5th
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Read-Aloud Annotations: Expectation and Reality
In this video series, Franki Sibberson’s fifth graders share their strategies for annotating the class read-aloud. In this installment, Lizzie uses her notebook to focus on expectations and reality for characters, especially when it comes to stereotypes.
Talking Through Characters
Melanie Meehan shares activities that help students talk about their characters before writing about them in a realistic fiction unit.
Read Aloud Annotations: Using Google Slides to Focus
In this video series, Franki Sibberson’s fifth graders share their strategies for annotating the class read-aloud, In this installment, Reagan uses Google Slides to focus her thoughts and analyze different characters.
Student-Centered Notes
Dana Murphy discovers that what works for one student doesn’t work for another when it comes to note-taking. She provides options and then hosts a gallery walk so everyone can discover what works best for them.
Read-Aloud Annotations: Thoughts to Themes
In this video series, Franki Sibberson’s fifth graders share their strategies for annotating the class read-aloud. In this installment, Stone uses Google Slides to record thoughts and tease out themes.
Read Aloud Annotations: Predictions
In this video series, Franki Sibberson’s fifth graders share their strategies for annotating the class read aloud. In this installment, Sharvari uses Google Slides with text boxes to record predictions and thinking.
Read Aloud Annotations: Characters and Intentions
In this video series, Franki Sibberson’s fifth graders share their strategies for annotating the class read aloud The Girl Who Drank the Moon. In this installment, Ben creates a graph in his notebook to record characters and intentions that are emerging in the story.
Alternatives to Graphic Organizers
Dana Murphy is dismayed by the ways graphic organizers can sometimes limit student creativity. She uses writing notebooks and a few other strategies to begin to wean her fourth graders from depending too much on organizers.
Read-Aloud Annotations: Notebook Predictions
In this video series, Franki Sibberson’s fifth graders share their strategies for annotating the class read aloud, The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Students have their choice of using notebooks or tech devices, and can pick any strategy that helps them make sense of the story. In this installment, Hannah shares her notebook where she highlights the setting and characters, as well as makes predictions.
Student-Led Minilession: Planning and Organizing Nonfiction Writing
Katie presents a student-led minilesson in Franki Sibberson’s fifth-grade class on organizing and planning nonfiction writing.
Forming Groups Using a Planner
Dana Murphy explains how her small-group planner is an essential tool for organizing groups in her fourth-grade classroom.
Getting Started with Strategy Lessons
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills describe how they help teachers move from guided reading to strategy groups in the upper elementary grades.
Digital and Disney: Conferring with Ben
It would be easy to zip quickly through a writing conference about a vacation story, especially one about a trip to Disney. In this video, Franki Sibberson slows down with Ben to explore how he is meeting his goal of adding descriptive language to writing, using digital tools to assist.
A Minilesson on Minilessons
Franki Sibberson leads a minilesson in her fifth-grade classroom to help students design their own lessons. Students also assess what goes into a high-quality minilesson.
Small Group: Creativity
Franki Sibberson pulls together a group of fifth graders to explore writing mentors together.
Student-Led Minilesson: Annotating Reading with Sticky Notes
Students can claim who they are as readers and writers by designing and presenting minilessons to their peers. In this week’s video, fifth grader Reagan from Franki Sibberson’s classroom presents a lesson on annotating reading with sticky notes.
Scaffolding Revision with a Mentor Text
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills show how to break down mentor texts into brief excerpts for step-by-step scaffolding of writers in the intermediate grades.
Exploring Dystopian Literature: Fifth-Grade Reading Conference
Katherine Sokolowski confers with Ian about The Giver, broadening his understanding of the text to consider other dystopian literature.
Bringing Multiple Texts and Perspectives into Teaching Point of View
Katherine Sokolowski finds her students are struggling to understand point of view. She takes a detour over a week with mentor texts, quick assists from favorite writers on Twitter, and practice sessions retelling Little Red Riding Hood to teach the concept.
Detour Texts
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan explain the concept of “detour texts”—picture books to use as mentor texts in the intermediate grades to illustrate complex literary elements. They also share three of their favorite new children’s books to use as detours.
Thoughtful Read Aloud Structures
Franki Sibberson shares how she integrates student choice and collaboration into reading response during daily read alouds.
Grammar Games
Melanie Meehan shares two of her favorite games for teaching grammar, including templates and web resources.
Practical Advice for Dealing with Messy Handwriting
Do struggles with handwriting matter? They do when a student can’t even decipher his own words. Katherine Sokolowski confers with fifth grader Sauvi to help him find solutions to the problem.
Building Habits with Short-Term Goals
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills explain why short-term writing goals can help students reset expectations for their writing on a daily basis, and how they make these goals an integral part of their writing workshops.
Student-Led Minilessons in Fifth Grade
Franki Sibberson initiates student-led minilessons, and finds the process takes her literacy workshops to a new level of independence and energy.
Planning a Student-Led Minilesson
Franki Sibberson helps Lucas plan his minilesson for his fifth-grade classmates on how to connect words and facts from two different sources.
Student-Led Minilesson: Connecting Facts from Different Sources
Lucas leads a minilesson in Franki Sibberson’s fifth-grade class on connecting facts from different sources.
A Poem About Lost Friendship: Conferring with Estelle
Estelle shares a poem she has written about lost friendship with her teacher, Katherine Sokolowski. She captures the fickle nature of fifth-grade relationships among girls. Katherine connects the cadence of the writing to the style of The Crossover, and helps Estelle find possibilities for more writing.
Annotating While Reading
Franki Sibberson finds teaching students to annotate while reading is one of the best ways to promote ongoing reflective response in her fifth-grade classroom. She shares how she starts teaching annotation skills early in the year.
Fifth-Grade Book Talk: Wish Girl
Katherine Sokolowski builds interest in a new book in the classroom library through a book talk on Wish Girl.
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