inferring with poetry

This is a great poem for inferencing written by Gary Soto. Its a poem from his book: Fearless Fernie. It was used on the 5th grade MCAS test a few years back. You can see that I typed it for display on my Smartboard. You can easily infer the speaker's feelings:

• His hair jumped from his head..infer: excited
• It was his lucky day!...infer: happy
• He dug till his fingers were bleeding...infer: he is working hard!

I love that the poem ends with this message: When you leave something sweet behind, others come and get it. Try to get the children to explain what Fernie learned and apply it to other situations.Christine



writing small moments

I found a turtle in the pond. Then we went to McDonalds. This is how 4th graders write. I like to use pictures to help them expand on those small moments. ( I like to call it stretccchhh the slinky). Here is a lesson using a picture of a small moment two boys have in a pond. Why did I pick this picture? Because this small moment could be tucked into many of our personal narratives that we are practicing for the MCAS. For example: Write about a special time you had with a friend. The lesson went like this: We listed the nouns in the picture and possible adjectives to describe the nouns. Then we explored many different verbs we could use in our paragraph. The big question in this picture is: What did they find in the water? Next I showed the children my model. (I wanted to find a a baby turtle). I also have the students close their eyes and I walk them through a visualizing activity having to do with the picture. What do you see, hear, smell? What does the water/sand feel like...and so on. The paragraphs came out quite good! Christine

The Japanese Paper House: MCAS

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzYWFkZmNjMDUtYWY2MS00ZDcxLWI4YjUtNTE5M2QxNTc4M2Qw&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

 Children have virtually no background knowledge about traditional Japanese design. They have never heard of the famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.That is what makes this MCAS question so difficult to tackle. I have to admit my mental file cabinet is pretty empty on the subject. Knowing that drove me to produce a Smartboard lesson to go along with the article The Japanese Paper House. http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2008/release/g5ela.pdf
While reading,you need to INFER that Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by traditional Japanese design. He built Fallingwater in PA as a result. We watched this awesome Youtube video, a virtual rebuilding of the architect's masterpiece on our Smartboard. The video of Fallingwater combined with the Smartbook Notebook lesson on Japanese design features filled our mental file cabinets up. We are now able to visualize on a topic that was abstract before. Success! Christine

Here is the Smartboard lesson:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7F2yr3X_5kzYWFkZmNjMDUtYWY2MS00ZDcxLWI4YjUtNTE5M2QxNTc4M2Qw&hl=en

Make your thinking visible

The student used the genre (non fiction) to help him comprehend the article

I like to use annotation with my fourth and fifth graders for test prep. This is a fifth grade MCAS question on nature photography. I tell my students to read with a pencil in their hand...and make their thinking visible by writing notes, ideas, thoughts in the margin as they read. Later, when it is time to correct the multiple choice questions, I give each child a copy of my "teacher notes" so they can see how I made my thinking visible. Sometimes we have the same thoughts and ideas while reading. I love to read what they wrote. Christine



This child wrote which reading strategy she used: infer



This child used questioning in her notes

This is my copy ( I share my notes with the students)

How to annotate

I use annotation (a form of notetaking) in my classroom for MCAS prep. This slideshare presentation shows a good explanation about what it is. Christine

How to annotate

View more presentations from Michelle Alspaugh.

inferring with poetry

Eraser and the School Clock is a poem by Gary Soto. It was on the 5th grade MCAS reading comprehension test a few years ago. The poem is about a child struggling through a math test. During the test he/she starts daydreaming about time stopping. Teachers are frozen in time, but not him. He dreams of going out to the schoolyard to hit homeruns. Children need to have strong inferencing skills to tackle this poem. As you can see from the poster I wrote key phrases from the poem in which the student would have to infer.Student responses could be put on the right side.Christine

character traits

What kind of a person is_____________? Use evidence from the text to support your answer. This is a typical open response question on the MCAS for grades 3-5. I use this laminated poster to teach character traits throughout the year. This story, In The Days of King Adobe, is in our 4th grade Trophies anthology. The words thrifty and rascally are actually vocabulary words for the story. I have a character traits poster hung up in the room for reference. It is also a great vocabulary builder because some of the words on it  are challenging like mischievous or timid. Christine

Inference lesson/poetry

This poem, Buying a Puppy, was in the 4th grade state standardized test (MCAS) one year. The open response question asked "What feelings does the speaker have throughout the poem?" In order to thoroughly answer that, the student would need to have the ability to infer characters feelings by identifying clues in the text .The poet does not come right out and tell us how the speaker feels. You are expected to infer.The students would also have to use their background knowledge about what it would be like to get a puppy. As you can see from the poster, I had the students locate the text based evidence. For example, the speaker (child in the poem) doesn't know why Pa wants a scrap of meat and an old towel. The leap is that the student has to understand that the poet is showing us the speaker (child in poem) is confused. Many fourth graders have a difficult time understanding that being confused is a feeling. Text based evidence for other feelings like feeling loved, happy or excited are also in the poem. This poem has many good example of show don't tell, a technique I try to get my students to use in their writing (personal narratives). Christine