Reading Non-fiction: Notice & Note Big Question #1

It's the end of my first quarter teaching 9th grade reading intervention for the first time. We spent the first quarter focusing on Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading for fictional texts. Today we began noticing the stances, signposts, and strategies for non-fiction outlined in Reading Nonfiction: Notice and Note by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst.

First we created an anchor chart in our reader's notebooks modeled after the chart in the text titled "What surprised me?" (p. 81).

Then we watched a youtube video that modeled the thinking of "what surprised me?"

Next, we read "Hard at Work" by Ritu Upadhyay, an article from Time for Kids. As students read, they practiced looking for places that were surprising, noting their thinking in the margins. During discussion, students shared their surprising facts with each other. As a whole group, we charted our findings in a class list.

As a formative assessment (ticket out the door) students wrote:

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me understand what is going on in the passage." - Selena

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me notice more things in the article and makes me read a little closer." - Breona

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me know a little more about the text and keeps me wondering why?" - Hanna

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me get more interested in the story than I was before." - Ashyln

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me read a boring text." - Gabe

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me want to read more." - Arien

"Looking for things that surprised me helped me understand the article better because it was interesting." - Sydney

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me think more about what I'm reading and makes me want to keep reading." - Gavin

"Looking for things that surprise me helps me understand the article better because I actually focus and take all the facts and stuff in and have to think about it." - Taylor