Brainstorm Research Topics with Desktop Graffiti
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

Make paper tablecloths by placing butcher-block/bulletin board paper overtop clusters of student desks. Small groups look through magazines and cut out words, headlines, and photos that are on controversial, political, and social topics appropriate for an expository assignment. [read more...]

More on Text Features
Monday, December 13th, 2010

Students often perceive text features as decoration or filler. They don't read text outside of the gray body paragraphs. However, text features serve a purpose. They are there to provide the reader additional information. It's imperative that students see text features as more than eye candy! [read more...]

Collecting Research
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

When first studying a new concept or subject; students can learn a lot about a topic by simply “reading” images. This is also a fabulous pre-reading strategy for students to get in the habit of previewing the visual text features to build background knowledge, especially on an unfamiliar topic. [read more...]

Introducing Text Features & Conducting a Scavenger Hunt
Monday, October 25th, 2010

If your content-area instruction requires a nonfiction textbook, this month is the perfect opportunity to conduct a quick text-feature treasure hunt. Students need to know how to enter the text and access information quickly. [read more...]

Dabble with Alternatives to the Traditional Research Paper
Monday, March 8th, 2010

The research paper/project can be a daunting task for students and teachers. The nature of research reports is to have students write about something they initially know little or nothing about. This consequently requires you to teach students skills on how to conduct research [read more...]

Using Picture Books to Build Background Knowledge
Monday, October 27th, 2008

To first excite students about a new topic of study and also give them some initial information, check out your elementary school media center or local library. Picture books can become a supplemental reading resource to the traditional textbook. [read more...]

There is No "I" in "Research Paper"
Monday, February 16th, 2009

Teaching students to move from the first-person personal narrative to the third-person research paper is difficult. Many students struggle to omit the first-person pronoun from their drafts. They start their sentences with "I believe" and "I know" and "I learned." [read more...]

Speech Delivery Versus Reading the Writing
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Q: I recently had students present an oral summary of a nonfiction piece they wrote. I told them they shouldn't just stand up in front of the class and read the whole piece to us, yet most of them did. HELP! How do I get students to deliver a speech and not just read their writing? [read more...]

Teach Students to Note Important Information
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Start saving those Snapple drink caps! Underneath each lid is a Snapple Fact. Julie Meitzler has found them to be a fabulous tool when teaching her Bluffton-Harrison fourth graders how to sift through nonfiction research, sorting out the generic information from the most important [read more...]

Reading Nonfiction to Aid in Research
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

A second use for the nonfiction picture book is to help any student who can’t choose between multiple research topics. Have him read several nonfiction picture books in order to fine-tune his interest to one topic. This helps decrease the likelihood of him wasting a lot of time [read more...]

Finding the Important Info in Nonfiction Research
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

We know that comprehension increases when students have an authentic purpose for their content-area and textbook reading. Mary Hall (Sweetser Elementary, Sweetser, IN) helps her students identify their purpose by teaching them to turn traditional chapter subheadings [read more...]

Adding Voice to Content-Area Writing
Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Writer voice shouldn’t be absent from content-area or nonfiction writing, although it often is. To encourage a more descriptive and engaging lead from her students, Claudia Jackson shared a writing sample from Ralph Fletcher’s Teaching the Qualities of Writing. [read more...]

Choosing High-Energy Words
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Choosing words is kind of like choosing food from the food pyramid; that’s John Stoffel’s (Flint Springs Elementary, Huntington, IN) analogy. Young writers use words from the top of the pyramid like "make," "said," "went," and "happy" out of habit. [read more...]