Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Let's help students make connections with the elections!


Do you know how many days it is from today until the Presidential Election?
Do our children understand the signs, commercials and debates they are seeing and hearing?
I found something on the Library of Congress site that could help:
This image is not interactive but if you click on it, you will be taken to the interactive site where it is from!
At the site, when you hover on the words at the side, blue questions appear above the voting box (which is animated). Those can be guiding questions for the text you will access when you click on the categories.
I think a KWL or KWLH chart might work well ….
According to ReadingQuest Strategies:
What Is K-W-L?.
K-W-L is the creation of Donna Ogle and is a 3-column chart that helps capture the Before, During, and After components of reading a text selection.

  • K stands for Know
    This is the prior knowledge activation question. 
  • W stands for Will or Want
    What do I think I will learn about this topic?
    What do I want to know about this topic?
  • L stands for Learned
    What have I learned about this topic?


  • Asking questions can engage and inspire learning! It also provides direction for what you want children to learn from a resource. I have written a previous post on KWL charts and also one on FQR charts which may work even better for nonfiction … Facts, Questions, and Responses.
    These nonfiction information articles provide a place for guided practice on this type of text as well as what to do when you encounter words that you do not know when you read.
    Another idea is for children to create posters/signs/lists online or offline of the interesting information the discover. You could even jigsaw this site by having different groups read each section and then report back to the other about what they learned. This could be a time for students to choose how to represent the information to share it!
    Here are places you can find nonfiction reading strategies and lessons that could be used with the material you find on the Library of Congress site:
    You never know what you might learn from reading nonfiction!
    Did you know that George Washington was reluctant to become our first president?

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