https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48 Standard: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text. en-us 2021-03-13 19:28:46 UTC 2024-07-18 15:10:10 UTC hello@padlet.com gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305855006 We liked the summary map, as modeled in this video, for initial instruction around summarizing. The summary map activity has students work in groups to fill in the following categories after reading a story: main character, problem, solution, summary. We liked how the teacher used this organizer to help students complete each step leading up to the final summarizing. ]]> 2021-03-13 19:32:07 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305855006 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305856120 The story wheel is a great way to sequence a story with the support of visuals; it's also unique that it strays from the typical linear visual format. This will be especially useful for students who learn best with visuals or just need another way to think about sequencing.]]> 2021-03-13 19:32:45 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305856120 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305856731 The artistic summary helps ELL's visualize important parts of the story related to theme. It serves as a nice alternative to writing or speaking if the goal is simply to identify the theme of a reading.]]> 2021-03-13 19:33:15 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305856731 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305863190 These cards give students a short story to read and quickly identify a theme. Task cards are a great way to get a lot of practice finding the gist of a story-- a skill that can be applied to larger readings later.]]> 2021-03-13 19:38:34 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305863190 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305876529 This is an interactive tool students  can use on their own time for extra practice piecing together the events of a story. We included this because we liked that students can do it by themselves. We can assign this interactive online tool to students identified to need more support in the specific skill of sequencing, which is important skill students need to master on their way to understanding theme. ]]> 2021-03-13 19:49:39 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305876529 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305888978 We chose this specific assessment tool because it allows me to guage what knowledge students have coming into the lesson surrounding theme, and will help to understand what misconceptions occured throughout the lesson. For this assessment, students will be asked to first identify the moral, or theme, of the story and then explain how their answer is supported by evidence from the story. This will help students practice their ability to support their argument with evidence, which will help them prepare for the SBAC in the Spring. Finally, this assessment is a great tool because it ends with students being asked to summarize the story using their own words which is an important element of this 4th grade standard. ]]> 2021-03-13 19:58:32 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305888978 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305902914 This fun resource gives students extra practice identifying theme in the context of an interactive, video game format. Students read a short scenario and identify the theme from three options. We chose this game because we think it would engage students with special needs to practice finding theme. We also liked that the video game doesn't require writing.]]> 2021-03-13 20:10:10 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305902914 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305904926 This Engage NY breakdown of their ELA Unit provides a very comprehensive set of lesson plans that leads to a creative and rigorous assessment tool at the end of the unit. This assessment ends with students read and analyzing each other's poems, which they have been developing throughout the unit. Then, students will take these skills and read a new poem to analyze for details in the text and to determine the theme of the poem. The strength of this assessment is that it has student first create their own poetry and then read another student's poem to identify the theme. This helps students build relationships and social emotional skills, as well as acquire the skills necessary to correctly identify theme! ]]> 2021-03-13 20:11:55 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305904926 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305909077 BrainPop has a great lesson on finding theme. The activity includes a movie explaining theme with the characters, Tim and Moby, as well as follow up games and interactive quizzes for further understanding. We included this activity because we felt it might help students with special needs engage with the content if they see it in an animated format, modeled like a television show. We also liked the interactive video games students can play following the lesson for additional practice with theme.]]> 2021-03-13 20:15:35 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305909077 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305919063 This is a great interactive game where students watch a short animated video about monsters and then practice identifying the main idea of the plot. In the interactive component, students see a short paragraph and need to drag a sentence from that paragraph into a box labeled "main idea." Then, they drag a few sentences into a box labeled "supporting details." As with the others in this column, we felt this was a great resource for students who may lose focus more easily; this helps them stay engaged and interactive.]]> 2021-03-13 20:24:16 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305919063 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305923209 This resource is particular useful for a summative assessment tool because it is strictly standard's aligned and provides mutliple means of engagement with the two texts presented in the assessment. The assessment uses both multiple choice, graphic organizers, and long-answer written repsonses to compare and contrast the themes, characters, and literary elements of the short article and poem provided. This helps students develop their close reading skills and helps students dig out the important details to support their understanding of the text. Finally, this is a strong assessment tool because it integrates other key 4th grade skills such as understanding context clues to indentifying the meaning of key vocabulary. ]]> 2021-03-13 20:28:04 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305923209 gracemheller https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305928487 In this activity, students read small scenarios and choose a "theme word" from three options. We liked this activity because it is a quicker activity where students link the theme to one-word. This is a great way for students to get more practice identifying theme without writing long sentences or complicated thematic statements. ]]> 2021-03-13 20:32:28 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305928487 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305930670 This resource is great for beginning teachers who are still looking for specific supports for English Language Learners and their comprehension skills. This article helps guide teachers through strategies that with support comprehension skills such as using student's background knowledge and cultural experiences to suppor their understanding of theme. Another helplful tool listed in this article to support ELL studetns is a "picture walk" for the story or poem that the students are reading. While this will not work with all 4th grade texts, it will work for independent work time when students are choosing their own books to consider theme and practicing their ability to summarize. Finally, another useful tip from the article is to use outlines to scaffold comprehension. This will help students stay engaged with the article and organize their thoughts. ]]> 2021-03-13 20:34:25 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305930670 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305943354 This resource is GREAT for finding specific supports and scaffolds for ELL students, and each standard has specific supports that are relevant for promoting understanding of theme and the ability to summarize a text. Another strength of resource is that is based on the ELP level of the student. This will prevent over scaffolding for students and will help students with specific skills and support they need surrounding comprehension. Overall, the resource has several suports such as word banks, story maps, pictures, sentence frames, sentence starters, and several other helpful tips for this standard. ]]> 2021-03-13 20:45:07 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305943354 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305956945 The important take-aways from this resource that will provide remediation for students is that it simplifies theme identification into manageable steps. The article also speaks to teaching kids to identify what theme is not, and what them is, so that they can have a clear understanding for what they are looking for. This is a great time to bring in previous misconceptions from the original lesson. the second remediation and reteaching tool is use the acronym "S.L.I.M.E" to support student learning of how to correctly identify theme. This acronym breaks down theme into management parts that students can more easily digest. The parts are subject, lesson, idea or message, and evidence. ]]> 2021-03-13 20:57:13 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305956945 hopcooper https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305961663 The reason we chose this specific standard is because it is one that is instrumental in 4th-graders development of comprehension skills. Theme development is something that students will need to know how to accurately do for the rest of their academic careers. This skill will help students find success in their future 5th grade class when students start to identify more complex themes. Overall, we chose this standard because it is instrumental in the growth of our student's comprehension skills. ]]> 2021-03-13 21:01:35 UTC https://padlet.com/gracemheller/apo67pc2le04dp48/wish/1305961663