Courtney Stallmann. Jolene Wawrzyniak.

Transcription

1 Courtney Stallmann & Jolene Wawrzyniak

2 Reader s Theater Reader s Theater is an engaging way to entice some of your reluctant readers and motivate some of your excelling readers. It allows for an integrated approach to involve students with reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities. Reader s Theater helps students to increase fluency, automaticity, and prosody, which in turn aids in comprehension of texts. You can use Reader s Theater to support content being taught in the classroom, differentiate for varied learners, or to facilitate knowledge of content by having the students create their own. How to Implement Readers Theater 1. Introduce your readers to their script. Provide them with background information and discuss how it correlates with content being taught in class. 2. Teach the basic steps of performance: using highlighters to mark the parts, think about how to interpret their part and read expressively, and when to assume various stage positions. 3. Give the students lots of time to prepare. Emphasize practice. Readers should practice their roles in different ways: individually and in small groups, privately and in front of others. 4. Rehearse with the readers, providing needed direction and support regarding their interpretation, pacing, expression, volume, positions, and motions. Model expressive reading often. Children need to be aware that good readers are not necessarily fast readers! 5. Provide students with their own personal copy of the reader s theater. This allows them to add notes on performance. 6. Begin with short presentations. 7. Perform for an audience as often as possible. 8. Use props sparingly.

3 Tips for writing Reader s Theater Choose text that is within the reach of your readers. Students should be able to understand the essential story elements in order to convert it to a Reader s Theater. It is not necessary to use a piece of text in its entirety. Excepts can be used very effectively. Student created Reader s Theater scripts show their knowledge of the content being learned. It also reinforces the writing process in a fun creative way. Creating several scripts as a class before asking the students collaboratively create their own scripts, gives them clear expectations and several models to follow. Not everything in the text will need to be included. Determine what portions of the text to leave in to be true to the story line, characters, or topic and which portions can be deleted. Adapt the script. Reader s Theater can we written like a play or simply re-written to get across the main idea in a more condensed version. Discuss what types of text lead to a scripted Reader s Theater and what types of text desire more of a factual script. Develop a format that allows for easy reading. Provide character names in bold print, provide adequate spacing, utilize capitals and italics to stress specific words. Ways to Adapt Readers Theater Using a mentor text, either students or teacher highlight specific lines to create quick Reader's Theater Rather than using pre-made Reader's Theaters, teachers can make their own; taking into consideration abilities and needs of students After studying a concept in science or math, a piece of text, event in history, etc., allow students to create their own Reader's Theater Pair a stronger reader with a less capable reader to provide modeling and support Consider EC, ESL, reluctant, or struggling students Those with non-speaking parts can have an active role in scene building and props If additional parts are needed, allow students to create their own prologues, monologues, author's notes, introductions, epilogues, etc. to Reader's Theaters Manipulative punctuation to change mood or tone and increase enjoyment of reading

4 Reader s Theater Example When Rain Falls. Melissa Stewart. (Illus. by Constance R. Bergum.) Peachtree, pp.

5 Found Poems Found poems are created by taking a mentor text and restructuring it into the form of a free verse poem. Depending on the intentions of the instructor found poems can be written following the order of the texts original syntax or rearranged. Found Poems can be used to facilitate creativity in the classroom, to capture the main idea of the text being presented or to introduce a topic to the class. How to write a found poem 1. Provide students with a hard copy of a text that they will use to create their found poem. Magazines, textbooks, primary sources, blog entries, song lyrics, or advertisements can all be used and dissected to create the building blocks of their found poem 2. Have students read through the text. Depending on the level of the text and your students this can be done independently, in pairs or in small groups. 3. Using a highlighter or a pencil ask students to identify the all of the interesting words they notice as they re-read the text. Students will need to look for concrete words, specific nouns, verbs, specific vocabulary, or words that appear repeatedly in the text. 4. Once students have their selected words, they will need to think about how these words help them to understand the meaning of the selection they have read. Are there any words they should add or delete? 5. When students have a list of words they feel comfortable with they may begin writing. Found poems are usually written in free verse and students should not be concerned with rhyme or meter.

6 Why write found poems? Found Poems help get to the point of the selected text. It helps students identify the necessary words that help the main idea of the selection come across. Writing found poetry is a way to process the original piece of work. It helps you to understand what is being read and provides you an opportunity to write on the same topic in a creative way It shows if the students have any misconceptions on the topic being taught Found poetry helps students to widen their vocabulary and think reflectively on the words used in the selection. Ways to adapt found poetry Have the students use a copied version of the text to create an artistic representation of the text. Provide students with found poems based on the selection they will be reading. This will give them a chance to make predictions on the text and discuss what they may know about the topic. Provide a purpose or audience for the students to create their poem. Use found poetry to create a main idea or summarize the given text

7 Found Poem Example From Wolf Willow, From Wallace Stegner

8 CONCEPTS OF COMPREHENSION: COMPARE AND CONTRAST 6 th Reading Passage GRADE UNIT Dig This! Fossil Find Want to know what the world was like millions of years ago? Look to the rocks. One hundred and fifty million years ago, one of the very first birds appeared on Earth. How do we know? Fossils. Fossils are the hardened remains of plants or animals that died long ago. Scientists recently discovered a fossil of a 150-million-year-old bird called Archaeopteryx (arkee- OP-ter-iks). It s not the first Archaeopteryx fossil to be found. However, the newly discovered fossil shows that Archaeopteryx had feet similar to those of the Getty dinosaurs. This fossil gives Archaeopteryx scientists more evidence that dinosaurs were the ancient ancestors of modern birds. Dead plants and animals usually break down and rot away, but sometimes their remains become fossils. Think about the Archaeopteryx that died millions of years ago. Its body may have settled to the bottom of a river or lake. Then layers of sand covered the body. The layers created a shell around the skeleton that kept it from breaking down or being eaten by other animals. Over millions of years, minerals in the water saturated the bones. Minerals are the solid materials that make up rocks. Eventually, minerals replaced all the chemicals in the bones. The bones had transformed into rocks, but they still looked like the bird s skeleton. Today, scientists can study fossils to look back at the history of Earth. Scientists who study fossils are called paleontologists. They have discovered fossils of ancient flowers, enormous dinosaurs, and other creatures that have been extinct for millions of years. Knowing what plant and animal life was like helps scientists understand what the environment was like in the past. Text: Copyright 2007 Weekly Reader Corporation. All rights reserved. Weekly Reader is a registered trademark of Weekly Reader Corporation. Used by permission Urban Education Exchange. All rights reserved.

9 CONCEPTS OF COMPREHENSION: COMPARE AND CONTRAST 6 th Reading Passage GRADE UNIT Many people, not just scientists, discover fossils all the time. Who knows what ancient life-form could be discovered next! Rock On! There are three main types of rock on Earth. Igneous rocks form when the melted rock inside Earth cools and hardens. These rocks have a uniform texture. They are made up of grains that are packed closely together. Igneous rocks can be smooth and shiny or filled with a lot of air bubbles. Sedimentary rocks develop from sediment. Sediment is made up of tiny pieces of sand that are worn away from mountains and other rocks. Those pieces settle at the bottom of rivers, lakes, and oceans. Over time, sediment builds up. Sedimentary rocks sometimes contain fossils. Metamorphic rocks are rocks that have changed. That means they started out as igneous or sedimentary rocks. Then heat and pressure from deep underground transformed them into a different kind of rock. The Active Earth Earth may seem solid and motionless, but it s actually moving and changing all the time sometimes slowly and sometimes with a bang. Earthquakes shake, volcanoes blast liquid rock, and weather wears away rock and land. Faults are cracks in Earth s upper layer, or crust. They form when two plates, or pieces of the crust, slide against each other. Earthquakes usually happen near faults. Volcanoes erupt when magma blasts through "hot spots" in Earth s crust. Magma is super hot liquid rock from deep within Earth. When magma reaches the surface, it is called lava. Volcanic hot spots are also found on the seafloor. Last summer [2005], Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast of the United States. The hurricane caused erosion, the stripping away of land and soil. Over time, all rocks and land surfaces are worn down by flowing water or weather. Text: Copyright 2007 Weekly Reader Corporation. All rights reserved. Weekly Reader is a registered trademark of Weekly Reader Corporation. Used by permission Urban Education Exchange. All rights reserved.

10 Dig This! Fossil Find Characters: Paleontologist 1 Paleontologist 2 Frank Rachel Libby Want to know what the world was like millions of years ago? Look to the rocks. Paleontologist 1: Frank: Paleontologist 2: Rachel: Libby: Paleontologist 1: Paleontologist 2: Rachel Paleontologist 1: One hundred and fifty million years ago, one of the very first birds appeared on Earth. How do you know that? Fossils! What are fossils? I ve hear of fossils before! They are from the hardened remains of plants or animals that died long ago. Scientists recently discovered a fossil of a 150-millionyear-old bird called Archaeopteryx (arkee- OP-ter-iks). This newly discovered fossil shows that Archaeopteryx had feet similar to those of the dinosaurs. This fossil gives scientists more evidence that dinosaurs were the ancient ancestors of modern birds. How come we don t see fossils all over the place? Dead plants and animals usually break down and rot away, but sometimes their remains become fossils.

11 Paleontologist 2: Paleontologist 1: Paleontologist 2: Frank: Rachel: Paleontologist 1: Paleontologist 2: Libby: The Archaeopteryx may have settled to the bottom of a river or lake. The layers of sand that covered the body created a shell around the skeleton that kept it from breaking down or being eaten by other animals. Over millions of years, minerals in the water saturated the bones and eventually replaced all the chemicals in the bones. The bones had transformed into rocks, but they still looked like the bird s skeleton! Scientists must study fossils to look back at the history of Earth. You have important jobs as paleontologists! Knowing what plant and animal life was like helps scientists understand what the environment was like in the past. we have discovered fossils of ancient flowers, enormous dinosaurs, and other creatures that have been extinct for millions of years. I wonder what kind of ancient life form could be discovered next!

12 John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address Use the space below to write your own version of Found Poem based upon the JFK Inaugural Address K12Reader.com

13 What s In Your Cells? Use the space below to write your own Found Poem based upon the science text What s In Your Cells? 2012 K12Reader.com

14 Simplifying Fractions Use the space below to write your own Found Poem based upon the math text Simplifying Fractions K12Reader.com