Readers and Writers Workshop is an important element in many middle and high school English Language Arts classrooms. I know a lot of schools are starting to embrace this approach to teaching ELA. In this #2ndaryELA Twitter Chat recap, teachers shared their best ideas for Interactive Read Alouds, Mini-Lessons, Guided Reading and Assessment. Read the curated chat below to gain some new ideas for your literacy program.
Q1: Have you used guided reading before at the secondary level? Describe your experiences.
- I have used guided reading before but I would like to learn more. Lots of small group instruction in my classroom
- My school has an F&P leveled book room with book sets for guided reading and literature circles. We use novels and non-fiction small group reading
- I switch between a round of literature circles and a round of guided reading. Each student reads about 5 books with me in sm. groups each year.
- Expectations of what the other kids are doing when you’re with a guided reading group have to be crystal clear, practiced, and modeled
- Anchor chart
- Use guided reading frequently (at least every other class). Keep it short with poems/short stories
- Me too! Hardly used at middle school level and now at high school I haven’t been able to, but I’m looking for ideas on how I can
- I use reading strategies (1-2 per text). One on one practice with reading conferences (10-15 min. per class)
- I use guided reading in all of my classes, but I would love to learn how other teachers use it.
- Does anybody’s school have the LLI Teal System. Awesome short fiction and non-fiction text appropriate for middle school and high school students.
- Quick guided reading ideas intermediate guided reading
- For guided reading, I use short pieces, mostly non-fiction articles some fiction. I need to learn how to use novels
- Not me – I haven’t heard of that before…. we use SpringBoard and have something called ZINC
- Yes! We are in year 3 of implementing workshop & guided reading. I love it. I use lots of @Kasey_Kiehl ideas in my routines
- My teachers use guided reading in small groups within a blended station rotation model. Great discussions and modeling
Q2: What are your favorite books to read aloud to students?
- I love to read The Giver, Fish in a Tree, and Bronx Masquerade. I also love the audiobook for Curious Incident
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was always a hit with Ss. Slightly absurd, plenty creative
- A Long Walk to Water, The Tiger Rising, and Out of My Mind are my all-time IRA favorites
- Favourite read alouds The Giver, Fish in a Tree, The Outsiders, picture books depending on the unit
- Pink & Say and Crow Call are two of the picture books that I always go back to for middle school students
- I love to read aloud things like Harrison Bergeron, The Tell-Tale Heart, various picture books
- Reading aloud Pax right now and they love it!
- We just adopted SpringBoard and are required to go page by page…it’s been a difficult year so far
- Sections of To Kill a Mockingbird, Speak and The Road
- I love reading The Lottery aloud! and excerpts for book talks like Eleanor & Park, Looking for Alaska, All American Boys, etc.
- Love reading aloud 1st chapter of books to get students hooked. Especially The Catcher in the Rye 🙂 Happy banned books week!
- I love using chapters from high-interest books as my read alouds. Anything by Sonnenblick, Jacqueline Woodson, WD Myers
- I love to tie my read aloud into word study, RW, and WW. It always works better when I connect the pieces
- This is important! I did a read aloud this week and then we used it to talk about varying sentence structure
- Love the idea of 1 chapter to get them hooked!
- My students love Bradbury’s texts: A Sound of Thunder, The Pedestrian, The Veldt
- We also read aloud All American Boys, Boy. 21, & Cass McMride
- The Giver and The Book Thief how do you not lose your voice when doing read alouds in different periods throughout the day
Q3: How often do your students get time to read independently in your classroom?
- Students get a sustained silent reading day once a week, the second half of a double lesson. They can sit anywhere, which they love
- We only have 45-minute periods so maybe 5 minutes a day if all else is done
- Sustained silent reading every day 10-15 mins. This is when I get my reading conferences in!
- Students apply the day’s mini-lesson to their independent reading as they read. They get 30 minutes a day usually. My minilessons always involve gradual release (modeling, have-a-go, application). Students get 30 minutes of application
- Students read at least 15 minutes a day in English, and sometimes in other classes. I make reading a priority
- Everyday! We read as a bell ringer on teaching days and as one of our choices on working days
- Since we MUST use SpringBoard, there’s really no room for anything else
- Moving towards Penny Kittle Book Love approach. Reading is also a priority in my classes
- Daily! I guarantee at least 15 min. Typically a part of reading workshop for independent practice
- My 9th-grade teachers do 40 minutes every Friday. Independent reading. My middle schools do about 20 minutes on Fri, too.
- My goal is for students to have time to read *their choice* of reading material at the start or end of every class period
- Yes!!!! I was always hoarse on days that I read aloud. Had to do voices
- Two days a week the entire school has independent reading for 30 min., In my classroom. the first read of short texts is usually independent
- Independent reading time should connect to how we’re asking students to think as readers to build a community of readers.
- This is awesome! I’ve heard of schools doing “drop everything and read”
- We get about 30 minutes 2x a week
Q4: What types of writing about reading do you ask students to do?
- I do book talks and then gradually release them to the students. One requirement is to read a passage aloud to gain interest.
- I carry a novel in my tech bag, so I can pull up a chair and read a chapter next to a kid when I’m on different campuses. Model!
- I give my students about 20 min a day- we’re a high school on 4×4 schedule (90 min block every day until Jan)
- I love to teach my students multiple genres to respond to reading in and have them choose which genre best fits their book
- Reading journals once a week, Article of the Week response 1 a week. More writing about reading if we are doing a novel study
- I’d like to do more interactive things with their independent reading books but I spend a lot of time getting them interested in reading again
- Students usually look for style when reading. They use professional writing as a guide to writing
- We do a lot of comprehension questions and connecting the book and our lives
- We have journal prompts every week, and we also have a writing unit on formal lit analysis.
- You can try opinion writing, narrative writing, argumentative writing, group writing… lots of options!
- Writing in the style of the author, text-dependent questions, hexagonal writing, blog responses…
- Free-write about themes connected to their book.
- Dialectical journals where they connect quotes to self/text/world love reading about their ideas
- I give students about 15 min a day – works great for my 9th graders! On a 4×4
- Augmentative writing for “The Lady or the Tiger?”, analysis with short fiction, song lyric connections for acts of R&J
- It’s interesting for students to write their own essential question and answer it. Less guidelines, more original work
- Lots of t-charts w/comprehension strategies. Weekly response journals reading response journal
- Have also used @KyleneBeers notice and note signposts for fiction as guides for reading responses-fun to compare whole class
- My students do a lot with making connections in independent reading books & curriculum works. Normally quick writes that are more personal
- It’s a concrete way to get kids to enter complex texts in 6 areas and then choose strongest to write about. Abydos strategy.
- My high school teacher would give us a thesis and we wrote the rest of the essay after we read/discussed the book. Plus project on theme
Q5: When and how do students interact with each other during reading in your classroom?
- Students interact during book clubs, but I am looking for more ideas
- Ideas for getting students to discuss books with each other throughout a class period. Ways to Get Students to Discuss Books
- IRA discussions, minilessons, guided reading and literature circles are all times students are talking with each other about books.
- Today we liked for a sentence pattern in independent reading books. Most days students do a quick @donalynbooks style log
- My 9th-grade teachers build partner and small group discussions into lit circles and other reading analysis work
- One min book chats with partners then rotate; small groups answer generic questions in group and hear about other stories
- I’ve used Padlet and Today’s Meet for students to post questions (confusions and curiosities) as they read
- Letting students create big projects around a book always got them reading it AGAIN during their group planning & creating
- IRA discussions, turn & talk book chats, mini-lesson discussions, book talks, guided reading & lit circles
- [hexagonal writing] depends on grade level… Explain that essential questions require more than a simple answer and connect to real world
- Mixing up how we ask and answer questions with kids is huge. Is it always whole class? Switch to turn and talks sometimes.
- Create a question then pass to another group to discuss and log, keep rotating throughout period
- We have used Padlet and Google Classroom to discuss
- Social media gives even the quietest students a voice. Fun to have TweetChat going while teaching Shakespeare!
- I’ve used both of these tools to have students “discuss” online. Very fun, especially with adv. guided reading groups for extra meeting.
- Using a backchannel like Padlet
- For tech classrooms asking a question then using a backchannel like @TodaysMeet for silent discussions online can also post on board
- Reading conference based on strategies. Students prove understanding of 1-2 per conference. Meet about 1x per 2 weeks at sustained silent reading. 2-3 per day
- I am thinking of a way for students to “read dating” to share their book picks with their peers in 1 -2 minute time slots
- We don’t formally interact daily but lots of student to student recommendations claps when a student finishes book, walk & book talk with two students, etc.
- hexagonal-thinking
- I do couple of Reading Minutes a week 1sr quarter; students take over 2nd quarter.
Check Out Other Reading and Writing Tools
- Independent Reading Journal Assignment
- Teaching Literature Skills Ideas for English Language Arts Teachers
- Sticky Notes + Reading Material = Increased Comprehension
- Making Silent Reading (DEAR) Meaningful
- Student Engagement Through Choice Writing
- Journal Writing Tips and Tricks
Related Posts
