Reader's Workshop

So, during this unit, keep up the volume of your reading by maintaining a rich fiction reading life. It will be your responsibility to support your own fiction reading life.

I know this asks a lot of you. But you are fifth-graders now, heading for sixth grade. And people in the world often do need to read different kinds of texts at the same time—call it professional and personal.

So think of what your personal reading life will be. What fiction are you dying to read? Maybe you’ve heard everyone talking about Wonder. You can start that now. Or maybe Lisa Graff’s Absolutely, Almost. I know it’s on my list! Maybe this is a good chance for you to read the next book in Deltora Quest, or dive into the Amulet graphic novel series. Make a list right now in your reading notebook of three books you’ll have on deck to keep your personal fiction reading life going. Remember the whole reason we are doing this is to keep your reading volume up, so push yourself to read a ton!! Get started right now.

Maya makes a list of books she is dying to read!

Andrew decides to set up his own author study.

Lesson 1

Mini-Lesson: Argument Intensive

Text Set: Day 1

Our Class Jamboard

Share: Noticing When Texts Are One-Sided or Offer Different Sides of an Issue

Today you will analyze texts. You'll think about what claim each text is making, and then think how the claim is or isn’t supported by evidence. Ask yourself, “What is the claim being made? What reasons are given to support the claim? What evidence is given to support the reasons?”.

Lesson 2

Mini-Lesson: Organizing an Ethical Research Life to Investigate an Issue

Text Set : Choose your Topic

Read this Article : "A School Fight Over Chocolate Milk"

Today you will start working on the research for your topics. You'll make a reading plan that supports ethical research, where you will work to read about both sides of an argument. You will suspend your own judgment in order to read with an open mind, reading your text sets deeply and understanding multiple perspectives to your argument.

Lesson 3

Mini-Lesson: In Class Flash Debate

Chocolate Milk - Text 1 : "A School Fight Over Chocolate Milk"

Chocolate Milk - Text 2 : Chocolate Milk: More Harmful than Healthful

Share : Should Chocolate Milk be in School? Flash Debate Flipgid

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Today, spend some time independently reading in the text set about your own topic. You'll spend some time preparing for a flash debate.

Lesson 4

Mini-Lesson: Mining Texts for Relevant Information

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Today you will spend more time in your text sets, reading both familiar and new texts about your topic. You will likely also read texts that do not directly address your topics but that will support your argument from the angle of another side topic. You'll regularly stop to think, “How might this information apply to the argument?” while reading any of your texts.

Indra takes notes on informational texts related to her issue in order to deepen her background knowledge. She’ll need to think, “How does this apply to the argument?”

This student is sketching to hold onto information related to the issue she is researching.

Lessons 5-6

Mini-Lesson: Readers Think and Wonder as They Read

Find your text set here : Text Sets

You will continue your research, shifting between reading a bit, stopping to think and wonder, then reading more with new ideas in mind. You will continue to think of questions and new ideas, then look for information that confirms or conflicts with these ideas. You might need to adjust your reading plan to fit your new wonderings, even choosing different texts to read. Keep jotting notes that fit your ideas.

Lesson 7

Mini-Lesson: Summarizing to Hold onto What is Most Essential

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Today you will keep reading about your issue. Every time you finish a text, you will make sure you understand the big ideas in the text. This could look like a written or oral summary. You'll do this for at least one text today, and some of you will do a written summary for more than one. Make sure you look for the central claim and the main ideas to support for each text to ensure that you truly understand.

Try not to include your own opinions. This student could benefit from asking, “What does the text say? What are its main ideas and big points?” and jotting a quick boxesand-bullets summary before rewriting.

Other students worked to summarize articles that laid out multiple perspectives on an issue.

Summary for “Putting Plastic in It’s Place”

Lesson 8

Mini-Lesson: Arguing to Learn

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Today you will prepare for a debate with your research groups. As you read, you'll think about counterclaims and responses to them. The chart, “To Prepare to Make an Argument” will help you set yourself up with solid arguments, ideas about counterclaims, and reasons. Tomorrow we will have a group debate with much more depth than the flash debates we had today as you draw on more research.

Rebecca reflects on the group’s debate as a conversation and the new thinking she is coming to as a result.

Charlotte plans for debate and for arguing against plastic bags.

Alex considers what he now thinks about the issue of zoos

Lesson 9

Mini-Lesson: Moving Beyond Considering One Debatable Question

Today you will continue to research your issues. You'll likely reread texts, thinking about new questions or ideas you have. You might also read new texts with an eye to growing your thinking beyond what you have researched so far. You'll revise your work plan to fit your new thinking, making decisions about what texts to read or reread, which order you want to go in, and what you are looking for as you push your research to the next level.

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Lesson 10

Mini-Lesson: Raising the Level of Annotating Texts

You will keep researching, this time thinking about how you can best annotate your texts. You will draw out key parts and jot notes about what you are thinking as you read in order to be prepared for conversations later.

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Research Guides: Interrogating Texts: Reading StrategiesSix Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard

Lesson 11

Mini-Lesson: Reaching to Tackle More Difficult Texts

Today you will keep reading in your issue text sets. You will find tricky texts or parts of texts that you can approach with agency. You'll be on the lookout for when something starts to feel difficult so that you can find resources to help you, like the chart, “When Encountering a Slightly Too-Difficult Text, Readers Can…”. These strategies will help make sure you read with agency and stick to it, even when the text feels tough.

Share: I’d like you to read some nonfiction in addition to fiction so you can practice tackling texts that are a bit tricky. I suggest you split your reading time. Read fiction for half the time and nonfiction for half the time. For your nonfiction reading, choose a book or a few articles that you think might be a bit tricky. As you read challenging texts, think about the difficulties you come across. Dig out your text complexity cards. Use those cards to note the difficulties you come across. Also, note strategies that you might try to handle the difficulties. Decide whether the cards are helpful to you or not. If they are, consider whether you now need to make a new set of cards. Perhaps instead you need to make a few new cards to represent what you have now learned. Be ready to share with your group tomorrow.

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Lesson 12

Mini-Lesson: Who Said That? Studying Perspective

Today you will keep your research going. Today, you'll take time to study a text, thinking about the perspective of the author. Make connections across texts, and think how different sources fit into your own claims and arguments about your issue. Understand the text in a deeper way when you analyze who the author is and how their point of view influences what you write. You will likely reread much of your text set with a new, focused eye on perspective.

Then, if you can, talk to people in your life and ask those people about trustworthiness. What kind of sources do they tend to listen to? Where do they get their news? What kind of sources makes them uneasy? Think more about trustworthiness. The next time your group has a conversation, you can all discuss trustworthiness again and have some new thoughts.

Chocolate Milk - Text 2 : Chocolate Milk: More Harmful than Healthful

Chocolate Milk - Text 3 : Devoted to Dairy: An American Dairy Farmers Blog

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Lesson 13

Mini-Lesson: Considering Craft (no video today)

Today you will read your research texts with an eye toward analyzing the authors’ purposeful writing moves. You will have a deeper understanding of the texts as you read like writers, making connections to writing moves you have learned. Grow new ideas and ask new questions based on this work, gaining a better understanding of the multiple perspectives of your issue.

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Lesson 14

Mini-Lesson: Evaluating Arguments

Today you will reread at least one familiar text about your issue, this time with a skeptical lens. Ask questions to really check that an argument is convincing. Think, “How does an author know this?” and “What would someone else say about this?” and “Is the author considering ___?” Look at the big claim, the small points and check that they support. Then, keep reading, either new texts or continuing to reread skeptically.

Find your text set here : Text Sets

Lesson 15

Mini-Lesson: Day of Shared Learning (no video today)

Today you will plan and prepare for another debate with your research club. Spend time rereading articles, planning out your argument, solid reasons to support it, and evidence to back it up. Then have a debate and get the chance to sit in and watch others debate as well, lifting the level of your debating each time.

Find your text set here : Text Sets

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