Sharing their Thinking!

We have been working on recording our thinking while we are reading.  This means keeping track of our questions, thoughts, connections, parts that made us laugh or feel melancholy.

However, the problem with recording our thinking is that we lose the groove of reading then.  We have to stop, write down all kinds of things and then forget what we read.

So, in order to keep track of our thinking and keep our flow, students have been practicing how to use sticky-notes to help them keep track of their thoughts.  We use codes to mark specific places (along with maybe 1 or 2 words) so that we can remember and go back to it later when we are doing writing.  Many students discussed how they have seen their parents underline and highlight things. It's the same thing, just a better thing to do in books that aren't ours!

After reading, it is important for students to share with other students.  I want students to learn about new books that they possibly would like to read in the future. I also want them to have an audience- someone to give them feedback on their thoughts and support their thinking even more.

Today, while reading, students used at least 2 sticky notes to code their texts.  However, most of the students had sticky notes hanging out everywhere in their book.  Then, they shared a short synopsis of what they read and then explained their thoughts to their partner.

They had a lot of thoughts to share and a lot of great thinking and learning was going on!

Diana shows the "Sneak Peek" of Dork Diaries to MaKeesha.

Noah shows Owen how he coded using a non-fiction book.

Jace shares his coded post-its with Braden.

Megan and Kaci explore her book Bad Kitty

Morgan shows Princess her coded Cinderalla. 

Kaden, Drake, and Brady share their thinking about their chapter books.

Dalton shares about his book to Jackson.

Jake and Nathan are really into the book Jake is sharing about!

The whole class- engrossed in talking about books! It doesn't get much better!