Reading Workshop: Unit 6 Nonfiction Reading Clubs

Hello friends!  Today I’m joining in with a great book study of ...

A group of us have gotten together to take turns sharing our thoughts and reflections—each taking on a different chapter.  You will definitely want to head back to read the first post from Amber at Sunny Side of Second Grade.  At the end, there’s a link to the next chapter, then a link to the next, and so on. 

Unit 4 took on the task of teaching students about reading nonfiction books, while this chapter takes it to the next level: Nonfiction Reading Clubs

Reading Clubs versus Shared Reading Clubs

While you might assume that Reading Clubs & Shared Reading are the same—not so!  Within the context of this book, Nonfiction Reading Clubs are groups of students gathering together while reading similar books.  For those of you that have read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, I know your heart it singing!  It's all about the discussions! I love how the author refers to Kathy Collins book, Reading for Real.  Book clubs are compared to musicians who gather together for jam sessions.  Each person shares something they are working on, friends give feedback—perhaps helping perfect or improve.  It is a supportive network of people with like interests.  Reading clubs afford the opportunity for children with like interests—to read together, share their thoughts and questions, and help each other become experts on the topic.

It is important to keep in mind that your students should continue with their regular independent reading--whatever genre.  They may be REALLY into a series of fiction, and they should not abandon those interests!!  Unlike shared reading clubs where readers may take on tasks and pace together, this reading club encourages reading within the topic and sharing.

Getting Started:

You will likely already have some baskets in your classroom library clustered by some kind of topic.  In prepping for this unit, you will want to look carefully at the books you have.  You may want to add more topics--perhaps even subtopics of existing topics.  Most importantly, I appreciated that the authors suggest varying the levels.  If the topic is new to the reader, they may want to begin at a lower level to build back ground and read at a level that isn't frustrating.  They can build up throughout the unit.  Meanwhile, you club members who have background in the area will want to read more challenging texts.  Having a variety will meet the needs of all of your readers throughout the unit as the progress and become more skillful.  

Implementing this unit will comprise of three parts.

The focus this month will ask the students to switch their mindset to nonfiction & monitor for meaning and learn from the author.  Teachers will likely pull out/create anchor charts reviewing comprehension skills: such as, finding main idea, using text features, locating facts efficiently,, and determine meaning of key terms.  

The best part of this transition is the support students will receive from their clubs.  In the club environment, students will talk about new learning.  Since monitoring for meaning is a component of this focus, the club is the perfect environment to talk about concepts or ideas they are having trouble with.  Students might refer to a page they can reread together to clarify meaning in a supportive way.

Later in the month, it will be important for students to turn the main ideas and vocabulary they have collected into creating new thoughts and questions about the topic.  The teacher might model from a nonfiction book how the process of inferring comes about.  Students will be encouraged to react to what they have read.  Once they have mulled over and reacted, ideas can form to create new ideas based on what they have read.  
It is also important for students to become flexible in their thinking.  Students often begin a topic with a clear understanding of what they know,  but they need encouragement to be open to new ideas and revise their thinking.  In book talks, students would be encouraged to share using statements such as, "I used to think____, but now I know that___".  

As the month begins to wane, students have likely read several books on their topics.  They are equipped at this point to make comparisons of what they have read and move on to contrasting the information.  Once more, the teacher can read a nonfiction book and model the Think Aloud.  Clubs will likely create t-charts to track the two facts the correlate or differentiate.  Tracking this information creates an environment of accountable talking in the group.  
The opportunity arises at this point for students to pursue answering a question based on their reading.  Students will likely reread sections in order to answer the question.  Working together, they might create a table or chart to present to another group.  This collaborative effort is an ideal way to further demonstrate the speaking and listening standards & becoming the expert they hoped to become!

I love how this book is moving along!  It subtly supports the Common Core State Standards in a spiral way--not in isolation.  Students learn to apply the tools in a meaningful way.  Nonfiction can be tough for kids!  I can't wait to implement book clubs in nonfiction in this manner!  No "class sets" needed.  Just kids reading and time to share! 

Next Monday on July 13th, you'll want to head over to Mrs. Burke's Special Kids to read Unit 7!!  I know Sebrina will have some GREAT insights!

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Literature Circles Organization

Quick Background:

It has really been a struggle to meld what my heart says about reading with what I am required to do with reading.  We’ve used Reading Street for a very long time, but we have just implemented the CC version in the last two years.  The biggest change….weekly tests cover a new passage.  I do like this as it assesses the ability to apply the skills rather than regurgitate a story that we’ve spent days on….actually memorizing it.  But that’s not what readers do.

Enter Daily 5 into the mix.  One of my teaching partners and I read the books, Daily 5 and CAFÉ, and we both wanted to implement these with the Reading Street.  It’s been a struggle finding the balance.  We start strong, building stamina, using the required skills as part of D5, then at some point, it dwindles.  This was my second years of trying to implement D5, and I was more successful this year overall.  I can really see Literature Circles being the perfect compliment to D5.

Enter Literature Circles.  I’ve read about them and new I wanted to try it.  But it’s kind of like reading baby books.  You can’t really know what works until you HAVE the baby.  So, look back to my page where I created a log for my kids HERE

So, we’ve been at it for about two weeks, and I am loving it!  I am learning a lot from my students by observing their patterns, too.

This is how I’m handling it for now:

I found a great freebie from Creekside Teacher Tales that really helped me get started when I really didn’t know what I needed. 

You can read her entry HERE 
I really loved how the sweet pond animals "went" with all the frogs in my room.

First step was to provide several books to choose from.  I wasn’t really concerned if the books were in their level right now.  I wanted them to experience enjoying a book together.  I might not do this at the beginning of the year.  They wrote their name, 1^st and 2^nd choices on a sticky note, and put it in a bin.  After going through the lists, I was almost able to accommodate everyone’s first choices. 

Next, I stapled my groups together and announced the groups. 

Using Creekside’s group label, I displayed the group with a cute little pond animal.  Works great for my Frog room, don’t you think???  

I passed out the books and their Literature Circle booklet.  Using some of her smaller labels, I labeled some Target Dollar Spot magazine racks I had stashed away as the spot to keep their books outside of our Lit Circle time.

I met with each group, helped them divide the book into 5 sections (so everyone gets a job in the groups of 5), helped assign the first task and when to meet next.  I fully expect them to finish at different times.  I’m totally okay with that.  I don’t want to stretch the experience to a predetermined timeline.

Then, I cut them loose!  We just finished our second round of meetings (one group of 2 just read the whole book and completed the booklet by themselves.  That worked better for those speedy readers).

I haven’t let them meet on their own yet.  I meet with the groups to help them conduct their meetings.  I’m not completely letting them go, but we are establishing a routine.

1. Start with the Summarizer.  This person writes a synopsis of what has happened since the last meeting.  People can add verbally anything they think is important. 

2. Illustrator shares next.  He/she explains the moment from those pages that was chosen to illustrate and why.

3. Character Captain discusses the characters: anyone new to the story, the main character to see how they are feeling or if our opinion has changed about them.  Lost of talk here!  Kids are free to bring up another character, too.

4. Word Wizard shares their interesting or difficult words.  A few kids haven’t actually looked up their words yet, so we use the context of the story to help us figure it out together.  The kids give their ideas!  Score!

5. Director asks some planned questions and kids chime in with responses.  Director then coordinates the next set of jobs. 

So far, these are my “loves”:

1. Word Wizard is their favorite job!  They like it so much that we decided that everyone can be a Word Wizard (even if it isn’t their job for the session).  The WW will lead the talk, but they can ask if anyone else found any interesting or difficult words.  They are hunting for them like you would not believe!  Love it!

2. Character Captain is kind of hard for them at this point, and I am glad.  Glad because I have the chance to help pull out better words from them.  “Nice” is such a weak word, but they resort to it frequently.  By talking with the group and listening to each other, they are citing moments in the text to help find better words.  I can see progress!
****Bonus Love-One of my students was the Character Captain first and then moved to another job.  During the second meeting, he kept talking about the characters.  He discovered that focusing on that one aspect for a period of time really created a habit! Yeah!

I   3. I am so impressed with the questions my Directors have come up with.  Some are coming up with surface level questions-the kind you’d get on an AR Test.  Some are really using deeper questions.  They are predicting, reflecting about moments in the story, and feelings about characters.  Great dialogue from each other.  I am hearing great responses, and they spur each on more that I could!

    4. The Talk.  I love the talk.  I hear kids making connections to characters from other stories, they are making connections to things that have happened to them, etc.  I will never know this about their reading from an AR test or from the summary they write for Book Camp.  This is the missing piece to the puzzle.  AR is a great tool.  Their genre summaries are great, too.  We are doing great things, but I have felt in my gut for a long time that there was more.  It’s like closing the triangle.

Where are my goals at this point?


1. I’m still observing a lot, making it up as I go, at times.

2. Create a bookmark for the kids.  (Ahem….UPDATE…I’ve already done it, and you can get it in my freebie if you download it again.)  Some of the less organized kids lost track of their “jobs”.  A bookmark should help them keep focused as to the job at hand.

  3. I’m going to put together some “Question Sticks”.  I see

 these on TPT and talked about in blogs.  I think these will make a great closer or when the Director needs some help finding good questions.  When they HEAR good questions, I think it will spur them to CREATE their own good questions.

4. Add to my booklet.  I want more jobs!  Thinking of creating more jobs and letting the group pick the 5 or 4 jobs they want.  My teammate would really like to me to design some booklets that are oriented to the genre.  Like, if it is historical fiction, there should be a job where they describe the setting, compare with modern times, etc.  If its non-fiction, provide areas to log in facts learned, etc.

I’m super-energized!  I will definitely be putting together more things this summer.  Hoping to put together a great packet so you can Print and Go!

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Using Literature Circles Booklets (+Freebie!)

I've read about them, talked with teachers who love doing them (older kids though), but I haven't taken the leap to TRY them.  I've been reading The Book Whisperer, and I love so much of what she has to say.  I love the joy she gets from reading.  I was certainly the Reluctant Reader as a kid.  I was a good reader, great vocabulary, but I never FINISHED books.  Encyclopedia Brown was my best friend.  I could read half of the book and return in on "library day" feeling satisfied that I had read most of it with no urge to finish.  How SAD is that!  I truly did not enjoy reading until college.  Summers were spent at the used book store buying all of the Flowers in the Attic series and devouring them.  Not literature, for sure, but I enjoyed the escape and the freedom to read what I wanted for a change!

Since beginning the Book Whisperer, I grew to appreciate the talks that I often have with my kids when they read a book or are trying to find a book.  What was missing was the dialogue they could have with each other.  Back to that voice in the back of my head that wanted to try Lit Circles with my kids.  I have an amazing group of readers this year.  We are focusing school-wide to broaden our genre reading which has really lent itself to the talks I've had with my kids.

I knew before we tried Lit Circles, I had to choose a read-aloud that was more than funny or entertaining.  I went with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Toulane.  Wow.....
What a great read!  I sat at my desk reading aloud with tears coming down my face, my voice quivering, and a silent classroom hanging on every word.  We had wonderful class talks about Edward.  Great book to see a character change.  I highly recommend and will read this book much earlier in the year next year!

After these book talks, I am ready to cut them loose to talk with each other.  I don't know how this will go.  I'm making it up as I go along.  We'll learn this together, but I have to try it out before I can improve it!  Promise to keep you posted on our progress...hopefully!

I teetered back and forth on how I wanted them to document their roles and decided on personal logbooks.  That way, they have their own keepsake of their journey.  I'm putting my attempt on TPT as a Freebie.  I'd love for you to try it out and give me your feedback!  I'd love it if you would Pretty Please follow my TPT store in return.  I'd love to share future updates to the packet with you, and let you know when I make other items that might work for you!

Here is the simple way I decided to put these together without the kids pulling out their scissors.

Step One:

Made 12 sets that were collated on the copier

Step Two:

Stapled the upper edge for each booklet

Step Three:

Trimmed the outer sides

Step Four:

Cut the two booklets along the center line

Step Five:

Done!

Bonus:

Added a few extra pages for the Summarizer in case they need more than one page.  I put that page in the back of the booklet....just in case.

And..........Finally!!!

None of these on the floor!  Yeah!

Click on the image below to grab your OWN copy!  Let me know if you LOVE it!

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