Truth can be stranger than fiction

Welcome back from the long weekend.  Results are in on the fiction summarization and we have that task figured out.  This is not to say that it is disappearing.  Students will be using this skill throughout the year.  That is why it was so important that we get it early in the year. 

We are ready to move on to non-fiction reading.  Today, I showed the classes all of the texts that I have to read this semester for grad school (it's not pretty, I should have some buff arms after lifting all these books).  I asked them to help me figure out how I can do all the things I need to do and still get my homework reading done.  I asked for strategies that might help me finish the work and make sure I understand it.  Once we got talking about it, we were able to figure out that I could skim and scan the text looking for key words, and details.  I could identify the main idea of the selection and make sure I wrote down any questions about the concept so I could add those to the discussion in class.  I could summarize the selection to make sure I had a grasp on the big ideas before I went to school.  I should evaluate the contents of the chapters to determine if I already know about any of it and how much of it I need to read. 

Once we realized we did not have to read the whole thing word for word, we practiced.  Students read and took combination notes on 4-5 pages from our text book.  These pages discussed the different types of non-fiction texts we might come across and strategies for reading these texts.  The students had 20 minutes to work as a group to take Cornell notes over this selection.  Then they had to summarize it.  Our table captains were responsible for making sure we only spent 5 minutes per page so we could finish.    By the end we all had a good handle on what was important in the selection.  We will practice this some more, so have us try it at home with the newspaper or any other informational text.  We need to work on skimming and scanning for the important text in the selection.

HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes and choose 5 prompts/questions from the literary history list that you may want to talk about in your personal narrative piece.  Tonight I want you to write about 2 of the ones you choose in your comp book.  I will check for them tomorrow.

Link to  Literary History Prompts:  https://acrobat.com/#d=Myy9bekTwdNZDothqwX4ow