Comparing and Contrasting Text in the Digital Age

These week I am working on a very important standards with my students: Comparing and contrasting two informational texts about the same topic. In the past, I have had students read two informational texts and compare these texts in their reader's notebooks. With the PARCC test looming around the corner, I thought it was time to venture into the 21st century!

I was lucky enough to attend a workshop earlier this month about using the Microsoft suite to update instruction in this digital age. After the workshop, I was itching to give these new tools a try. This is my first attempt!

For this lesson, I used OneNote. Unfortunately, my district only purchased accounts for the teachers and middle schoolers. Elementary students will receive accounts next year. For this reason, I had to make a few adjustments to my plan.

I created an "online binder" for this lesson. Normally I would assign elements from this binder to my students, but since they do not have accounts, I created a page for each students in my "binder."

To begin, students watched a video about how a robot called the VGo is being used in schools. The students had very little background knowledge about this topic, and the video really sparked their interest.

Then, students read two articles using the OneNote app on the iPad. Both of these articles were about how schools are using the VGo robot. Each article had one question that required students to type a response, while also highlighting evidence from the text.

We continued to use our RACE technique! Then, students created a Venn Diagram on the iPads comparing and contrasting the two texts. As the final activity, students answered a short answer question requiring students to analyze the way information was presented in each text, including the text structure. This answer was also constructed using the RACE strategy on the iPads.

Overall, the students were highly engaged in this lesson. They loved using the iPad for every step of this lesson. They're typing skills definitely need some refining. I am going to continue using OneNote for many lessons in the future!

How do you prepare students for reading and analyzing texts on the computer?

Comparing and Contrasting Informational Text!

Comparing and contrasting two texts is a key skill presented in the Common Core Standards, both in literature and informational text. For information texts, students must be able to compare and contrast two texts on the same topic. For literature, students must be able to compare two texts by the same author.

This lesson focuses on comparing two informational texts. With my third graders, I differentiate the levels of the texts for each guided reading group, but keep the essential elements and focus of the lesson the same. I have a majority of boys in these reading groups, so I tried to pick some really high interest science texts. I chose one set that focused on hurricanes, and one set that focused on volcanoes.

For the beginning of the lesson, I introduced the concepts to the students. We discussed what students already knew about hurricanes and volcanoes. I showed short clips on Teacher Tube to spark student interest as well. We also went through the key vocabulary in the glossary. I purposefully chose texts filled with rich text features.

The lesson went on with my normal structure of guided reading. Students continued to practice using their word attack strategies, (See more on those here!)as I went around and listened/assisted each student. When finished, we discussed the key information in the texts, especially the text features. Since it takes a lot of time to read two texts for a comparison, I took this time to review a variety of skills taught throughout the year during our discussion. These skills included cause and effect, text features, main idea and supporting details, and genre.

Once finished with our discussion, we created a Venn diagram in our reader’s notebooks comparing and contrasting the two texts. To keep my students on track, I gave them a specific focus for their Venn diagram. They were comparing and contrasting the two texts, but they needed to include the genres, important content, and text features. In this way, I was continuing my cumulative review.

Then, we had one last skill to practice: using evidence from the text. We are continually working on our written responses. For each set of texts, I came up with a written response question that would require students to use evidence from both texts. This is a skill they will need to master for next year’s PARCC assessments. Students had little experience with this, and we will definitely need to revisit this skill.

Overall, this lesson gave students a great opportunity to review and practice a wide variety of skills, perfect for the end of the school year.

How do you incorporate cumulative review into your instruction?

Text Features

Understanding text features can help improve students' comprehension of a nonfiction text significantly. When I work with my struggling readers, I make sure my students understand not only what the different text features are, but what their purpose is. Students need to know how to use these text features to understand what they are reading. I will admit that in my own reading I have often skimmed over these critical features of nonfiction articles, but since working on this skill with my students, I have become much conscious of the effects of text features.

In a previous lesson, I had explicitly gone over the different types of text features found in nonfiction using the anchor chart above. At that point, my students were aware of approximately half of the terms. Throughout the year, we have continued to discuss these text features when they appear in our reading. My students quickly became accustomed to using the table of contents, glossary, and index. They also understood that bold words were very important words, emphasized for a reason. Unfortunately, my students often continued to skim over diagrams, captions, and headings.

I decided it was time to draw my students' attention back to these "forgotten" text features. To do this, we began by reading a short nonfiction article about the Titanic. I chose this particular article because it was loaded with a variety of different text features. After reading and discussing the article, we began dissecting the text, literally. 

We went through the different text features and cut them out of the article. We then glued the text feature into our reader's notebooks. Next to the text feature, we wrote an explanation of why that specific text feature was important and how it was useful to us as readers.

For our next nonfiction text, I selected a book about different types of severe weather. I thought the subject matter was fitting for this time of year in the Midwest. I made copies of the different text features, since we couldn't cut the book up.

Just as with the previous text, we recorded why each particular text feature was important and how it was helpful to us as readers in our reader's notebooks. My hope is that this explicit review of text features will make my students more aware of text features in their reading. This use of text features will then lead to improved comprehension of nonfiction. 

How do you make sure your students are making good use of text features in their reading and not simply skimming over them?

Nonfiction Text Features

As an intervention teacher I work with a variety of grades in small groups.  With these lessons, I tried to work with grades 3-5 on the elements of nonfiction. The activities remain similar, but the texts are at the appropriate levels for the students in each group. To preassess, I had students brainstorm a list of nonfiction elements they knew. I wanted to see what I was working with. Then, I shared my anchor chart with the students:

I chose to focus on heading, table of contents, bold print, captions, diagrams, index, and glossary for the anchor chart. I took a picture of the anchor charts and students put them in their reader's notebooks. Now the chart is there for future reference. The graphics for the chart came from: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonfiction-Text-Features-Posters-Free

To begin with, each grade level read a short nonfiction article. One of my favorite places to find articles is: http://www.infohio.org/ER/secure/EBSCOsearchasaurus.asp. Hopefully your school has a username and password! My fifth graders read a Scholastic News article about telepresence robots used in schools. The fourth grade group read a different Scholastic News article about robots designed with animal characteristics. My third graders read a Scholastic News article about the metamorphosis of frogs. With each article we began with an overall question to guide our reading. For example: What are telepresence robots and how are they being used in schools? We recorded this question in our reader's notebooks and drafted a response together when we had completed the reading. Once finished, we went back into our articles and found examples of the different nonfiction text features and cut/pasted them in our  nonfiction text feature books. (found at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Nonfiction-Text-Features-Book)

The pages include the name of the nonfiction text feature, an example, and a written description of the text feature. These text features and explanations match the anchor chart. Once finished, we continued working on the nonfiction text feature books using leveled books from the book room.