0 Compare and Contrast Two or More Characters in a Story {Freebies Included}!

I'm back for the next part of our character development lesson using Verdi by Janell Cannon. For this lesson, I will be sharing how we used the book to compare and contrast two or more characters in a story, drawing on specific details from the text.

To read the first blog post in this series, and to grab the free Inferring Character Traits Graphic Organizer, click HERE. To check out my other blog post series on character development, click HERE and HERE!

Since our last lesson on inferring character traits through dialogue, my students learned that there are a number of different ways that an author reveals information about a character in a text. An author reveals information about a character through:

• physical traits (both explicit and inferred)
• actions
• thoughts
• dialogue
• interactions with other characters

Once my students had a solid understanding of characterization, we jumped right into comparing and contrasting. While rating and dating our understanding for our Student Data Tracking Binders, I quickly had students show me their level of understanding for comparing and contrasting. With a quick rate it/date it, I learned that my students had very little background knowledge on this concept. Not a big deal! A quick mini-lesson on comparing and contrasting did the trick! 

With this anchor chart, we discussed the terms compare and contrast. I guided students with the idea that authors create relationships between characters, settings, and events in a text by developing the interactions among story elements. Good readers can identify the relationships between story elements by comparing and contrasting them. 

While I love using venn diagrams, an even better tool (in my opinion) to compare and contrast in the upper grades is a double bubble thinking map. 

The reason I like using a double bubble thinking map is because it requires a bit more depth of thought by the students. I love that contrasting requires students to think in terms of point and counterpoint. I promise you they are extremely easy to use!

Some guiding questions that students need to keep in mind in order to compare and contrast and to help them construct their double bubble maps include: 

• What are the similarities and differences between these two things? 
• How are these two things alike and different? 
• Which similarities do you think are most important?
• Are there any details that are unique to one thing and not the other? 

Even though the standard calls for students to also compare and contrast settings and events in a text, for this lesson we only focused on characters. After re-reading Verdi an additional time, we worked together to construct our double bubble thinking map. 

Side note: color coding your double bubble thinking map is a great strategy for students that may need additional help, especially if this is the first time they are seeing it. I've included this as a freebie that you can grab at the end of this post. 

I think this is such a phenomenal visual that perfectly hits the standard on comparing and contrasting two characters. 

Even though we worked together as a class to fill out this double bubble, students also filled out their own.

Once we filled out the double bubble thinking maps, as a formative assessment, students wrote their own written responses to compare and contrast the two characters.

You can grab this free formative assessment and a free double bubble thinking map at the end of this post!

This formative assessment is a great way to quickly gauge your students' understanding of the standard. 

Throughout the rest of the week, students used double bubble thinking maps to compare and contrast the characters in their own self-selected texts. 

At the end of the week, I gave them their summative assessments to assess them on standard 5.RL.3 from my 5th Grade Common Core ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes. 

I had to get an extreme closeup of this answer because I have to say, I am pretty impressed with their responses!

On top of that, my teacher heart skipped a beat when I saw this on a student's reading passage! He was annotating the text without any prompting from me! Best day ever!

Check out these reading passages and assessments to use in your classroom HERE!

Grab a free copy of my Verdi formative assessment and color coded double bubble thinking map HERE!

Thanks for reading! 

Detail: Compare and Contrast Two or More Characters in a Story {Freebies Included}!

0 Student Data Tracking Binders Implementation Update and a Giveaway!

I just want to give my readers a quick heads up!

I have completely updated my Student Data Tracking Binder implementation blog post. You can read the updated post HERE.

I edited the post to make it even easier for you to implement in your classroom! It's a great system, and I have seen tremendous growth and intrinsic motivation from my students. I sometimes want to scream about them from a mountain top! :)

I am also currently working on updated binder covers that are in that post, so check back for those soon!

Lastly, for you blog readers that may not follow me on my Young Teacher Love Facebook page, I am giving two teachers the chance to win their grade level's Math and ELA Student Data Tracking Binder for free!

Head on over to my Young Teacher Love Facebook page to enter for the chance to win!  I will choose two winners by tonight!

Have a great Sunday!

Detail: Student Data Tracking Binders Implementation Update and a Giveaway!

0 Talking to Parents About the Common Core Standards

Many of you fabulous teachers have parent/teacher conferences coming up, and this is a great time to make some very important connections with parents. A question I receive quite often is, how do you explain the Common Core Standards to parents? That's such a great question! Let's face it, reading the standards isn't like reading The Hunger Games. Many of us get so busy trying to understand the standards, that we forget one of our important roles in making this implementation stick is helping our parents understand it too. The standards are here to stay, so it's important that we are all on board.

I've scoured the internet to find, what I believe, are some of the best resources for informing parents of the standards.

First up are some phenomenal videos that are super easy to understand. I recommend playing these at an open house, parent-teacher conference, or at an informational meeting night. You can even put the video on repeat on a large projector or a small TV screen at the entrance to your school. That way, as parents enter the building, they can watch these quick videos.

The first video gives a great explanations of the Common Core Standards. The author of the video gives permission to use this video any way you would like. This means you can even add it to your district's website!

This next video is a quick 30 second Public Service Announcement that was developed by the Council of the Great City Schools to increase public awareness and engagement of the Common Core State Standards. 

Next are some easy to understand printable flyers for parents. They are written for ELA and Math for grades kindergarten through high school, include an additional Spanish version (for those ELL families), and can be printed in both black and white and color! 

These Parents' Guide to Student Success Printable Flyers provide an organized overview of what your child will learn by the end of their academic year in both math and English language arts/literacy. 

Click here for the color versions, and click here for the black and white versions.

Here's a close up view of the 5th grade version: 

Below are printable Parent Roadmaps created by The Council of the Great City Schools:

These phenomenal resources provide guidance to parents about what their children will be learning and how they can support that learning in grades K-8. These Parent Roadmaps for each grade level also provide three-year snapshots showing how selected standards progress from year to year so that students will be college and career ready. Personally, this is my favorite part, because it's also super helpful for teachers!

Click here to grab all grade levels. The website that created these documents gives you permission to post these PDFs online, as long as you are posting for non-commercial use, and give them credit. This means, you can post these PDFs on your school district's website for parents and families to view! 

Here's a close up view of the 4th grade version: 

The videos, printable flyers, and parent roadmaps don't even scratch the surface of phenomenal materials for informing parents about the Common Core Standards. Below are some links to additional resources. Simply click on the text to be directed to each document or website. 

National PTA Parents' Guide to Student Success FAQ Document

NEA- 5 Facts: Making Sense of the Common Core Online Article

Education.com Article: A Parent's Guide to the Common Core Standards

What Can Parents do to Help Their Children PDF Document

Have a great week! 

Detail: Talking to Parents About the Common Core Standards

0 Walking Through Standards Based Grading: Part 3 and a *NEW* Reporting Tool!

Howdy blog world! I am back for part 3 of this standards based grading adventure (click here to read part 1 and click here to read part 2). Not only am I back to share the "HOW?" of standards based grading, but I'm also here to share with you an incredible reporting tool I created that I am so excited about!

Let's get down to business!

 I have broken down the how into four easy-to-understand parts:

First is content standards, which to many of us is the Common Core: 

The tough job of understanding what the standards say has been done for you. Click here to check out my assessments.

The next part is planning, creating, and implementing a curriculum:

The third part is assessments:

Click here to read Edutopia's article. 

The last part is probably my favorite. It's all about the reporting tool. How do we, as teachers, inform our students and their parents of their progress? How do we keep track of all of this data for ourselves as well? 

*Before I tell you about these reporting tools, please know that they are for ALL teachers. Not just teachers that use standards based grading! If you use traditional grading (i.e., A-F scale) you can use these also!

Click here to check out the 4th Grade version, click here to check out the 5th Grade version, and click here to check out the 3rd Grade version!

The great thing about these packs is that I have created them not only for teachers using standards based grading, but for ALL teachers. If you are using traditional grading and report cards you can use them too. I have also included pages in these packs to help you plan and group your students for small group instruction or RTI (response to intervention). 

Each pack contains all ELA and Math Common Core Standards. These puppies are each over 800+ pages and are text editable! This means that when you open up the PDF file, you can type right into the documents! Isn't that great? It will make my teacher data tracking and grading so much easier, and I even plan to use these as a checklist of the standards! Click the pictures below to check them out!

 

Each grade level pack comes with these different binder covers with room to type your name!

I've also included different sized binder spines to make your binders cute! {Very important!! ;)}

Here's a bit more information on these products, as well as ideas on how to use them!

Here are some pictures of the pages included in this pack! With this page below, the standards are written on top and color coded for each domain. There are two versions of this page, one says Pre-Assessment on top and the other says Post-Assessment on top. You can type or write your students' names on the document and either put their score or a check mark under Intervention, At Standard, or Enrichment depending on how well they did on their assessments.

With these pages below, all of the standards are written in number form on the top of the page (still color coded by domain). You can use this as a checklist or you can put students' final grades or assessment grades under the standards. This is great to look at when you need a quick snapshot of how students are doing on a particular standard. 

These pages below are great for reporting to parents! I plan to use these as report cards or progress reports throughout the year. Once again all of the domains are color coded for easy organization and the standards are written out for both parents and students to see.

How awesome is this page below?! You can keep track of all pre-assessments, assignments, formative assessments, and post-assessments for each student. You can also check a color coded box next to each assignment/assessment to quickly see how the student is doing with mastery of the standard, or to quickly place them in small groups for any intervention, re-teaching, or enrichment groups.

If you want to type the above page instead, I have it set up so that you can just click one of the colored boxes and it automatically puts in a check mark for you!

You can then take the above information, and use the color coded boxes to form your groups using this page below. These pages are also color coded by domain, and have the standards written on top. I plan to use these when forming my small groups for instruction or RTI groups. I typically have so many students going in and out of my class for interventions throughout the day, and so many adults that I need to communicate this info to, so this will help all of us stay organized.

Remember that all of these pages are text editable too. This means you just open up the PDF file and type away!

The pages I have shown you are only a small sample of these 800+ page packs! Click here to download a preview of my 3rd grade pack, click here to download the preview of my 4th grade pack and click here to download the preview of my 5th grade pack in order to see more of what's included!

For those of you that have been reading this standards based grading blog post series from the beginning, as promised, click here to grab all of the info in PDF form! This PDF also includes my cupcake analogy poster shown below!

Have a great day!

Detail: Walking Through Standards Based Grading: Part 3 and a *NEW* Reporting Tool!