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Fountas-Pinnell Guided Reading Text Level Descriptions (1).pdf

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Activities to practice fluency

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Timothy Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University. He has written over 150 articles and has authored, co-authored or edited over 15 books or curriculum programs on reading education.

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© COPYRIGHT 2005-2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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The power of the read aloud.

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Why we should all be reading aloud to children | Rebecca Bellingham | TEDxYouth@BeaconStreet

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The Power and Importance of...READING! | Luke Bakic | TEDxYouth@TBSWarsaw

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Make a file, copy and you can edit

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Scripts for students K-8

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Here are resources for reader's theater (or readers theatre)-including the acclaimed series of free scripts Reader's Theater Editions-all from children's author Aaron Shepard. If you're looking for a perfect combination of education and fun, this is it!

Resources for Reader's Theater (or Readers Theatre), With Tips, Scripts, and Worksheets

Children's Plays for Reader's Theater (or Readers Theatre), With 15 Scripts From 15 Authors

Children's Plays for Reader's Theater (or Readers Theatre), With 16 Scripts from World Folk and Fairy Tales and Legends

And how do you really spell it?

Free scripts for young readers.

An introduction to this outstanding reader's theater group, with three video performances.

An online guide to reader's theater (or readers theatre)-scripting, staging, and dramatic reading.

Practice sheets for team scripting. Let your readers script for themselves!

Good books for getting into reader's theater (or readers theatre).

Info on script collections and more by Aaron.

For special features available for individual scripts on this site or in Aaron's books, see Aaron's Extras.

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*Reader's Theater, Readers Theatre* AARON SHEPARD'S RT PAGE *Readers Theater, Reader's Theatre Pieces, Free Scripts, Short Children's Plays*

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Here are resources for reader's theater (or readers theatre)-including the acclaimed series of free scripts Reader's Theater Editions-all from children's author Aaron Shepard. If you're looking for a perfect combination of education and fun, this is it!

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Really Great Reading Letter Tile Freeplay

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© 2022 Really Great Reading All Rights Reserved

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Bring whiteboard, Reader's NB, draw at seat, revisit a page...

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Teaching children HOW to discuss books

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Self-monitoring
Visual Clues
Structural Clues
Context Clues
Tapping
Active word-solving
Using resources in the room
Focus: am I "in" the book

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Fluency practice

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Leveled Books: Free

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Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages. Literacy is at the core of a healthy community, so we unite with partners to enable all families to read with their young children.

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CGI Animated Short Film "Soar" by Alyce Tzue | CGMeetup

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Remember, more Tech Tips can be found at whps.org/tech. Try searching by keyword or category!

Also, utilize on-demand training with Synergyse anytime in any Google App from the icon in the upper right corner. Just make sure you're logged into Google Chrome to access any of the hundreds of tutorials.

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Remember, more Tech Tips can be found at whps.org/tech. Try searching by keyword or category! Also, utilize on-demand training with Synergyse anytime in any Google App from the icon in the upper right corner. Just make sure you're logged into Google Chrome to access any of the hundreds of tutorials.

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Text to Speech

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Read Aloud uses text-to-speech (TTS) technology to convert webpage text to audio.  It works on a variety of websites, including news sites, blogs, fan fiction, publications, textbooks, school and class websites, and online university course materials.

Read Aloud allows you to select from a variety of text-to-speech voices, including those provided natively by the browser, as well as by text-to-speech cloud service providers such as Google Wavenet, Amazon Polly, IBM Watson, and Microsoft.  Some of the cloud-based voices may require additional in-app purchase to enable.

Read Aloud can read PDF, Google Docs, Google Play books, Amazon Kindle, and EPUB (via the excellent EPUBReader extension from epubread.com).

Read Aloud is intended for users who prefer to listen to content instead of reading, those with dyslexia or other learning disabilities, and children learning to read.

To use Read Aloud, navigate to the web page you want to read, then click the Read Aloud icon on the Chrome menu.  In addition, the shortcut keys ALT-P, ALT-O, ALT-Comma, and ALT-Period can be used to Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind, and Forward.  You may also select the text you want to read before activating the extension.  Right clicking on the selected text will provide you with yet another option to activate Read Aloud via the context menu.

To change the voice, reading speed, pitch, or enable text highlighting, go to the Options page either by right clicking on the Read Aloud icon and choose Options, or by clicking the Gear button on the extension popup (you'll need to stop playback to see the Gear button).

Read Aloud is an open-source project.  If you wish to contribute bug fixes or translations, please visit the GitHub page at https://github.com/ken107/read-aloud.

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Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader

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Read aloud the current web-page article with one click, using text to speech (TTS). Supports 40+ languages.

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Use websites to develop comprehension by adding questions, places to jot and links to connected information.

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Insert instructional content into any web page

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Ed Tech

There's a good chance you've done the "write on a sticky note and put it on the wall" activity - or have seen it happen before.
Padlet lets those sticky notes have images, links and videos AND be available with practically any Internet-ready device.
It used to be blocked by my school's Internet filter. This school year, the powers that be have allowed it through on student devices, opening up lots of possibilities in class!

Padlet is a great place for gathering ideas, sharing them and modifying them later. It's like a living, breathing webpage. Users can add links, YouTube videos, files and images to Padlet notes. They can move and arrange them. A link to a Padlet can be shared and Padlets can be embedded into webpages.

Here are 20 ways to use Padlet in class:

15. Collect videos to share in class

Looking for FREE Tech Like A PIRATE resources?
You'll find a treasure trove of additional ideas and activities related to t ​ ​​​​he book at TechLikeAPirate.com!

Looking for some more ideas? These sites have them!
Do you have an idea of how you could use Padlet in class? Post it in a comment below!

For notifications of new Ditch That Textbook content and helpful links:

Are you looking for quality, meaningful professional learning that both equips and inspires teachers?

Matt provides in-person and virtual keynotes, workshops and breakout sessions that equip, inspire and encourage teachers to create change in their classrooms. Teachers leave with loads of resources. They participate. They laugh. They see tech use and teaching in a new light. Click the link below to contact us and learn how you can bring Matt to your school or district!

Ready to take your teaching skills -- and student learning -- to another level?

Check out our online courses. ALL under $50!

©2021 Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller.

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20 useful ways to use Padlet in class now

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Ed Tech There's a good chance you've done the "write on a sticky note and put it on the wall" activity - or have seen it happen before. Padlet lets those sticky notes have images, links and videos AND be available with practically any Internet-ready device.

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By creating an account on kids can join a community of readers and will be able to read books and stories; attend weekly author events; interact with their favorite characters; play book-based games and activities; join dance parties; and more!

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Provides a way for students to be challenged to read new genre, build stamina and read many books each month.

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March brings spring (or so it's hoped!) and it also brings plenty of new reasons to read. Warmer days might beckon kids outside, while rainy days are perfect for curling up with a book. On the calendar this month is Women's History Month, and many a great woman can and should be celebrated on the page. It's also the month we celebrate Read Across America, when students in classrooms everywhere gather around to read together on one day (March 2). It's a great and inspiring way to kick off a month of reading.

Here are 10 challenges to keep the page-turning motivation of kids of all ages at a high:

Read a book written by a female author.

Think about your favorite book character - and choose a book you think that character would like to read.

Read a book with words and illustrations by the same person.

Ask a Librarian: Visit your local library and ask a librarian to suggest a Newbery Medal- or Newbery Honor-winning book from the last two years.

Read a book with a title that's a question.

Ask a Librarian: Ask your local librarian to recommend a Caldecott Medal- or Caldecott Honor-winning book from the last two years.

Pick a book you've read and loved, and make a bookmark inspired by it. (You'll find some DIY bookmark inspiration here.)

Read aloud to your pet or favorite stuffed animal.

Read a book by Dr. Seuss to celebrate his birthday, March 2. (Need ideas? Check out this list of Dr. Seuss stories for all ages!)
Download a printable version of this reading challenge below.

Book Ideas for This Month's Reading Challenge

Not sure where to start? Here are a few book suggestions for this month's reading challenge.

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March Your Way to the Bookshelf: This Month's Reading Challenge for Kids

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March brings spring (or so it's hoped!) and it also brings plenty of new reasons to read. Warmer days might beckon kids outside, while rainy days are perfect for curling up with a book. On the calendar this month is Women's History Month, and many a great woman can and should be celebrated on the page.

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Have you ever tasted an Arab taco?

When was the Arab taco invented?

What is shawarma?

Find it out

How are currency exchange rates determined?

What was the gold standard?

Which type of currency exchange rate system does the U.S. use?

Find it out
Which of the following is usually NOT a factor in determining currency exchange rates?

Test your knowledge

How can I use Wonderopolis?

What are the parts of a Wonder?

How do writers make a Wonder?

Find it out
Based on information from the Wonder, what was Lou Castro known for when he was alive?

Test your knowledge

What is an okapi?

Where do okapis live?

What do okapis eat?

Find it out

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Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease | Wonderopolis

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Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Podcast/Blog on the benefits of student-written graphic "novels"

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Sponsored by Learners Edge

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.

There is no shortage of ways we all can benefit from teaching graphic novels. They engage reluctant or struggling readers, they are gateway texts for more complex literature, they build necessary background knowledge, and they develop visual literacy skills.

But another important reason to teach students to read, analyze, and create a graphic novel is that the form invites them to express hard truths about themselves and their experiences in a way that is different from what they can do with pure prose.

And perhaps a more surprising reason is for the impact it can have on a teacher's relationship with students. Teaching the graphic novel to my high school English students wasa way for me to see that there was pain in my classroom and the role I might be playing in students' difficult experiences.

How the Graphic Novel Form Inspires Deeply Personal Storytelling

I taught my first unit on the graphic novel in my high school World Literature classes. We read Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir Persepolis, in which a young Marji describes her experience growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. For their culminating project, students created their own graphic memoirs about a significant experience in their lives, using Persepolis as their mentor text.

As I turned page after page of each student's story, I discovered that this unit had accomplished a goal I never intended. I didn't expect so many students to delve into deeply personal, often traumatic, experiences from their past. I had read engaging personal narratives from students before, but this was different. Some used the project to announce an aspect of their identity they had kept secret. Others revealed the reasons behind certain challenging behaviors they exhibited in class. They created stories that would be healing for them and, in some cases, for their relationships with me.

What is it about the graphic novel form that made this possible?

Cartoons Invite Empathy

Anyone who has opened a comic or graphic novel before would immediately recognize that cartoon drawings are a defining feature of the medium. While a photograph or portrait tends towards realistic depiction, a cartoon leans more toward an abstract, iconic representation of a person, object, place, or idea. (Think of how a circle with two dots and a curve for a smile represents a happy person.)

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud explains that when drawings of characters in graphic novels are less realistic and more iconic, readers can more easily put themselves in the situations of the characters. The cartoon image "is a vacuum into which our [the reader's] identity and awareness are pulled" (36). A detailed drawing of a face with specific features would be harder for readers to identify with than a simplistic cartoon face. According to McCloud, if we are less focused on the specific details of the character's drawing, then we are freer to enter the world of the character and participate in their experiences.

Graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier even explains that the creative team at Graphix "had the good intuition to use something more iconic" (20) for the cover image of her memoir Smile. Instead of using a full-body drawing of the main character, they opted for something even more simplistically drawn: an emoji with braces. One can imagine that a more specific cover image of the book's protagonist might not have instantly connected with as many book browsers as the abstracted emoji did.

So, if iconic images help readers empathize with characters' experiences, then a graphic novelist who has traumatic events or complicated emotions to narrate can do so knowing that an empathetic readership awaits.

Cartoons Allow for Distance

And while the iconic images unique to comics and graphic novels allow readers to connect with characters (and, by proxy, the writers), the abstraction also allows the writer some distance from their emotional story. With very realistic drawings, or with prose narrative alone, sharing the experience might feel too revealing. The writer is less vulnerable, however, if their experience is portrayed with some abstraction. This didn't happen to me specifically. This happens to lots of people. This is a universal experience.

It makes sense to me, then, that a student of mine would use the most abstracted icons-stick figures-to share something especially private with our class in his own graphic novel, Spoken of One.

This student-I'll call him Louis-was selectively mute all through high school. Sitting in the back row, completing all assigned written work but never raising his hand or contributing to partner interactions, Louis frustrated me. I had 36 students in my class, and I didn't have the expertise to find ways to draw him out. It was easier to assign his partner to someone else, to simply not expect that Louis would participate since apparently he never had before.

For the graphic novel project, Louis chose to communicate that he was making an effort to speak, but encountered debilitating obstacles like stigmatizing labels from peers and teachers.

With the anonymity offered by iconic representation, Louis perhaps felt safer in telling his story than he might have if he were asked to write a personal narrative. There is a comforting distance between his own identity and that of the universally drawn protagonist in his story. Maybe knowing that the reader could see the story more universally made it possible for him to share something so private.

Readers are Reflected in the Story

Louis knew that I would be reading these panels, but he also knew his classmates would read them during peer feedback. Perhaps the ease with which readers can identify with universal abstract icons might mean that his classmates and teacher would reflect on their own complicit actions in labeling him with declarations like "He doesn't talk." The simplicity of the nameless, faceless, abstract peers and teachers in this student's panels invite my students and me to see ourselves.

When we move away from realistic representations and towards abstraction, McCloud explains, "we're not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details " (30). Louis draws teachers with such abstraction that the only distinguishing features are a simple square (representing a briefcase?), their position within a given panel (at a distance from students), and an absence of any facial markings (dots or lines for eyes, nose, mouth). Without being explicitly told what to see, readers can imagine their own rich details.

As a teacher, I could vividly see my own impatience with certain behaviors and the emotional weight that impatience had on my students. I thought my sighs were inaudible, my nonverbals (standing at a distance, unsympathetic facial expressions) unnoticeable. Maybe Louis wasn't addressing me specifically in his panels, but that's irrelevant. The iconic representation of people and events works like the "vacuum" McCloud describes, inviting me to reflect on my own complicity in Louis' experience.

In another panel, the hallways of the school are stripped to the bare essentials: a white vacant floor on which to sulk. The specificity is so absent that a reader could "fill up" this iconic form with almost any other setting. The actual place, person, object, or idea being represented matters little.

Readers Must Help Tell the Story

Compelling texts are often ripe with ambiguity. Graphic novels, by their very design, contain "gaps" that readers must fill as they connect one panel to the next. By making connections and drawing conclusions in the gutters-the empty spaces between panels-the reader can help tell a story the writer can't tell alone.

McCloud describes this reader participation as "committing closure," and some transitions ask more of the reader than others. Many comics rely heavily on simple moment-to-moment and action-to-action transitions that require less participation (picture a person lifting a cup in one panel and drinking from it in the next). Others make powerful use of aspect-to-aspect and subject-to-subject transitions. These require readers to connect different experiences, time periods, and perspectives from one panel to the next. (Imagine a person lifting a cup in one panel and the next panel shows a different scene five years later).

In their own graphic novels, students generally struggle to create transitions that leave space for the reader to participate, but I think Louis found the gutter a helpful tool to tell his story without having to say too much.

What happens after the teacher prompts Louis to speak? How long does he pause before the next panel shows him defeated on the ground? How did his peers react? When I look at these two panels, I fill out the story: I hear his peers snickering, I see them rolling their eyes, my hands get sweaty thinking of how long the silence must have felt for this student compared to how brief it probably was to everyone else in the room.

It's not that graphic novelists are off the hook from having to explain and narrate difficult moments. It's that they are able to be selective with what they do show so that more readers can participate in ways that are personally relevant. And, I think that first learning about how gutters and transitions work in Persepolis, especially at certain difficult points in Marji's story, encouraged students to include their own hard-to-describe experiences in their work. I don't have to find words for every moment. I don't have to show kids rolling their eyes. That can be for the reader to imagine in the gutter.

No Story is Too Complex

Thecombination of words and pictures helps writers communicate hard stuff-no story is too complex to tell with this medium. Comics have a long history of teaching complex subject matter. There are graphic novels that discuss scientific phenomena, race, gender, cancer, and mental health. Satrapi catches us up on thousands of years of Persian history through carefully composed panels. Some of my students were able to portray subtle racial and gender-based microaggressions they experienced without even needing to know the term "microaggression." Others described complex learning disabilities and mental health issues without using a clinical vocabulary.

And because of the ability to "control time" (as comics expert Will Eisner puts it), the stories we tell in graphic novels are open to a wider readership. Young or inexperienced readers can make meaning from panels without necessarily drawing sophisticated conclusions from the gutters. As Gene Luen Yang explains (via McCloud), "Time within a comic book progresses only as quickly as the reader moves her eyes across the page. The pace at which information is transmitted is completely determined by the reader ... this 'visual permanence' firmly places control over the pace of education in the hands (and eyes) of the student."

Since readers of all ages and backgrounds can participate in reading graphic novels, my student writers could share sensitive stories with a variety of people in their lives, not just their teacher.

How I Taught This

To initially learn about the form of graphic novels, I read McCloud's Understanding Comics, which provides a thorough explanation of the variety of elements and devices at work in a comic or graphic novel. Over the years, I also studied Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative.

To choose a mentor text for my 11th grade World Literature classes, I considered what would be grade-level appropriate and rich enough in terms of the devices I had learned about. What will connect with students' experiences but also expose them to new ideas or challenge their understanding about certain concepts? Satrapi's Persepolis jumped out as the perfect option: teenage Marji narrates her experiences navigating religious, political, and social conflicts during a tumultuous time in Iran's history. When choosing your own text, you might also consider connections to social studies or science content students have learned. Or you might choose an adaptation of a text you've already read or to connect to a theme or genre you are teaching.

The Launch

Determine Prior Knowledge
I distribute a page from a graphic novel, not necessarily from the one I will teach, and ask, What is happening? How do you know? Students' written responses show me how familiar they are with noticing the subtle devices at work to communicate meaning in a visual text. With this information, I can partner students more effectively during upcoming lessons and keep their starting point in mind as I consider the unit instruction, tasks, and outcomes. Students also see for themselves how well or ill-equipped they are to do this type of reading, which for some students makes them curious to learn how.

What do students want to know?
After attempting a close read of a graphic novel page, many students discover they either don't have a lot to say or they know more than they thought. Then, they complete a KWL chart (Know-Want to Know-Learned) about graphic novels and Persepolis. My students have wondered, "How do you choose what to put in each box," "Does the order you read matter," and "Why is it called 'Persepolis,'" The most exciting part of the chart is, of course, the "Learned" column that students complete at the end of the unit.

Personal Goals
At the beginning of the unit, students indicate "Where I started" and "Where I want to be." I provide options of end objectives that students choose from. This tool is revisited at the end of the unit and students complete the "Where I am" and "Where I want to go next" columns as part of the assessment process (scroll down to "Assessing the Results" for an image of the chart). Because students articulate their own learning goals, ones that make sense given their starting point and the relevance of the topic to their lives, they are more invested in reaching those goals. And they often exceed them.

Reading The Mentor Text

We read the novel mostly in class, with students working together to reread for deeper meaning. Before we discuss what we've read in class, students spend five minutes independently free-writing everything they notice from one page of Persepolis. I ask: What happened? How do you know? What have you learned about characters? With less time, students simply record one question they have about the assigned reading. In partners or small groups, they share their observations and questions and develop some consensus around how the page is working. Then they report their conclusions to the whole class.

In whole class discussion, I introduce the terms and devices only after students have had the opportunity to express them in their own language. When they report that they know Marji feels weak because she's drawn smaller than usual and she's in a really small box, they learn to incorporate terms like "scale" and "frame." When they notice a page has no panels, and the drawing fills up the entire page, they learn the term "splash." When they notice one panel's scene does not seem to connect to the one before and after, they learn to describe a variety of panel transitions with phrases like "action-to-action" and "subject-to-subject."

For an example of how to model close reading of a graphic novel, watch me discuss page 6 of Persepolis with another reader in the video below. Reference this handout if you'd like to use the video as a teaching tool in your classroom.

Students are routinely asked to choose a panel to closely read and analyze in writing. I collect these as formative assessments that tell me if a device or specific page from the text needs review and if students are reading beyond the surface. Sometimes I provide a specific prompt, like "What do you think the author is communicating with the different uses of black and white in chapter 10?" or "Describe the significance of varying shapes and sizes of panels in chapter 1." Other times, I solicit prompts from students or invite them to write about any discoveries they have made about the story and characters, supporting their observations with references to the techniques involved. For models of written close readings, I use previous students' work, book reviews of graphic novels, and excerpts from Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art.

Two examples of students' written responses to close reading.

When student observations show me that a particular panel or page is challenging to understand, I post a copy of the pages on chart papers. Groups circulate and add their theories, questions, predictions, and interpretations. Meaning becomes evident through multiple reads of the page and collaborative discussion.

I use frequent but brief exercises that get students thinking about how the devices work in a graphic novel. For example, "If you had to show the emotion of fear with only lines, how would you draw them?" Or I might provide students with a sequence of panels with pictures but no captions and ask them to write the captions. Another day, I give them panels with only text and ask them to add the pictures. The key is to give the same panels to multiple students so they see the variety of ways they each interpreted specific text or visuals.

One student chose this specific panel's techniques to try in his own panel. He connected Marji's experience to his experience attending a new high school. The towering building, drawn with the same repetition as Satrapi's trees, dwarfs my student, who changed schools also for access to a better education and preparation for some unknown future.

These "micro-writing" assignments help students learn the devices, but they also serve as early drafts of their final graphic novel projects and begin to convince even the most reluctant students that what we are learning is valuable.

The Culminating Project

In the past, we have agreed that their stories would provoke thinking-more specifically, they would challenge assumptions, initiate a conversation, connect deeply with readers, and nudge them to act. To accomplish such worthy goals, they would need to skillfully use at least three devices, their words (captions and speech bubbles) would work interdependently with their pictures to communicate more than what either could accomplish alone, and some panel-to-panel transitions would move beyond moment-to-moment or action-to-action.

Drafting
To decide on a topic, students reference their "micro-writing" assignments, create brainstorming lists of potential experiences, and free-write about each one. Students examine their most promising free-write and tease out a rising action, a climax, and resolution.

Then, students create a visual outline of each page, mapping out their ideas in a panel layout, describing what they plan to illustrate and why. They consider how they will distinguish their characters. They identify the emotions and moods they want to communicate for specific scenes and note devices that could help accomplish this.

I model this process at the start of class by attempting my own project, one panel at a time, in front of the class, thinking aloud and soliciting their help. A bonus is that my clear lack of artistic skills shows students that beautiful artwork is not necessary for this project. While sketching, I narrate, "I want to show this character feels bold and confident. I think I will remove the frame altogether (create a "splash"), or I could keep the frame and draw the character so large she goes beyond the border (a "bleed")." At this point I ask for students' input-which technique would be more effective and why.

Workshops
During the drafting process, students sign up to attend mini lessons, facilitated either by me or a peer, on topics like "creating captions and speech bubbles," and "showing emotions with facial features and gestures." I schedule two 20-minute mini lessons per workshop day. When students aren't in the mini-lesson, they work on their panels independently, with support resources I provide (from Eisner, McCloud, and Barbara Slate). Topics for new mini-lessons are created in response to the challenges and needs students pose.

I don't want to force students to share their personal stories with their classmates for peer review, so I ask them to choose at least one completed panel to share for feedback. Sometimes, I collect one panel from each student and anonymously re-distribute them to the class for feedback. As reviewers, students ask themselves, "What is happening? How do I know? What assumptions am I being asked to challenge? How I am I connecting with this story?" Their comments help the creator understand how readers are responding to their narrative and design choices.

Sometimes, students volunteer to share their pages with the whole class for feedback. I project the pages and we perform a close read like we have done so many times with the pages of Persepolis. Students who do not seize this opportunity to get such thorough feedback on their work still benefit from providing and listening to the feedback given for a peer's work.

Assessing the Results

In the past, when I had scored these projects with As, I felt like I was sending a message that the learning was done. That their few-page attempts could just not be any better. But the goal is not that a student becomes a master at incorporating graphic elements into their own memoir after a few weeks of practice. The goal is that they have discovered a new form to explore with rigor beyond our classroom and have some creative independence with a new set of tools to tell all kinds of stories.

Instead of a four-point rubric that shows tiers of success leading up to the end goal of an A, 100, or "meets standards," I decided to create a single-point rubric and define an "A" by listing what we agreed the project had to contain in order to demonstrate the student was ready to continue on their learning trajectory A utonomously. That means they would be prepared to independently and critically read graphic novels of different genres. They could start experimenting with devices, and maybe create their own, to communicate a range of experiences. They could research the work of other comics and comics movements, and learn the history of the form. They could connect with the larger world of graphic novelists by joining the conversation online.

The success criteria we established as a class allows students to focus primarily on their ability to use the graphic elements they studied to portray a significant event in their lives (not writing conventions or artistry). We do discuss how grammatical errors can really confuse the reader and how a hastily sketched image can ruin the effect of the device. The grammar and drawing expectations are in service of the larger goal and don't need to be assessed with their own categories on the rubric. The focused criteria also help me avoid pitfalls of the past while providing feedback on students' graphic novels, such as correcting grammar errors that didn't actually impede understanding and praising artwork that didn't actually develop the story.

Finally, students complete the "Learned" column of their KWL charts, proudly listing the discoveries they made about how to tell stories in a different way. They also reference their rubric feedback to respond to the last two columns on their Personal Goals form: "Where I am" and "Where I want to go next." If students are not yet ready to pursue this work autonomously, what additional practice is needed? What resources can help? If they are ready for continued independent learning and practice, what books, websites, and writers can they explore? Students also have the option to continue working and resubmit their project for additional feedback later in the year.

Compared to my first attempt at assessment, this revised model communicated to students that the learning didn't stop for anyone, even those with an A.

Why Teach Students How to Create a Graphic Novel?

After my first foray into teaching the graphic novel, I discovered that the benefits went beyond teaching literacy skills. Though the initial objective was for students to hone their close reading skills, it turned out that I also learned to read my students more closely, especially the ones I perceived as disengaged learners.

Without access to students' stories, educators are likely to interpret certain behaviors as challenging. As Sarah MacLaughlin describes in an article about trauma-informed teaching, behaviors that have developed in response to a difficult home environment or experience can be interpreted as defiance in a class setting: "Trauma can manifest in so many behaviors! Hypervigilance can masquerade as hyperactivity... Fear can look like aggression: flight, freeze, or fight," or in Louis' case, selective mutism.

While reading my first class set of student-created graphic novels, I started to reconsider everything from my assessment practices to my nonverbal signals. I didn't change into an enlightened, empathetic teacher overnight, but I started to approach interactions with students with the understanding that there were stories inside them that I wanted to hear, that I could make instructional decisions that would decrease cortisol and build relationships.

I know that without this project I would have continued to overlook Louis' mutism. How would I have had such intimate access to a mute student's perspective without his graphic novel? Louis put it so simply but elegantly on the first page, despite the grammatical error: "Why am I talking now? Well, your [sic] in my head and your just reading my mind."

Teaching students to create graphic novels gives you the power to read their minds, which can change everything about the way you teach. More importantly, it gives them the power of voice-a superpower that can change their worlds. ♦️

Read the Book!!

Since writing this post, Shveta Miller has written a full-length book on this topic: Hacking Graphic Novels: 8 Ways to Teach Higher-Level Thinking with Comics and Visual Storytelling. If you're ready to really dig into this process, the book will tell you everything you need to know!

Come back for more.
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The Surprising Benefits of Student-Created Graphic Novels

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Sponsored by Learners Edge This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. There is no shortage of ways we all can benefit from teaching graphic novels.

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Fabulous site for writing and publishing books. Free for a certain amount of books. Also has comic writing!

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Book Creator - Love Learning - Book Creator app

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Teachers love it. Students love it. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.

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Free site for kids to play against each other to practice skills

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Arcademics - Math Games, Language Arts Games, and More

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Fun and free educational games for kids in K-8. Featuring multiplayer learning games, math games, language arts games, and much more!

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Making Most of Comprehension Conversation

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Making Most of Comprehension Conversation

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Making Most of Comprehension Conversation

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Kenn Nesbitt’s Poetry4kids.com – Funny poems for children

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Reading Fluency Strategies for K-2 Learners | TIPS TO PROMOTE READING FLUENCY

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This is the first in a series of blogs about The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum. In order to understand The Literacy Continuum it is essential to understand the Systems of Strategic Actions (SOSA). Read on to learn more.
What are Systems of Strategic Actions?

Take a moment to look at the SOSA graphic above. Fountas and Pinnell developed this graphic to illustrate the highly complex thinking proficient readers do as they engage with text. The authors use twelve categories that they call "Systems of Strategic Actions" (SOSA), to describe the problem-solving the brain must do to create meaning during reading. Whether you're a beginning reader or a seasoned reader, all twelve systems are in use. While beginning readers may need to slow down to deliberately search for information or solve words, proficient readers integrate these twelve systems rapidly, simultaneously, and in a smooth and orchestrated way.

The authors categorize the SOSA into three ways of thinking:

1. Thinking Within the Text

Thinking within the text refers to searching for and using information, monitoring and self-correcting, solving words, maintaining fluency, adjusting, and summarizing. By engaging in these strategic actions, readers acquire a literal understanding that they will use to expand their understanding of the texts as they think beyond and about the text.

2. Thinking Beyond the Text

When readers think beyond the text, they bring their prior knowledge and understanding of how the world works to the text in order to:

make informed predictions

make meaningful connections between the content of the text and their own life, other texts, and the world around them

synthesize information and shift their thinking to incorporate new understandings

infer what the author means but does not explicitly state.

Readers link their literal understandings of the text to their own experiences in order to construct an understanding of the deeper messages of the text.

3. Thinking About the Text

When readers think about the text, they are required to recognize the text as an object. Readers notice and analyze the crafting decisions that the writer made when writing the text. They critique these decisions by determining how effective the choices were in achieving the purpose. Thinking about the text enables the reader to learn more about how texts are structured and crafted by writers.

Behaviors to Notice, Teach for, and Support

Because these strategic actions happen inside of each reader's head, they are not directly observable. We can only hypothesize about the ways in which each reader is becoming increasingly proficient by noticing behavioral evidence of these systems of strategic actions at work.

Ways to observe evidence of the processing systems at work:

Evidence of within the text thinking can be collected by observing oral reading, with the exception of summarizing. Coding, scoring, and analyzing running or reading records allows teachers to notice how each reader problem solve their way across a text.

Behavioral evidence of beyond the text and about the text thinking and summarizing is observable through analyzing students talking and writing.

Through carefully observing each student's oral reading, their talk about text, and their writing about reading, the SOSA wheel comes to life.
~The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team
Moving Towards Proficiency Together
How DoesThe Literacy ContinuumSupport Teachers of Reading? Who Can Benefit from The Literacy Continuum 6 Suggestions for Getting Started with The Literacy Continuum*This blog was originally published on October 13, 2016. For more collaborative conversation, join the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Facebook Learning Group. ?
When Fountas and Pinnell created the wheel graphic with its three color-coded "ways of thinking," and named the twelve Systems of Strategic Actions, their goal was to help teachers conceptualize the thousands of simultaneous actions the brain engages in as we read. Understanding these twelve interconnected Systems of Strategic Actions supports teachers in developing:

a shared theory of a complex in-the-head reading processing system

a shared vocabulary for discussing their observations of readers and their teaching goals.

When teachers in a school system make instructional decisions based on a shared theory of reading, they are able to provide students with text opportunities and responsive teaching across the grades so that readers move along a coherent path to proficiency.

Read the rest of our series on The Literacy Continuum:

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What are the Systems of Strategic Actions?

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Fountas and Pinnell developed the Systems of Strategic Actions wheel to illustrate the thinking readers are engaged in as they process texts.

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Instructional Level Expectations and Goals

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Text Level Gradient & Guided Reading Levels, a continuum of progress for readers

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A recognized and trusted tool for selecting books for small-group reading instruction to support the child’s development of self-initiating actions

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Guide For Observing and Noting Reading Behaviors

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Guide For Observing and Noting Reading Behaviors

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Guide For Observing and Noting Reading Behaviors.pdf

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Great for comprehension, fluency, oral reading, vocabulary

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Boost reading and writing confidence across all types of content and devices, in class, at work, and at home.

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