Week 19's Text of the Week

This week, as their text of the week, the boys and girls are reading a story about a class election. The story complements a number of cross-curricular items we're learning about in Room 208.  On Monday, I read the story to the kids and we talked about some of the new words and their meaning. We also briefly explored who we'd vote for and why.  On Tuesday, we read the story aloud and then we talked about how important it is to think very critically about who or what we vote for.    

As part of our faith development, we have talked a lot lately about how the way we judge someone is not by their appearance, race, ability or gender, but by their words and deeds, so this is why I've made a point to comment in the story on the overall character of the the two candidates. We'll talk about this again throughout the week as we explore the text on a closer level.  

We've also started our Data Management Unit in Math and part of this includes "graphing in" most days. Students participate in a number of polls and in doing so, learn about voting and how to analyze data. The story complements this Math unit very nicely as we can also talk about the rules and policies that make the election process safe and authentic.  

Getting back to literacy, we're also going to look at this story with some of the items in mind I shared in a blog post from last week:  

• From whose perspective is this story being told?  
• How do I feel about what I'm reading?
• Where do I stand on this topic? 
• Did my thinking change throughout the text?

As always, we'll have our TOTW test on Friday, that will combine a bit of word study along with reading comprehension.