CLICK HERE TO VIEW Reader Response and Writing Rubrics
Reader response examples
Click the link above to see some examples of reader responses we wrote in class together or discussed in class to make sure all of the components of a well written response were there.
December 11, 2014
In class we have been researching biomes and trying to determine reasons why someone would want to visit their assigned biomes. We learned about the desert together as a class, gathered research, and found reasons why someone would want to visit a desert by using what we had learned. Students were then assigned biomes in groups and researched the climate, geographic region, animals, plants, and how the animals and plants are suited to survive in that biome. This week students worked in pairs to put together a power point presentation to persuade their audience to visit their assigned biome. This project will wrap up hopefully this week. We will then work on some reading comprehension strategies with some other nonfiction texts. While we were studying the biomes we also focused on text structure and will continue to do so up until the break as well.
November 25, 2014
In class we have been working on studying Native American regions, and each student was given an area of study for a particular region. The students then made a book together with their entire region, and we did a gallery walk, so each region could learn about how other Native American regions survived. We then studied some of the explorers of The New World. Much of the reading pieces in small group revolved around native americans, and how they survived, so the reading and writing was integrated with the Social Studies. After Thanksgiving break we will move onto science and start discussing biomes. We will be into science for the better part of December if not all of December. Discuss biomes with your child to see what they have learned after next week. Discuss Native Americans or Explorers with them over Thanksgiving break to see what they retained.
November 7th, 2014
This week was a light week for homework, but we were busy at work here at school for the short week. We spent most of our ELA time working on our hurricane informational writing. We looked over the informational writing rubric which you can see by clicking on the link for writing rubrics above. We used that rubric to help each other revise our writing. We then typed up our writing and most of us will be finished by the end of today.
We spent some time in reading groups talking about setting and the idea that setting isn't just the where and when, but also involves the atmosphere. For example the setting of a bright, sunny, warm day is different than the setting of a dreary, cold, rainy day even though you could be talking about the same time of day and place. We read through texts and picked out phrases or words that relate to explaining the setting of a story and discussed how setting can change throughout a reading.
October 24, 2014
We have been working on legends this week in reading and discussing the characteristics of a legend. These legends tie into the Native American unit for Social Studies. Groups are assigned a legend that comes from the region their group is assigned.
October 10th, 2014
This week was a very busy one for us here in class. We worked on a 5 paragraph essay as a culminating activity for the novels. Students were asked to pick 3 traits that describe a character of their choice and have at least 2 supporting details for each trait. They could not have supporting details repeat throughout their papers. Most of the students completed their essays and we will type them sometime next week.
We also finished up our hurricane research this week. Students were asked to pick 3 of the 13 possible questions they were working on and mark them to be graded. They had time to review their responses and reflect on which ones they thought were best, so the 3 grades I get from these responses should reflect the students best efforts.
We had our weekly Language Arts Quiz and worked on using the prefixes com- and col- in class and for homework. We will have a quiz on those prefixes along with next weeks words next Friday.
The highlight of the week for most of the students was probably getting onto edmodo and playing with the apps. We will use this as practice, but sometimes I will have the students complete assessments in class on edmodo or one of the apps, so please encourage them to practice through playing on some of the apps at home. We spent the most time this week on Moby Max and Snapshot.
September 26th, 2014
This week we continued to read our novels and had great discussions. The students as a whole are doing a great job coming to class prepared for the discussion. Being prepared means they have done their job that was assigned. We will be finishing the novels next week and moving onto the next unit of study. As we finish the novels we will discuss traits that describe characters in their novels and pick out evidence from the novels to support these traits.
September 19th, 2014
This week we started our novels. Each time we meet in reading group your child has a job that should be completed relating to their novel. If the job is not completed they will get a signature on their chart and they turn in what they have, even if it is a blank paper. The paper then gets graded for a reading comprehension grade, and sometimes a writing grade also. The students are also continuing their research on hurricanes.
September 8-11
This week we worked on the differences between similes and metaphors and listened to some popular music that contained similes and metaphors, so students could see that they hear them often and will see them in writing often. We discussed how using figurative language makes our writing more exciting and descriptive. We will continue to learn different types of figurative language throughout the year.
We also worked on some of our hurricane research and students should now be able to tell you how a hurricane forms and dies and also be able to tell you what some of the important components are in a reader response, as we answered how hurricanes form and die together in a well written paragraph. I encourage you to ask your child what else they learned about hurricanes this week.
On 9/11 we discussed what this day represents in history and read a book titled 14 Cows for America. Please ask your children what this book was about, and see if they were paying attention in class on this historic day.
Last but not least we spent this week doing sample homework problems from our new building vocabulary program. We will continue with these samples next week and the students will be then required to complete similar assignments nightly starting on the 22nd of September. This will be in addition to the weekly reading packet that students have been getting.
Sept 2-5
This week we worked on what a reader response should contain, and finished up our last two preassessments in writing. We discussed how a hurricane is formed and how it dies. We also tracked Tropical Storm Dolly earlier this week. We learned what the word meterology means and what a meteorologist does. Next week we will have a lesson on 9/11 and talk about figurative language.
August 25-29
This week we did a lot of getting to know each other, and worked on labeling supplies, completing pre-assessment tasks, and we completed our first week of daily language activities along with the first daily language quiz. Next week we will dive into a unit on hurricanes which will involve learning about how they are formed, how they die, how to track them, along with more exciting information all about hurricanes. We will hopefully dive into literature groups by the end of next week and start the novels that also tie into our hurricane unit. This unit and the novels will last around 1 month. I will have updates posted frequently to let you know how the unit is progressing, and please discuss this with your child at home, as this will help reinforce their learning that took place throughout the day.
Reader response examples
Click the link above to see some examples of reader responses we wrote in class together or discussed in class to make sure all of the components of a well written response were there.
December 11, 2014
In class we have been researching biomes and trying to determine reasons why someone would want to visit their assigned biomes. We learned about the desert together as a class, gathered research, and found reasons why someone would want to visit a desert by using what we had learned. Students were then assigned biomes in groups and researched the climate, geographic region, animals, plants, and how the animals and plants are suited to survive in that biome. This week students worked in pairs to put together a power point presentation to persuade their audience to visit their assigned biome. This project will wrap up hopefully this week. We will then work on some reading comprehension strategies with some other nonfiction texts. While we were studying the biomes we also focused on text structure and will continue to do so up until the break as well.
November 25, 2014
In class we have been working on studying Native American regions, and each student was given an area of study for a particular region. The students then made a book together with their entire region, and we did a gallery walk, so each region could learn about how other Native American regions survived. We then studied some of the explorers of The New World. Much of the reading pieces in small group revolved around native americans, and how they survived, so the reading and writing was integrated with the Social Studies. After Thanksgiving break we will move onto science and start discussing biomes. We will be into science for the better part of December if not all of December. Discuss biomes with your child to see what they have learned after next week. Discuss Native Americans or Explorers with them over Thanksgiving break to see what they retained.
November 7th, 2014
This week was a light week for homework, but we were busy at work here at school for the short week. We spent most of our ELA time working on our hurricane informational writing. We looked over the informational writing rubric which you can see by clicking on the link for writing rubrics above. We used that rubric to help each other revise our writing. We then typed up our writing and most of us will be finished by the end of today.
We spent some time in reading groups talking about setting and the idea that setting isn't just the where and when, but also involves the atmosphere. For example the setting of a bright, sunny, warm day is different than the setting of a dreary, cold, rainy day even though you could be talking about the same time of day and place. We read through texts and picked out phrases or words that relate to explaining the setting of a story and discussed how setting can change throughout a reading.
October 24, 2014
We have been working on legends this week in reading and discussing the characteristics of a legend. These legends tie into the Native American unit for Social Studies. Groups are assigned a legend that comes from the region their group is assigned.
October 10th, 2014
This week was a very busy one for us here in class. We worked on a 5 paragraph essay as a culminating activity for the novels. Students were asked to pick 3 traits that describe a character of their choice and have at least 2 supporting details for each trait. They could not have supporting details repeat throughout their papers. Most of the students completed their essays and we will type them sometime next week.
We also finished up our hurricane research this week. Students were asked to pick 3 of the 13 possible questions they were working on and mark them to be graded. They had time to review their responses and reflect on which ones they thought were best, so the 3 grades I get from these responses should reflect the students best efforts.
We had our weekly Language Arts Quiz and worked on using the prefixes com- and col- in class and for homework. We will have a quiz on those prefixes along with next weeks words next Friday.
The highlight of the week for most of the students was probably getting onto edmodo and playing with the apps. We will use this as practice, but sometimes I will have the students complete assessments in class on edmodo or one of the apps, so please encourage them to practice through playing on some of the apps at home. We spent the most time this week on Moby Max and Snapshot.
September 26th, 2014
This week we continued to read our novels and had great discussions. The students as a whole are doing a great job coming to class prepared for the discussion. Being prepared means they have done their job that was assigned. We will be finishing the novels next week and moving onto the next unit of study. As we finish the novels we will discuss traits that describe characters in their novels and pick out evidence from the novels to support these traits.
September 19th, 2014
This week we started our novels. Each time we meet in reading group your child has a job that should be completed relating to their novel. If the job is not completed they will get a signature on their chart and they turn in what they have, even if it is a blank paper. The paper then gets graded for a reading comprehension grade, and sometimes a writing grade also. The students are also continuing their research on hurricanes.
September 8-11
This week we worked on the differences between similes and metaphors and listened to some popular music that contained similes and metaphors, so students could see that they hear them often and will see them in writing often. We discussed how using figurative language makes our writing more exciting and descriptive. We will continue to learn different types of figurative language throughout the year.
We also worked on some of our hurricane research and students should now be able to tell you how a hurricane forms and dies and also be able to tell you what some of the important components are in a reader response, as we answered how hurricanes form and die together in a well written paragraph. I encourage you to ask your child what else they learned about hurricanes this week.
On 9/11 we discussed what this day represents in history and read a book titled 14 Cows for America. Please ask your children what this book was about, and see if they were paying attention in class on this historic day.
Last but not least we spent this week doing sample homework problems from our new building vocabulary program. We will continue with these samples next week and the students will be then required to complete similar assignments nightly starting on the 22nd of September. This will be in addition to the weekly reading packet that students have been getting.
Sept 2-5
This week we worked on what a reader response should contain, and finished up our last two preassessments in writing. We discussed how a hurricane is formed and how it dies. We also tracked Tropical Storm Dolly earlier this week. We learned what the word meterology means and what a meteorologist does. Next week we will have a lesson on 9/11 and talk about figurative language.
August 25-29
This week we did a lot of getting to know each other, and worked on labeling supplies, completing pre-assessment tasks, and we completed our first week of daily language activities along with the first daily language quiz. Next week we will dive into a unit on hurricanes which will involve learning about how they are formed, how they die, how to track them, along with more exciting information all about hurricanes. We will hopefully dive into literature groups by the end of next week and start the novels that also tie into our hurricane unit. This unit and the novels will last around 1 month. I will have updates posted frequently to let you know how the unit is progressing, and please discuss this with your child at home, as this will help reinforce their learning that took place throughout the day.