Day 5

To begin this session, I read aloud chapter six of the novel. As I read, I paused to model the questions that I had as I read. I used a think aloud strategy to model the thinking going on in my head. I tried to focus on higher level questions that require critical thinking. Once or twice, I posed questions that were easily answered in the text. When doing so, I reminded the students that those were not good questions because the answers were right there in the text. They didn't require me to do any real thinking. As I read, I wrote down all my questions. At the end of the chapter, I had the students look back at my list. I asked them, "What makes these good juicy questions?" Students were able to tell me that you had to think to answer the questions. You had to look back at the book to find evidence to answer the questions. I thought this was great!



Also on Friday, I collected my students' guided notes. I was able to see what students are still struggling in regard to character description and questioning. On Monday, I plan to meet individually with two students who are struggling with their guided notes. I think that if these students improve with their guided notes that the quality of their posts on the blog will also increase.



Next week, I plan to turn my attention toward developing good written answers to the focus questions. I plan to model for students how to integrate their own inferences with evidence from the book to create a well constructed paragraph.