reading workshop

Teachers: Manda Kelley, Mary Thomas and Keri Giguere

Unit Four Overview:

Unit 4 Fantasy Book Clubs: The Magic of Themes and Symbols is the second fiction unit this school year. It is designed to give students numerous opportunities to become better readers. Fantasy novels teach readers to deal with complexity through multi-faceted characters, multiple plot lines, shifting timelines, tricky narrative structures, and complicated symbolism. Fascinating plots and young heroes entice students to read more, drawing them into their fantasy series. Students discuss and share their thinking about these characteristics of fantasy novels with their book club members. The Thief of Always by Clive Barker serves as the mentor text. Teachers and students read it together and use the strategies taught each day to practice tackling more complex texts; for example, identifying internal and external character quests, symbolism, multiple themes, and lessons to inform their own lives.

The unit is divided into four sections or bends. They are:

Bend I: Constructing and Navigating Other Worlds - Students will investigate the ways texts become more complex by tackling the other worlds of novels, including complicated settings, multiple characters and plot lines, and most importantly they learn to suspend judgment. Waiting to develop their opinions, thoughts and ideas particularly about characters helps them to understand their characters' complexity, i.e. they are not always who they seem. This bend closes with students being asked to think more analytically about their reading, and tackling their reading clubs with more agency by setting goals and raising the level of their goal work and writing about reading.

Bend II: More than Dwarves: Metaphors, Life Lessons, Quests, and Thematic Patterns - Many students will start the second book in their series. That means that students will be able to apply the strategies taught during each day's mini lessons across books, comparing and contrasting character traits, quests, and themes. Students will end this bend comparing themes in their novels to themes in history, observing that historical figures like their novels' characters are complex, and the themes that play out in history also play out in their novels.

Bend III: When Fact and Fantasy Collide - Students turn to nonfiction to explain some of the references in their novels, and learn to deal with literary and figurative language. They study symbolism, exploring the potential meaning that symbols play in their stories and compare symbolism across the books in their series. And they end this bend examining metaphor and allegory, noticing that many of the symbols in their novels exist in the real world and are part of larger patterns and traditions.

Bend IV: Literary Traditions: Connecting Fantasy to Other Genres - Students investigate fantasy as a literary tradition, and how their thinking about these novels can be applied effectively when reading and studying other genres. Specifically, they will study the major archetypes that occur in fantasy novels and the way some characters break from those traditional archetypes. They end this bend reading more critically, especially with regard to gender norms, questioning how girls are portrayed and who has the power, any resistance they recognize, and how their stories reinforce or disrupt stereotypes.

Reader's Workshop Reminders:

The workshop model is used for reading and writing. It is organized with several distinct parts: mini lesson, independent work, and share. During independent work students have a chance to practice skills taught, and then learn from peers during share. Integral to the workshop model are the following:

• Reading Log: Students should read for a minimum of thirty to forty minutes a day. It is important that these are sustained minutes since as a community of readers one of our goals is to build our reading stamina. That means at least 35 minutes per sitting. Our expectation is that students are also working to increase the number of pages they read during those minutes. The log is a way for the student to track that information along with the genres they're reading. Students may count time spent reading during class or JAC/aftercare.
• Independent Reading: Students should continue to have an independent novel or fiction book they are reading in their free time. This is the book they use to work on their personal reading goals in addition to the nonfiction books they are exploring during reading class each day. During the third quarter students will replace their nonfiction goals with fiction goals and writing about reading.
• Readers notebook: The reader's notebook is where students try on strategies taught during each day's mini lessons and complete homework assignments. Students record their goals, plans and the work they have done to reach their goals. The reader's notebook is also a place for them to reflect on various parts of reader's workshop, including writing about reading.
• Homework: The homework assignments are directly linked to the day's mini lesson. They are opportunities to apply the strategies with their fantasy club book.

writing about reading

Writing about Reading (WAR) is one way to help us see and think about details in our reading and in our world that we might otherwise pass or ignore. When we pay attention to these details to write about our reading, it helps us to grow insights into our thinking about our reading and our own lives. Through the process of writing, we are able to develop bigger ideas, we may revise our ideas, and we may gain some clarity around the author’s purpose about big ideas in the story, and about our understanding of the world.

WRITING WELL ABOUT READING

We push ourselves to grow new ideas by…

• considering the way we can organize our thinking… [T-chart, Venn diagram, lists, webs];
• writing about various content… fiction texts: symbolism, characters (traits, feelings, changes, theories, motivations, quests, relationships), author’s craft, author’s purpose; multiple themes, and plot lines; nonfiction texts: evaluating and citing sources, main ideas, text structures and how parts fit together, e.g. text features, title, headings, subheadings,
• Moving beyond the obvious… asking questions--particularly the "why" questions;
• including text details or evidence to support our thinking; differentiating between explaining and quoting to support ideas
• Using good writing moves… [transition words, literary language, grouping related details together]
• Noticing small, seemingly insignificant details in the text to grow new ideas
• relating, e.g. comparing and contrasting our reading to the world, other texts and our own lives,