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I've decided to link up to Lifelong Learning to discuss one of my favourite read alouds. It's a great way to connect with other teachers, and see what kinds of read alouds they are doing in their classrooms! Click the link button below to see what other teachers like to use in their classrooms, and see how they use them. For my post, I will be discussing one of my favourite read aloud books "The Best Part of Me." Click the image below to find this text on amazon.ca.
I use this text in a variety of ways in my program. The text is written by 3rd, 4th and 5th graders around the prompt of what the best part of them is. I like to use this text to promote positive self image, and to teach my students to be proud of who they are, and to like themselves. We first start out by looking at the title, and brainstorming what it means. And, I have students just write a response of what they like about themselves. From there, we read through the text. As we go through each individual piece, we critique the writing. This is a great way to incorporate your writer's workshop into your reading program. Students feel at ease at giving feedback to the anonymous writers from the text. They feel at liberty to say how they feel, because they know they will not hurt the feelings of a friend in the class. We really focus on which texts really resonate with us, and discuss why we like particular pieces and dislike others. We then build success criteria... looking at gripping leads, word choice, fluency of the writing. This goes well beyond spelling. We do an overall reading response to the text "What do you think the author's purpose is for writing this text? Use evidence from the text and your own ideas to support your answer." And then, we lead into our own writing block, and students write the best part of them. I've done this in different ways: posters, books, slideshows... I pretty much let students decide how they want to publish their final copy of their text. Students get excited about this, and feel like they have creative decisions over their writing piece. Every year I have used this text, I have had very positive results! Students love it, and it creates a great buzz in the room. As you know, I teach 3/4, but this book could be used in any grade! I highly recommend you try this read aloud!
http://lifelonglearning1234.blogspot.ca/2014/10/lets-connect-book-talk-tuesday.html
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