Two Views from the "TOP(ic) of the Week": CCSS/Infusing and Increasing Nonfiction in Literature Lessons

On Wednesdays, my posts will be focused on a "topic" for the week and how it looks from two views (the past week and the upcoming week).

A look back on the past week's lessons:
As part of the "challenge" put forth by my district, each teacher has been given the task to infuse existing lessons with nonfiction (or vice-versa if they are content-area teachers if their focus previously was primarily on expository text).

I teach 7th and 8th grade Literature so by following the distribution set out by the Core Standards, my goal is to instruct using 45% literary and 55% informational text. 

At the start of this week, my 8th grade students were reading "Raymond's Run", a short story by Toni Cade Bambara found in most junior high textbooks. (I use Holt McDougal Literature.)

The basic textual information that I planned to use are as follows:
           "Raymond's Run"          Short Story Literary Text
           "PBS Quiet Eye"  Video Nonfiction video segment
           "Hydrocephalus"               Article                   Nonfiction scientific article

On Monday, I introduced key vocabulary and previewed the story. Students then completed assignments related to vocabulary development and read the story independently.

On Tuesday, I opened discussion on the problems the main character, Squeaky, faces. In this story, she has both clear external and internal conflicts. On the surface of the story, Squeaky simply wants to win the upcoming race. As the reader quickly learns, she also struggles with the added responsibility of taking care of her brother, Raymond, who's disability is attributed to hydrocephalus. We focused on the training and goal of winning first. 

I showed the video clip and as a class we discussed how Squeaky would use the "quiet eye" in her training. 

Mid-week, I wanted to focus on the second conflict: Squeaky's struggle to find a balance with her brother, Raymond. The "Hydrocephalus" article from medicinenet.com elaborated on a few points that were not relevant to the story, so I simply had students cross these out once we printed the article. 

I used this article as another opportunity to review ANNOTATING skills. After I modeled the skill and led them through the beginning of the article with the purpose of understanding Raymond's disability, I allowed them to work in pairs to continue throughout the text.

A plan for the future:
Tomorrow (Thursday), the plan is to bring it all together. My students will be using their annotations, the notes taken while watching the video clip and their notes on character motivation to construct a written response explaining how Squeaky's motivation to win and her desire to provide the best care for her brother led to the outcomes in the story.

This is essentially how I've used this particular short story for the past eight years. 

HOWEVER... How has CCSS changed my instruction/lessons? 

First of all, I'm FOCUSING more on the nonfiction and skills such as annotating. I'm also DIRECTING my students to analyze using BOTH nonfiction resources (before, they cited evidence from only one), and I'm CHALLENGING my students to think beyond the story. I want them to be able to apply all three "text" into the context of their lives/learning. 

I'm still teaching story-plot, character, theme, etc. The difference now is that I'm SHIFTING my focus from those literary elements to the nonfiction connections.

The formula I used: 

Literary text + multimedia + informational text

      worked well for the "challenge" of meeting CCSS shifts. 

Now, my thoughts for the next few weeks include solving the problem of how will I apply this to the E.A. Poe texts that are part of my curriculum. Check back soon to find out what I decide!

Meanwhile, check this out! It's a short video/reminder about how to shift focus using Literary Nonfiction. Click to find the video here.

Two Views on the "Top(ic) of the Week": The Core Curriculum and Reading Responses

On Wednesdays, my posts will be focused on a "topic" for the week and how it looks from two views (the past week and the upcoming week).

A look back on the past week's lessons:
My 8th grade Literature students THIS year are already benefiting from changes that I made with my 7th and 8th grade students LAST year. And it's all because of the Core Curriculum!

I know many teachers and parents are struggling with the Core Standards, but I've accepted the fact that these are the standards we will be teaching for the next decade or so. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't remind the students that every change, every "boost" of knowledge that I push, is backed by the state of Illinois's adoption of the Core Curriculum Standards.

Luckily, last year, my district agreed to purchased new Literature text sets for the 7th and 8th grades. I guaranteed my administrators that this series had the "Core at the center" and after using this series for a little over a year , I am very happy with it. (Holt McDougal Literature)

One "success" of this series is the follow-through on skills/questions/text throughout a story or unit. (The "blue" skill relates to the "blue" text questions and at the end, all ties to the extended responses and "blue" questions".) It's almost EASY to prepare the students when you have the proper tools!

A plan for the future:
I can foresee more work in store for my 7th grade students. During the first quarter, I've really hit this standard hard:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.1: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Here is an example of one of our prompts from last week: Reading Response Prompt for "Zebra" by Chaim Potok

However, my 7th graders still struggle paraphrasing and have a hard time explaining the text they choose to use as evidence. Again, the literature series helps me to prepare them well, but they are not using the writing stems to help them connect the text to the question and struggle using higher level thinking skills and INFERENCES!

As I plan for the upcoming weeks, I need to rethink how I check and develop these skills throughout our readings. If any readers have suggestions, please share! I'll post any insights that I find that work!