[Stella]

These are some of the mini-lessons I would like to teach. Does anyone have ideas, suggestions or passages they have used to teach these areas? Thanks!!

What are different structures of NF test? How can we identify and use description structures of nonfiction text?

How can we identify and use sequence structures of nonfiction text?

How can we identify and use compare and contrast structures of nonfiction text?

How can we identify and use problem solution structures of nonfiction text?

[shellea]

Beth Newingham's site has some materials that are helpful for teaching text structure and text features.

I use scholastic's "Navigating Nonfiction" series by Boynton and Blevins because it contains 30 weeks of grade level passages and lessons that focus on text structure and text features. I also use "Teaching Students to Read Nonfiction" published by scholastic. It also contains practice passages that can be used for instruction in whole group and small group settings. These books are used in conjunction with the Thinking Maps that correspond with each structure.

In their Reader's Notebooks, I have the students create a Tree Map of the different types of text structure and have them include the signal words and corresponding Thinking Map under each category to help them to identify the type of text structure. I then give them printed paragraphs of the structures and have them sort the paragraphs and then glue them on a small group- created Tree Map. After that give them another set of paragraphs to sort on their own and the students glues these as examples in their Reader's Notebooks.

After I have taught each of the text structures, we use National Geographic Explorer magazine to identify the text features and structure in action. We play a game in which the students compete to identify the text structure of each paragraph of our focus article for the week. I also have the students identify text structure in small group (I bribe them with a skittle/ starburst each time they can correctly identify the structure of a paragraph.) I have also used candy in whole group for our weekly basal story with a lot of success (Even the students who are hesitant to read aloud in front of their classmates will volunteer to read aloud in order to have a chance to identify the text structure!)

Hope this helps!

[Stella]

Thanks for all of your great ideas!!

[beckabee]

Some great high interest non-fiction picture books to teach skills for older students

A Drop of Water by Wick

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 - Richard Jackson Books

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteu - Dan Yacarino

Odd Boy Out; Young Albert Einstein - Don Brown

Seven miles to Freedom - ??

A Nation's Hope - The story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis - ??

Night Flight: Amelia Earhart crosses the Atlantic

[whadat]

Great ideas.Thanks a million.