7th grade descriptive READING stations for SEPTEMBER 21-Oct 2, 2009

STANDARDS-READING (targets: inference, main idea and supporting details, vocabulary, and summaries)

TEXT:  Gary Paulsen's HARRIS AND ME (teacher read aloud) and "The Aliens Have Landed" by Kenn Nesbitt

PURPOSE:  CMS students scored below the 50% in the areas of inference, fiction, poetry, context clues and main idea/details.  The novel lends itself to inference, fiction and main idea/details.  The poem is great for vocabulary, simile/metaphors/alliteration, onomatopeia, and semi-colons.

MATERIALS: composition notebooks (station and daily writing sections); pencil/pen; novel and copy of poem; station folders with handouts for stations 1-4.

GROUPING: station teams are heterogeneous; teacher teams are homogenous  from  SRI assessment data.

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STATION 1:  inference

• Each day the teacher does a read aloud from HARRIS AND ME.  Each day there is a new inference question from the chapters for students to respond to in writing.  We are practicing how to write inferences to score higher on CSAP and improve our understanding of "drawing a conclusion."  Students should complete 4 during the week.

STATION 2:  main ideas and supporting details

• Each day the students must find the main ideas and supporting details from the chapters the teacher read out loud to HARRIS AND ME.  The students choose one main idea and back it up with supporting details in their paragraph.  The students follow the typical summary style of paragraph which the teacher will demonstrate to the whole class as a sample.  There is also a sample of how to write a summary in the folder.  Students should complete 2 during the week.

STATION 3:  vocabulary from "The Aliens Have Landed"

• Students are given 5 words from the poem that each  must use in a 4 square built to improve knowledge of the word.  The 4 square is demonstrated in class and 2 different samples are in the folder.  Students may use either. The words from the poem are engulfed, immersed, tentacles, helium, exudes, snarling.
• Students are taught how to do a vocabulary continuum (list from weakest to strongest).  They take common, boring words and, as a team or with a partner, they list at least 8 synonyms on the continuum.  They must debate whether the words are stronger or weaker than the original.
• When they finish the synonyms, the students follow the same process using the antonyms for the original word:  love/hate; sad/happy; tall/short; good/evil, etc.

STATION 4: practice summary writing for responding to reading

• Each day you write a page (top to bottom and side to side) on one of the writing prompts for September.  This should take you no more than 5-8 minutes because it is "stream of consciousness writing" where you just go with the flow of ideas as you recall them.
• Each day you share with a partner, and they edit with you (highlighters).
• Pick one of your partner's for the week and write a summary of what they wrote.  Follow the summary format from station 2

TEACHER STATION:  Using text to teach inferences, main idea/supporting ideas, and summary (teacher uses differentiated texts for each homogeneous group that comes to her to teach these targets)

• Students read the text with the teacher in color groups.  They discuss targets as they arise in the story.  The text has CSAP style questions for the students to answer (multiple choice practice).
• Students learn how to write a summary using the text and following the NLC sample.