On Thursdays, students are going to record: "Text of the Week (or TOTW) test tomorrow" in their agenda. Each week, the boys and girls will receive a text of some kind of text that will be our reading focus for the week. Some weeks it'll be a poem, others, a story or non-fiction article. On most Fridays (and the occasional Thursday), they'll have their Text of the Week (TOTW) test. The texts are found in their blue "Text of the Week" duotang, and it comes home every night. Please see that your child packs it each day in their Zippy.
To help establish expectations for test-writing, we're going to write this week's test together as a class. It'll come home for you to sign, but there will not be a score on it. This week's text is called "Nate's First Day".
I find the text of the week to be highly effective for two reasons: first, I can cover a number of those skills that need to be taught but don't really fit in anywhere else, such as: what's a verb and why do we use italics? The second reason I like them so much is because I can tailor the discussions and texts to meet the unique needs of my class. If we're having trouble understanding point of view or main idea, I can find a story or article that meets this need. Or, I can do what I did this week, and write one myself. The purpose of this week's text is to talk about how we relate to stories and how we're all part of a larger community. Being a community member means we can all contribute to the greater good, as Nate did in our story this week. When we connect to a character or situation, we can interact with a story on a higher level. Making those text-to-self connections is usually one of the first reading comprehension strategies we teach students. Nate's solution to the problem in the story also models how we can all make a difference in our community.
In the past, I've used poems exclusively as our texts, but over the years, I've expanded the collection to include a wider variety of texts.
I'd like to share with you here what we actually do with the text in class each day. We gather at the carpet and read the TOTW every morning. We read the poems together as a class, and for the stories, I ask for volunteers. Each day we discuss the different features of the text. By the time students write the test on Friday, we will have discussed ALL of the questions that appear on the test, so listening attentively is key.
Let's say I'm using a poem as the TOTW, here's what our discussion might look like for the week. On Monday, after reading the poem aloud, I'll pose a variety of comprehension questions about it. On Tuesday we might look at word study and talk about syllables, compound words and contractions. We might even review parts of speech such as nouns and verbs.
On Wednesday, we'll look at figures of speech such as idioms and irony.
On Thursday, we review everything we covered earlier in the week and prepare for the test on Friday.
The tests follow a very predictable format (see picture below). After a few tests, you'll likely be able to anticipate the types of questions that will be on the TOTW test. Students are always allowed to use the text itself to support them while they write and to help them to be accountable for their own success, they are expected to spell words from the text correctly. Tests are usually out of 10 or 12 and come home Tuesday/Wednesday for signing. I ask that they are corrected and returned the following day.
This is a study guide I created back when I was using poems exclusively as my texts of the week. This document should still be helpful for parents, families and colleagues looking for extra support in helping their child/students prepare for the weekly tests. You can download your own copy here.
