Module Overlays and Graphic Organizers

Module Overlays

In Baltimore City, ESOL students are expected to master a rigorous grade-level curriculum. Therefore, I plan my instructional practices around being a support for them with mastering content material. One of my main supports is through providing graphic organizers that coincide with the module theme for every grade level. These organizers outline vocabulary, essential questions, unit texts, as well as provide visuals to assist my ESOL students with breaking down challenging content. Students are allowed to use these as reference sheets in their general-content classroom, as well as in my class for ESOL instruction. I also use these guides to pre-teach vocabulary at the beginning of each unit, so that vocabulary is not a barrier for comprehending rich texts. Here you can see a picture of my fourth-grade graphic organizer for The Great Heart unit, as well as a video of my planning binder where I keep extra copies of module graphic organizers for every grade level that I teach. I switch out and send home new module organizer quarterly as the modules change over to keep instructional materials up to date and aligned with the content area curriculum.

Textual Evidence T-Charts:

T-Charts allow students to dive deeper into textual evidence, which is a big goal for the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Below, you can see my student citing directly what the text says under the column "What the Text Says," and then drawing her own inferences in the "This Shows Me" section. The picture of the student above is a fifth grader using a T-chart to read an article about Native Americans for the Cultures in Conflict Unit. By using this T-Chart she was able to identify how Native American culture impacts their belief systems. The second picture is a completed organizer by a fourth grader studying The Great Heart unit. Through providing this guide for my student, she was able to slowly process and break down rich text about the literal heart, to understand that the heart is an essential organ for the body, and the role heart surgeons have with keeping the heart healthy. Through using the same organizers for multiple grade levels, I am able to differentiate instruction in a multi-level pull out group.

Essay Organizers:

Essay organizers guide my ESOL students with strategies to expand on their writing, while still promoting students to form their own independent ideas. On the left is an example of an organizer for a formative writing task during The Great Heart unit. As you can see, this organizer provides sentence stems, as well as prompting questions. Through using this organizer, this student here was able to generate three independent thoughts about the literal heart- all of which are containing correct content. This shows me that this student understood the assigned reading that she was drawing from, as well as that she can demonstrate her understandings in writing when prompted.

The second organizer shown is an example from my sixth-grade unit entitled The Great Depression. This student used this organizer to successfully write a multi-paragraph essay comparing how two written works about the Great Depression have a similar main idea. My main goal by using this organizer as a strategy was to teach this student how to gather and write textual evidence. As you can see, he was successful at this task.

5 W's Charts:

"5W's" is a common term used in my classroom to describe the "Who, What, When, Where, and Why" of a text. Through multi-layered questioning, students are able to delve deeper into texts, and piece together how elements of each text relate to one another. This first organizer is from the Under the Sea unit, where you can see a student was researching phytoplankton. The student then documented how they learned that phytoplankton is everywhere and that through them, you can gather more information about the underwater world. These are three independent concepts that were linked by simply documenting the reading in this chart.

The student who completed the fifth-grade Cultures in Conflict organizer took a different approach to analyze text with the 5W's. She answered some of the questions regarding the text, but she also used this organizer to ask critical questions about the text. This organizer showed me that the student was able to utilize it in order to break down a challenging text, and used it to try to identify deeper understandings of the content area material.

Columned Organizers:

Columned organizers can be used in a variety of different ways to compare, contrast, and keep track of ideas. These organizers were used to prepare students for a Socratic seminar for the Under the Sea unit and is a product of backwards-planning. Here they were able to investigate the essential question Why do people explore the sea? Students were able to demonstrate understanding about how there are many different motivations for artists, scientists, and authors to explore the sea, however, they all generate important information in many different ways. By putting this in a columned format, students were able to organize their writing in meaningful ways to them, regardless of their academic level.

Wonder Charts:

Wonder charts are another way for students to form their own ideas and delve deeper into texts. I usually distribute wonder charts before reading a text, where they first develop questions about a text or a topic we are covering. When students are reading the texts they are able to use these charts as a guide to independently find answers to their questions. Then, covering wonder charts in a whole group session is an effective instructional strategy for review. Below are examples of a wonder chart for the Under the Sea unit. They both show how students were successful with engaging in the text by providing questions, their own inferences, and notes from our whole group review of a book about phytoplankton.

KWL's:

KWL's are a common term used in my classroom that stands for "Know, Wonder, and Learned." Through using these formative checks throughout a unit, I am able to stay updated with my students' progress with understanding key concepts. KWLs are used all of the time as an instructional strategy, whether it is for an entire module overview, or for breaking down a single text. The first image is an example of a KWL chart for The Great Heart unit, where this student kept track of their enduring understandings of the literal heart. The second two charts are for my Cultures in Conflict unit, where students are tracking their knowledge about Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce tribe. There serve as yet another example of how I use similar strategies to build skills across multiple grade levels.