Similar and Different

We have been reading all about the Civil Rights Movement as a ending to our 4th unit in the common core units. This week we worked on the beginning of the "sit in" movement with the Freedom on the Menu and Sit ins.

We read each of the books and made connections between this protest movement and slavery. Using Freedom on the Menu, we worked on our 3 important questions "What does it say?", "What does it mean?" and "What does it matter?" We used our "What does it say?" to practice summarizing and "What does it mean?" to practice inferencing using characters feelings.  The final part "What does it mean?" was a chance for them to practice author's big idea or what the author is trying to teach us. The funny part is that most of the kids struggled with "What does it mean?"

 The next step we worked on was comparing the two stories and what was similar and different between the two of them.  We recently went to a conference and learned that our kids need a chance to struggle with "frustration" level text. This was a difficult concept for me to get.  As a teacher who has been trained in "instructional" and  "independent" level texts it was a struggle, but looking at how some kids have not had their reading levels increase at the level I wanted I was willing to try anything. So we have worked on giving them a chance to struggle through and then using that text as evidence for writing about their thinking. So they got a sample of text from each book and then write about how it was different.