Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Teach (Model/Explain):
Lets take a look at Teammates to notice surface level and underlying themes. (Read
through half of the book). What I notice when I read is the difference of how blacks and
whites are treated. The way I determined this was by inferring through what the author
tells us about each race. For example, in the text it says But making the Dodgers was
only the beginning. Jackie had to face abuse and hostility throughout the season, from
April through September. Racism is a surface level theme because it is easily pointed
out to us. So, I will take my sticky note and write and I on it for my inference and stick
it next to this sentence to leave traces of my thinking (Read the rest of the book). In the
last half of Teammates another theme is created, which is friendship and compassion.
How do you think I came to that conclusion? *wait for suggestions and answers* I
inferred the theme through textual evidence such as Stopping beside Jackie, Pee Wee
put his arm around Jackies shoulders Outlined on a sea of green grass stood these
two great athletes, one black, one white, both wearing the same team uniform. This
textual evidence expresses how Pee Wee could see past superficial thinking and see
Jackie for what he was a man. Again, I am going to stick a sticky note with an I on it
next to where my inferencing was. I can find more themes by... (quickly demonstrate
finding another piece of textual evidence to support an underlying theme)
Active Engagement (AKA~ Check for Understanding: students try it out, teacher
observes):
Now, we are going to look at the smart board and see the T-chart that I have created.
On the top left corner I wrote Textual Evidence and on the top right corner I wrote
Theme. Class I want you all to help me find a sentence or two that help us determine
a theme in this book (child raises their hand and gives a time or sentence in the book)
Next we will take the sentence that we found and place it under the Textual Evidence
column and then in the Theme column next to it we will write out what kind of theme
and idea the author is portraying here. Now let's infer and discuss why we think the
author found this sentence and main idea to be important to the overall story. Students
when we think about WHY an author does something and WHAT will happen next we
are inferencing things about the text. Next we are going to split into your reader
partners and grab the book you are reading together. I want each of you to read the
book individually and place sticky notes with Is on them where you infer your theme
thinking. Then collaborate together and discuss the themes each of you found. After
discussion, I want you to take the paper that is on your desks that is split into two
columns, one that says texts and the other says theme. I want you to fill the texts
colum up with the I sticky notes that you and your partner agreed on for themes. Then
next to it in the theme column I want you to write the theme that each of you inferred
from the text. After that we will come together as a whole group again and discuss how
we inferred our themes. (Send them off into partners and walk around and listen/help
the students piece together their inferences.) (Close with collaboration with the whole
classroom sharing one example of sticky note inferencing)
Link (AKA~ Closing the Lesson [with accountability for the skill/process]):
So readers, now when we read our books we can think while we read and write Is next
to the text to show our thinking. Then we can go back and look at our thinking and
connect it all together to form a larger comprehension of the overall book.