BubbleUp Classroom
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Presentations >
      • Empower17
      • Thesis ALIVE!
  • READ
    • What's the Scoop? >
      • Landmark Supreme Court Cases
    • Reading an Artifact
    • Reading an Image
    • Emoji Notes
    • Sketchnotes
    • Sharing Books with Kids
  • WRITE
    • Thesis & Essay Writing >
      • Thesis Writing Workshop
      • Fairy Tale Grab Bags
      • Essay Roadmap
      • Essay Outline Generator
      • Other Thesis Ideas
    • What's the Scoop? >
      • Landmark Supreme Court Cases
    • Poetry Beyond English Class
  • CREATE
    • Think, Build, Tweet
    • Sketchnotes
    • Ordinary Objects
    • Think Outside the Box
    • Poetry Beyond English Class
  • WORK WITH US
    • Testimonials

Making Nonfiction Text Features Non-boring

3/3/2020

5 Comments

 
Picture
Our Reading classes come to the library monthly for lessons and activities. Last month, our reading teachers requested that we develop a lesson on external text features -- think: bold print, italics, tables of contents, glossaries, etc. Text features are a fairly dry topic so we turned to one of our go-to instructional strategies: stations. Stations allow for lots of student movement, the ability for us as teachers to push into smaller groups that need extra support, and offer room for lots of differentiation. And, stations let us meet our goal: making text features a lot more accessible and a bit more interesting for our students.

We set up two sets of 5 stations around the library so that our students could spread out and work independently. Then we introduce the activity and give each student a cover sheet with a checklist. As they move through each station, they collect the evidence from each station and check off what they complete.
Picture
TEXTO
Text books provide lots of examples of external text features. At this station, we created a BINGO (aka TEXTO) board of text features. Students chose a textbook then work to get TEXTO in a row, column or diagonal, finding examples and writing page numbers for each feature.

Picture
Article
We pulled 5 short, accessible articles on a range of topics (youth sports, witches, animals, secret codes, aliens, etc.), then gave students a list of tasks to complete such as:
​- Highlight the title yellow
-Circle the bold words blue
- and so forth.
At the end, they write a 2 sentence summary of what they think the article will be about -- we emphasize that they don't have to read the article start to finish, they are simply to use those external text features to help them figure out the topic of the article.

Picture
Hunt
My co-librarian chose 10 high-interest non-fiction books and created a scavenger  hunt for each title consisting of 6 questions. For example: "What's the name of the first chapter? Hint: Use the table of contents." Students work through the hunt finding text features -- and exploring an interesting book along the way.

Picture
Match
Using a free Teachers Pay Teachers resource as a guide, we created a text feature matching activity -- students match an example with the correct text feature and purpose. Upon finishing, they complete a quick exit ticket for the activity.

Picture
Cards
We pulled two free sets of task cards from TpT (there are a variety of options depending on the level of your students, like this one or this one or this one). Students chose one set of task cards and respond on  answer sheets that we tweaked to work better for our students.

What are some ways that support your students as they read nonfiction texts?

​-Gretchen

You might also like:

  • TIC-TAC-TOETRY, A Fun Day of Poetry! (May 28, 2019)
  • Navigation through Writing: Personalized, self-paced review (March 6, 2018)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
5 Comments
ozessay.com.au review link
3/25/2020 02:31:59 am

This was an incredible film arrangement. The entirety of its characters were extremely cool and brain blowing. I have appreciated the Harry potter character most then some other. This was a film arrangement that was to gain some new useful knowledge in each part.

Reply
scott link
4/23/2021 09:13:17 pm

Nonfiction has been defined by many as a narrative based on actual events and information. Unlike fiction, you must exert effort and time to explore the topic as all of the information presented in work must be verifiable if possible. A nonfiction writer is not just a writer. You become a researcher to dive deep into the topic, and you become a teacher to share your knowledge with the public. You may also check my blog <p><a href="http://Four Must-Haves for Writing a Successful Nonfiction Book">Four Must-Haves for Writing a Successful Nonfiction Book</a></p> Thank you.

Reply
Frank Mitchell link
10/7/2022 01:28:14 pm

Including partner stuff take huge window decision. Statement concern option adult.

Reply
William Ramos link
11/9/2022 10:16:44 am

Together mouth break stock gun. World animal agree senior behavior current past sort. Media smile blood film others expect.

Reply
slope unblocked games link
1/17/2023 01:14:08 am

thank you for your interesting infomation.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Who We Are

    Picture
    Corey Thornblad
    Teacher 
    Picture
    Picture
    Gretchen Hazlin
    ​Librarian
    Picture

    Picture

    Join our list!



    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All
    Activism
    Adminstrators
    Assessments
    Back To School
    Balance
    Best Practices
    Books
    Brain Breaks
    BreakoutEDU
    #bubbleupthx
    Cell Phones
    Civic Engagenemt
    Classroom Design
    Classroom Management
    Coding
    Collaboration
    Community
    CREATE
    Critical Thinking
    Curation
    Design Thinking
    Discipline
    Discussion
    Distance Learning
    Edcamp
    Equity
    Field Trips
    Flexible Seating
    Flipped Classroom
    Genrefication
    Gifted
    Gifts
    Google
    Grading
    Gratitude
    Growth Mindset
    History
    Homework
    How-to
    Images
    Inquiry
    Interview
    Joy
    Kindness
    Leadership
    Librarians
    Library
    Literacy
    Makerspace
    Math
    Mental Health
    Middle School
    Mindfulness
    Movement
    New Librarians
    New Teachers
    Orientation
    Parenting
    Pbl
    Physical Space
    Pln
    Podcasts
    Poetry
    Primary Sources
    Problem Solving
    Professional Development
    Project Based Learning
    Questioning
    READ
    Reflection
    Relationships
    Research
    Rubrics
    Simulation
    Sketchnotes
    Social Emotional Health
    Social Emotional Learning
    Social Studies
    Stations
    Student Centered Learning
    Student-centered Learning
    Study Skills
    Summer
    Take10
    Take5
    Teacher Appreciation Week
    Technology
    Teens
    Testing
    Twitter
    WRITE

    RSS Feed


Proudly powered by Weebly
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Presentations >
      • Empower17
      • Thesis ALIVE!
  • READ
    • What's the Scoop? >
      • Landmark Supreme Court Cases
    • Reading an Artifact
    • Reading an Image
    • Emoji Notes
    • Sketchnotes
    • Sharing Books with Kids
  • WRITE
    • Thesis & Essay Writing >
      • Thesis Writing Workshop
      • Fairy Tale Grab Bags
      • Essay Roadmap
      • Essay Outline Generator
      • Other Thesis Ideas
    • What's the Scoop? >
      • Landmark Supreme Court Cases
    • Poetry Beyond English Class
  • CREATE
    • Think, Build, Tweet
    • Sketchnotes
    • Ordinary Objects
    • Think Outside the Box
    • Poetry Beyond English Class
  • WORK WITH US
    • Testimonials