and Distribution of Writing; Responding to Literature
  • Speaking and Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration; Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
In the future to assess our students we plan on using our school district's writing rubric to assess our students' close read writing.  We did not use the rubric for this close read because we did the writing as a shared writing.  We decided to do this because it was the children's first exposure to a close read and all that pertains to it.  


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

March 7 Meeting

During our final meeting we discussed how our first close read went.  We each followed the same basic steps:

  • students read independently
  • teacher reads aloud
  • questions 1, 2, and 3 correlated with paragraph 1
  • question 4 correlated with paragraph 2
  • questions 5 and 6 correlated with paragraph 3
  • question 7 correlated with paragraph 4
Each teacher did the above in her own manner.  One teacher had the students discuss the questions with partners and the teacher wrote the sentences on the Smartboard.  The students copied those sentences on their individual papers.  One teacher had discussions whole group and in partners and then the class worked together to create the written piece together.  One teacher had the students discuss in pairs, whole group, and individually analyzing.  The students then wrote sentences on whiteboards and then one sentence was chosen to put on chart paper as a whole group writing.

Some of the children complained about having to read the same text over and over again, but in the end they were glad that they did because the details included in the writing needed to come from the article.

February 23 Meeting

Second Grade (beginning of year)
Unit:   
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Student Learning Summary
Students build a deeper understanding that as you investigate things, you learn more specific details about things.  It may even change your understanding or beliefs about that topic.
Text:
Know About Snow (level ?)
reading task:
writing task:
discussion task:
vocabulary task:
Text Selection (10 factors) See planning guide
Worthwhile: yes
Rigor: yes
Authentic literacy: yes
Power Standards:
Reading Informational:

Writing:

Listening/speaking:

Language: 

Focus Goals from - Continuum of Literacy Learning – Level ?
Endurance: yes
Leverage: yes
Readiness: yes







Day 1 Activities:
1.       Teacher introduces the text and purpose of the task
2.       Students read Know About Snow independently (students may annotate text)
3.       Teacher then reads the text out loud to the class and students follow along in the text (students can add to their annotation)
4.       Teacher asks the class a set of guiding questions (rereading book with students after each question to prompt and support them) and tasks about the text
5.       Teacher leads a shared writing modeling how to write an argumentative writing sample based on the culminating activity.  
Central Concern:
Portion of text:
guiding questions and tasks:
Students are involved in turn and talk discussions and whole group discussions with each question.  Students/teachers reread the book one more time after each question to guide students in their thinking    With teacher support, the students answer the questions.

Q1 – Name four things from the first paragraph the author shares that ‘we’ could do in snow.
    ANSWER:

Q2: Do ALL children know that these are things you could do in snow?
    ANSWER:

Q3:  What words does the author use to prove how he feels about snow?
    ANSWER: 

Q4 – The author writes “before then.”  What does ‘before then’ mean and/or tell us?
    ANSWER:

Q5 – List three factors that determine the shape of a snowflake.  (possible follow-up question - what helped people come to this conclusion?)
    ANSWER:

Q6 – What did people learn once they knew about the shape of the snowflakes?
    ANSWER: 

Q7 – According to paragraph four, how does the author suggest you could investigate snowflakes more?
   ANSWER:
Culminating Activity:
Students will respond to the following question as a whole group.  Teacher will guide their proof referring to the article Know About Snow.  The writing will be to the rigor of the second grade standards according to appendix C of the CCLS.  Future close reads should transition to students independently writing to this rigor.

THEME: Investigations
Option 2:  Defend whether things need to be investigated to learn more about them.  Use evidence from this article to support your claim.

February 2 Meeting

After meeting with George to discuss the NYS Teaching Standards, Constructivist Learning, and 21st Century Skills, we continued to discuss what our overarching theme should be.  We designed the following:


Second Grade (beginning of year)
Unit:   
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Student Learning Summary
Text:
Know About Snow (level ?)
reading task:
writing task:
discussion task:
vocabulary task:
Text Selection (10 factors) See planning guide
Worthwhile: yes
Rigor: yes
Authentic literacy: yes
Power Standards:
Reading Informational:

Writing:

Listening/speaking:

Language: 

Focus Goals from - Continuum of Literacy Learning – Level ?
Endurance: yes
Leverage: yes
Readiness: yes







Day 1 Activities:
1. Teacher introduces the text and students read Know About Snow independently (students may annotate text)
2. Teacher then reads the text out loud to the class and students follow along in the text (students can add to their annotation)
3. Students __________________________________________________
4. Teacher asks the class a set of guiding questions (rereading book with students after each question to prompt and support them) and tasks about the text
       5. Students revise their _________________________________
       6. Teacher leads a shared writing modeling how to write an argumentative writing sample based on the culminating activity.  
Central Concern:
Portion of text:
guiding questions and tasks:
Students initially write/sketch

Students are involved in turn and talk discussions and whole group discussions with each question.  Students/teachers reread the book one more time after each question to guide students in their thinking    With teacher support, the students answer the questions.

Q1 –
    ANSWER:

Q2:
    ANSWER:

Q3: 
    ANSWER: 
Culminating Activity:
Students will respond to the following question as a whole group.  Teacher will guide their proof referring to the article Know About Snow.  The writing will be to the rigor of the second grade standards according to appendix C of the CCLS.  Future close reads should transition to students independently writing to this rigor.


THEME: uniqueness

Option 1: Do things in nature need specific characteristics in order to be unique.  Use evidence from this article to prove your claim.


Option 2:  Defend whether things need to be investigated to determine whether they are unique or not.  Use evidence from this article to support your claim.

January 19 Meeting

Now that we had an article that we thought was a good candidate for a close read, we had to analyze it more closely to determine if it was rigorous enough and that it fit our curriculum needs.  The culminating question criteria is as follows:
  • claim
  • broad question that connects to the unit
  • analysis
We discussed the following:

  • How can something be unique?
  • Draw conclusions about uniqueness
  • What makes a snowflake unique? (weather, cold)
  • What makes Bentley unique?  
  • Are all things in nature unique?  Use evidence in this text to prove your answer.  
  • Do things in nature need specific characteristics to be considered unique?
  • Defend why all things in nature are unique.
  • Do things need to be investigated in order to determine if they are unique? 
We decided that the term unique can and should be explained up front.  
We needed to choose an overarching theme and have 1 or 2 guiding questions per paragraph to lead to the overarching question.  The questions need to have enough information to infer or draw conclusions.  We decided to think about the questions that we came up with and choose one at our next meeting.  The following was typed up:  


Book: (Level ?) Know About Snow by Mary Rose                                                Grade:  Second Grade
Summary:  the article shows how Bentley realized that each snowflake is unique because of the way each is made in nature.


Explicit Details:
Paragraph 1:
Things you can do with snow: roll, catch on tongues, throw, ski, sled, look at it
Traits of snow: cold, white, wonderful, beauty
Paragraph 2:
     Bentley photographed snowflakes in 1931 (published)
People didn’t realize snowflakes were crystals
Every snowflake is different
Paragraph 3:
Shape depends on: how cold, how much water in air, how hard wind blows
Look like stars, columns, plates, and bullets
Most often- freeze like a 6 pointed star
Shape of snowflake determines if it is light and fluffy – skiing type of snow, or thick and heavy – snowman type snow
Paragraph 4:
   How to mimic Bentleys collection of snowflakes: collect on dark colored object and use magnifying lens to look at them
Each snowflake is different

Implicit Details:
Paragraph 1:
Snow is fun
We = people
Paragraph 2:
    Photographer – photos were likely black and white and probably not as crisp as pictures of today
“before then” What does that tell us
unique

Paragraph 3:
Endless possibilities based off of combinations
Snow is affected by many factors
different types of snow determines how we play in it

Paragraph 4:
Another way to enjoy snow (collect and analyze it) 
Magnifying glass is needed because you won’t notice shape otherwise

Possible Theme(s):   (1) uniqueness leads to different uses (2)all things are created (3) our world is not what it always seems  (4) everything can be broken into smaller parts  (5) what is a scientist (6) passion leads to discovery (7) nature creates beauty (8) 

Considerations from the 10 Factors of Text Selection:
Genre and Form:     
Text Structure: focus on single idea – each paragraph has a different topic (not sequential)
Content:      
Themes and Ideas:   see above
Language and Literary Features:   opening is a riddle
Sentence Complexity
Vocabulary:    
Words: SNOW!
Illustrations or Art:    illustrations are supportive                  
Book and Print Features: )





January 9 Meeting

As a a group we pored over various magazines (National Geographic, Ranger Rick, Reading Comprehension books, etc) to find an appropriate article to use with the students for a close read.  We spent an hour and a half and finally chose the article "Know About Snow" by Mary Rose.  The article seemed to be of the rigor needed to use with our students.  It also seemed to correlate with the 2nd Grade NYS science curriculum, specifically weather.