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.