The Literature of True Life: On the Banks of Plum Creek Discussion

In my literature group, we’re currently reading Laura Ingalls Wilders’ On the Banks of Plum Creek. In addition to some basic pioneer and Midwestern history, On the Banks is the core of our unit on main idea and memoir.

A quick primer: in On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura and her family (Pa, Ma, older sister Mary, and baby Carrie) move into a dugout house on a creek in Minnesota. Laura, the energetic, tom-boy continues to develop her sassy persona and alternately helps Pa around the farm and gets into mischief—an ongoing discussion among my students has been Wilder’s portrayal of Mary as a stick-in-the-mud contrasted by Laura as the fun-loving one. They’re convinced that Wilder overemphasized the “timid, boring” Mary and “fun, rowdy” Laura in the story, just as they, if given the chance, would recreate themselves as more fun than their siblings in their own memoirs.

Anyway, I’ve been impressed at how well my students have understood the fundamentals of this book and have enjoyed working with them on two key activities: portraying main idea through Twitter and dissecting memoir. 

Main Idea Tweets

At the start of the book, each of my students chose a character to portray through a Twitter account. I set up Twitter accounts for them and a few times each week they Tweet the main idea of the chapters as we read them. I connected them with some friends and followers, from my sister and mother to children’s libraries to a bona fide Laura Ingalls Wilder expert, Sarah Uthoff (author of Trundle Bed Tales who gave us a shout out).

Twitter helps my students understand the importance of writing a concise, clear main idea, even as they focus on point of view. One student chose Jack, the family dog, and each chapter he has to write the main idea from the dog’s point of view, even when his character isn’t included or mentioned. One recent Tweet from Jack’s perspective: “I can’t believe Mary lied to Pa like that about playing in the haystack. Pa must be really mad. That is so out of character for Mary.”

As a teaching tool, Twitter has required a lot of supervision, including technology permission slips, setting up accounts under my name and email address, and monitoring their use of the site. They love using Twitter, though, and so far haven’t missed a Tweet.

Memoir and the Reliable Narrator

In the discussions of On Plum Creek, we’ve discussed difference between biography, autobiography, and memoir, which was a new concept for them. We’ve also discussed just how reliable memoirists are, or aren’t.

In a recent discussion, we talked about just how much information Wilder may have changed or omitted when she wrote her story. Along the way, one student brought up the idea that Laura may not be as reliable a narrator as we initially assumed and we’ve discussed how that affects our reaction to her work—how do we understand this account of life on the prairie if we can’t completely trust the memory of the person who wrote it? And, where does autobiography end and fiction begin?

So far we’ve focused on the important events that Wilder includes (a sunrise that was as exciting to her as Saturday morning cartoons are to today’s nine-year-olds) and how clear those memories would be to her as she wrote decades later, as well as the idea that authors can write their stories for a variety of purposes, including entertainment. It’s Wilder’s story to tell, after all.

Here are memoir and Laura Ingalls Wilder Resources that I’ve found helpful:

The Little House Books web site and an eThemes Resource Page for On the Banks of Plum Creek. Also, check out Trundle Bed Tales' Blog Talk Radio.

This Scholastic article about encouraging kids to write their own memoir includes a good blend of reading and writing instruction. 

The Newsroom Blog: A Starting Point

As a former full-time writer, the project of writing a classroom blog holds special interest for me. The challenge: can I instill a passion for writing in my students? And, can I get them to be genuinely motivated to work to make their writing better for themselves and for whoever reads their work?

To start our classroom blog, when we returned to school in January, I told my students that we would be writing a classroom news blog, asked them to choose a “beat,” reviewed how to compose a sentence as well as basic punctuation and capitalization rules, and discussed the basics of Internet safety.

The second week, each student worked on an article about how schools addressed the problem of Silly Bandz in classrooms. We read through a Scholastic News Article about Silly Bandz (gaining fluency practice in the process). Then, each student wrote two paragraphs, one describing the issue, and another about their opinion on schools banning Silly Bandz. After they were off and running with their pre-writing organizers and the rest of the week progressed in the style of a Writer’s Workshop, with conferences, assignments, and publishing on the Web.

As this project has progressed, I’ve noticed a few things:

First, my students were very good at following my directions about what and how to include information describing the Silly Bandz issue. One unforeseen result, their first drafts were dull and lacked real voice. So, on Thursday, as they worked on their second draft, I taught a mini-lesson on how to add themselves into their writing (add their experience with Silly Bandz in the introduction, or come up with a creative solution to the Silly Bandz problem, for example). Then, I required them each to go back and add their voice. Thank goodness they followed my directions on this one too! Their final drafts were much less monotonous.

So far, it’s been pretty easy to differentiate for my students. This week, as they’ve started working on their own “beats” and are reporting on everything from dolphins to the future of cars, I’ve been able to find material that each of my students can work with (videos, podcasts, articles at varying reading levels), which allows them to develop independent work skills and helps them feel real ownership over their work.

As they research, they’re building reading fluency and comprehension skills. They’re constantly going back and rereading their articles to find answers to questions or to refine their information. During our conferences, I ask them to read parts aloud to me, which has been a great way to increase their fluency practice. After they work independently, reading their articles and answering questions on a pre-writing organizer, I review their work to gauge how well they’re understanding what they read.

Finally, the blog, even though its just on our school Intranet, is enough of an external audience of peers and teachers to get them excited about publishing. I’m hoping this enthusiasm will grow as they become more familiar with the technology (this week they spent a lot of time logging on and figuring out how to navigate the site, post comments, etc).

If you want to start your kids on studying news, check out Teaching News Writing from Scholastic. 

Fluency Update: Reading Punctuation

I have been working on fluency skills with my group of third, fourth, and fifth grade students this month (see previous update). Mid-way through the focus on fluency, they’ve all had the chance to read and record a play podcast at least once, one group has completed the process of reading, practicing and recording a podcast twice.

This week, I realized just how difficult it is for some students to separate reading fast with reading well. Working with one student who read through the script with the cadence of a semi-truck flying down a hill with broken brakes, I stopped him over and over to try to get him to read the periods and commas. Even after I modeled the right and wrong ways to read punctuation, and explaining why reading the punctuation was important, it was really difficult for him to slow down. Part of the problem for this student was that he’s a kid who likes to get things done fast. He play sports and the faster he runs, the better. We’ve been working on math fact practice and he’s gotten better and better at doing multiplication faster and faster--the more multiplication facts he recalls in five minutes, the better he feels about his math ability. And, in some aspects, he’s been encouraged to read faster and faster. This year, he’s shown a lot of growth in his reading skills, and part of that has been the timed reading that we do together once a month for progress monitoring. His Words Correct Per Minute (the, however faulty, measure that we use to track fluency) in a third-grade reading passage has doubled since September and I know that’s something he’s proud of. So, slowing down is also an old habit that’s dying hard. By the end of the week, when he recorded his podcast, he was able to slow down a little, but it’ll be a skill we continue to work on.

Coming up, it’s Christmas all around (it’s the last week before Christmas break and, as I always feel this time of year when kids are gearing up for winter vacation and Santa’s visit, it's best to go with the holiday cheer). One group will be practicing a rendition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a play that I thought would give them a chance to practice reading with a certain curmudgeon-y, grumpy, exasperated tone that they don’t often get to employ. My other group finished their play reading and have moved on to writing a skit of their own, for the novel they’re writing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. 

Building Reading Fluency

During the second quarter, which officially started a few weeks ago, I’ve shifted focus from teaching phonics to teaching reading fluency, especially with a group of third, fourth, and fifth graders that have mastered the basics, but are still “struggling readers.” Focusing on fluency, the ability to read accurately (quickly and correctly) and with expression, I think, will help them enjoy reading and understand more of what they read as they connect words they read with words they hear.

Fluency, I think, is one of the most difficult qualities to develop in students who are struggling with reading. It comes so naturally to some students, even as it eludes others. I have worked with students who struggle with phonics yet, even as they stumble over words, some aspects of fluency—the rise and fall of their voice as they read, the inflection they give to punctuation, their expression as they read dialogue—is impeccable. Other readers, who can sound out any word presented to them, read in stifled monotone, as if every word is one more step in a torturous journey towards finishing the chapter.

I recently researched the topic of reading fluency and learned that it’s a hard won skill for kids—requiring both repeated reading and reading many different texts. For my students, repeated reading can be challenging and they lose interest quickly, while at the same time, building the ability to read many different texts poses its own challenge as they work to transfer knowledge (word skills, sight words) they used in one text to a book that, on the cover at least, looks completely different.

So, in my group of upper elementary students, whose reading levels and fluency ability are incredibly diverse, I’ve struggled with just how to approach the idea of fluency, and how to get them to practice it in a way that introduces something new for each child. I’ve decided to focus on reader’s theatre with a few different plays, and strategies to teach them the importance of reading fluently.

The guiding questions: How does reading fluency enhance how we enjoy and understand what we read? How does our reading fluency enhance how we communicate what we read to others?

In this unit:

• I’m focusing on explicit instruction in the components of fluent reading with guided notes on how to read expression—what readers do when they read a period, exclamation point, and question mark, as well as notes on how to read emphasized text (text that is written in italics, bold font, or capitalized letters).
• As they read, the students will discuss how to read sentences with expression, reading parts of sentences, pausing for commas, and adding voice to dialogue.
• Twice each week, as a class, they’re going to do Reading A to Z's “zipper reads” procedure, a way of repeated reading that encourages kids to track their own accuracy and word comprehension. Eventually, I will have them graph their progress, so each student can see how their fluency improved over the weeks.
• As they practice their scripts, they’ll be working towards reading the script for a podcast recording that they can share with their parents, or with another class.

I'm excited to see the growth that the combination of instruction, group practice, and small group work with scripts that are interesting to them (one of the plays is the script of the novel that my fifth grade students are reading, The Best Christmas Pageant Every by Barbara Robinson), and the ultimate goal of helping them hear themselves read, will bring about in this group of students. 

If you’re working on building fluency in your class, don’t start without reading the resources from Reading Rockets, a public television resource with information and strategies.

Create-Your-Own Summer Reading

School is almost out, and this week we'll be talking about why, how, and what to read over the summer. So, in order to encourage my students to practice what we've been working on in school while they are on summer vacation, I made a book using Story Jumper (www.storyjumper.com). The web site was super easy and fun to use! I will definitely be using it again next year.

Read the book I'll be sending home with my students who are working on basic reading skills: http://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/468782/Read-with-Ms-Cleaver

How are you going to encourage your students to read this summer?

How to make character inferences organizer

Comprehension Questions 2

Comprehension Questions 1