Using Article of the Week to Increase Vocabulary and Background Knowledge

If you don't know this already, I love, LOVE, LOOOOVE Kelly Gallagher. I try and use as much of his ideas as possible in my classroom. It's kind of a joke amongst my other english teachers. My husband is a little worried ;)

My favorite KG idea is his infamous Article of the Week:
http://kellygallagher.org/resources/articles.html

It is a great tool to use to increase student's vocabulary as well as build their background knowledge regarding the world around them. Science and Social Studies teachers really appreciate it when you give your students a little boost in what they are learning through non-fiction texts. It also helps students with our English/Language Arts standards which requires them to analyze and comprehend non-fiction texts.

Lindsey and I are fans of using tweentribune.com for articles. We require this as a weekly homework assignment. But first, on Mondays, we introduce the article and read it in class. Depending on our students, it's read aloud by the teacher or read in pairs or silently.  I also like to do this activity on Mondays from this awesome book Making Thinking Visible:

http://books.google.com/books?id=KtVmUjwhTbMC&pg=PT145&lpg=PT145&dq=word+sentence+phrase+making+thinking+visible&source=bl&ots=b0qUdtCyyR&sig=Kyh8lmVOlnQli5a-N4MSHyPz0pM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3rXzUeLLCLWo4AO38YGgAw&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=word%20sentence%20phrase%20making%20thinking%20visible&f=false

Students also spend lots of time "turning and talking"  about the article. We pick articles that are relevant to what we are learning about and/or the students can make connections with.

 http://old.newteachercenter.org/collaborative-discussions/turn-and-talk/plan

Here is an example below of what a nightly homework assignment might look like:

Monday-  Read the article/mark your confusion. Write any questions or comments you have on the side. Underline any vocabulary words that you are still unsure of.

Tuesday – Find words to complete the chart below according to the part of speech.

verb	adjective	noun	adverb

Wednesday- Write a super sentence about the main idea of this article. Be sure to think about unique sentence beginnings when you are revising your sentence. Remember to also make sure that you wrote a complete sentence and not a sentence fragment or run on 

Thursday- Write a one paragraph (5 to 8 sentences) reflection on the article. Be sure to include at least one of the vocabulary words and examples from the text that support your thoughts.  Possible topics:

·         What surprises you about this article and why?

·         Are you left wondering anything after reading? What from the text leaves you wondering?

We also pick between 3 to 5 vocabulary words from the article to study for the week. On Friday, they are given a quick quiz about the vocabulary. It really helps when vocabulary is taken from something the students are reading and is made RELEVANT. :)

These articles are also occasionally used for our Socratic Circles which we do every couple of weeks. If you have not starting using socratic circles in your classroom, please start researching them! They are an incredible way to stimulate class discussion and analyze a text in a deeper and more meaningful way. It's an amazing event to watch and very simple to do.  

Lindsey and I have also taken the AOW idea and used it to help our student's analyze songs and poetry. We use the same format but change a few of the questions. The student's really love when we pick a song they like (Taylor Swift!) or a poem that relates to something they are studying in SS or Science. They love making connections.

This year we want to give the articles and poems for the first semester but second semester we are going to turn it around on the students. They will be responsible for finding articles and creating questions. Hopefully we will have modeled it enough the first semester so that this becomes an effective activity.

I hope this was helpful! What are some ways you use non-fiction texts in your classroom?
:)
P