Posts tagged ‘determining importance’
142. Heroes of the Revolution by David A. Adler
Retell: Heroes of the Revolution presents the stories of 12 people who risked their lives for American independence.
Topics: heroes, spies, bravery, independence, war, revolution, Ethan Allen, Crispus Attucks, Lydia Darragh, Nathan Hale, Molly Pitcher, Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Haym Salomon, Deborah Sampson, George Washington
Units: Content Area, Nonfiction
Habits of Mind: persisting, thinking flexibly
Reading Skills: interpretation, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: What makes this a great read aloud is that the stories of each hero are quite short. They make both great read aloud and shared reading texts. Adler attempts to include stories from people other than just the white male heroes. Throughout the book you not only learn about what made each person important but each story tells the origin of famous quotes associated with the Revolution. You will hear the origin of such famous quotes as: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” “Times that try men’s souls,” “I have not yet begun to fight!”
136. Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez
Retell: This is the biography of Cesar Chavez, the leader of the National Farm Workers Association who worked to organize farm workers to rally together and fight for better pay and working conditions.
Topics: family, Cesar Chavez, conflict, drought, California, farming, Spanish, migrant workers, unions, La Causa, strikes, protests, boycotts, farm workers
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect, appreciations/no put-downs
Habits of Mind: persisting
Reading Skills: inference, interpretation, determining importance, synthesis, empathy
My Thoughts: Back when I taught in California this was required reading–in the Bay Area Cesar Chavez’s birthday is a school holiday. This book could fit into different types of text sets. For example, you could include this book when teaching a unit on the labor unit. You could also choose to read this book as a companion text to Esperanza Rising.
132. The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
Retell: The story of the first Thanksgiving which addresses some former misconceptions.
Topics: Thanksgiving, Cape Cod, Plymouth Rock, Pawtuxets, slavery, Squanto, Puritans, Mayflower, survival, death, cooperation, farming
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: When I was a kid, I learned about how the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. They toiled through the winter and many people died. I learned how Squanto helped the Pilgrims plant corn, beans and squash and as a gesture of peace, the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sat together to celebrate the harvest. What I didn’t learn until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen is how Squanto came to learn English–he had been a slave in London. Several years before the Pilgrims arrival, Squanto had been tricked onto a boat headed for Spain. He was purchased by a merchant ship owner from London. Squanto eventually sailed back to the village that he had been stolen from only to find that his entire village had died from smallpox!
This book attempts to tell the story of the first Thanksgiving without glossing over the contributions of the Wampanoag and of Squanto. I plan on reading this during the few days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. I also think I want to reread it during our Social Issues unit.
131. Apple Country by Denise Willi
Retell: A look into the history of apple-growing in the United States.
Topics: apples, orchards, colonists, Johnny Appleseed, farmers, packing plants, processing plants
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area, Journalism
Reading Skills: determining importance, synthesis, monitoring for sense
My Thoughts: This is a great book for teaching students how to effectively read and synthesize text features. There are many text features within the book: a flowchart, an interview, a table, a map, illustrations with captions, etc. It’s a particularly nice read aloud for New York 4th graders because it ties in natural resources of New York State and Colonial history.
130. Planet Earth/Inside Out by Gail Gibbons
Retell: Gail Gibbons imagines what we would see if we looked inside the earth.
Topics: earth, gravity, ocean, Pangaea, equator, continents, earth model, fossils, plates, earthquakes, volcanoes, islands
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: We are wrapping up our Science unit on Earth Movements this Friday and I was looking for a text to end with. This book ties in a lot of subjects within this unit: the earth model, Pangaea, plate tectonics, faults, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. The illustrations, which contain clear and useful diagrams, help readers comprehend the text. However, in some parts, readers most add to the illustrations with details from their own mental picture and think about what is not in the illustrations.
123. Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City by Barbara Bush
Retell: Barbara Bush zooms in on gothic building structures, bridge towers and overpasses to describe the adaptations of birds who thrive in urban areas.
Topics: birds, pigeons, urban areas, cities, habitats, migration, camouflage, adaptation, roosts, crows, shelter
Units of Study: Content-Area, Nonfiction
Reading Skills: envisionment, questioning, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: I’m currently looking for books that will support the current Nonfiction unit. I considered reading this book immediately, but I think I’m going to save it for our Content-Area unit. During that unit we’ll be studying Food Chains and Habitats in Science making this book a perfect fit. Urban Roosts is a book that will encourage urban readers to reconsider the common pigeon, finch or crow–a great book for modeling envisionment in nonfiction.
121. Vote! by Eileen Christelow
Retell: This book combines narrative and non-narrative text to describe how and why people vote.
Topics: voting, majority, mayors, elections, democracy, voting age, protests, marches, political parties, media, campaigns, taxes
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, determining importance, synthesis, making connections
My Thoughts: Tomorrow is election day. My students have the day off and they have no idea why. Unlike last year’s election day, the buzz around tomorrow’s election is quiet. Nevertheless, days off from school can be good teaching moments and a great time to tuck in a read aloud. Vote provides a nice, kid-friendly introduction to the world of voting. The text in the white space explains how voting works. Within the illustrations, speech and thought bubbles support a narrative thread: Chris Smith is running against Bill Brown for mayor and Smith’s family (including the family dog) all participate in the campaign. You may choose to read all of the non-narrative text and then pick and choose which speech bubbles are the most important to highlight.
If you choose to read this book (or others about voting) please add your comments in the space below.
117. Alfred Nobel: The Man Behind the Peace Prize by Kathy-Jo Wargin
Topics: Alfred Nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, nitroglycerin, death, literature, art, dynamite, peace, legacy
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Habits of Mind: persisting, gathering data through all senses, striving for accuracy and precision, questioning and posing problems, applying past knowledge to new situations
Reading Skills: prediction, synthesis, determining importance, interpretation, empathy
My Thoughts: With the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Barack Obama, you may want to take the opportunity to discuss the history of the prize itself. It’s a great text for discussing the Habits of Mind. The illustrations are quite large and are particularly vivid–perfect for classroom read alouds.
108. Who Eats What? Food Chains and Food Webs by Patricia Lauber
Retell: This book explains how energy flows within food chains and food webs. It also describes the importance of plant life.
Topics: food chains, food webs, interconnectedness, plants, animals, endangered species, ecology
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: envisionment, determining importance, interpretation, reading text features
Writing Skills: including diagrams to illustrate an idea
My Thoughts: Though our food chain unit is a few months away, I’m on the search for future read alouds. This is a great, straight-forward text for introducing food chains and food webs. I like the diagrams throughout the text. This would be a great text to read to introduce the idea of a diagram. After reading the text aloud, students could make food webs of their breakfast or lunch that day.
106. H is for Home Run: A Baseball Alphabet by Brad Herzog
Retell: Brad Herzog celebrates the A to Zs of baseball.
Topics: baseball, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: envisionment, determining importance
Writing Skills: using alliteration, using dashes, crafting rhyme
My Thoughts: I normally don’t use alphabet books very much throughout the course of the year. This book inspires me to change my mind. This book is more sophisticated than your average alphabet book. Each page has both a rhyming description of an aspect of baseball and a more detailed description in the sidebar. I’m considering proposing alphabet books as a way to publish Content-Area pieces. During Social Studies students could make alphabet books as a way to assess their understanding of the content of a unit.
Often I’m scrambling to find read alouds that fit within one of our units of study. However, sometimes it’s nice to read something that will connect with a current event or a current class interest. For those who want to celebrate the upcoming World Series, H is for Home Run is a good choice.
Teachable Texts 