Reading True Stories

Just when you thought you had nonfiction reading all figured out, in walks the black sheep of the nonfiction family -- NARRATIVE nonfiction!

Savvy readers know that narrative nonfiction is just a nonfiction text (a text designed to teach its reader) in disguise as an entertaining story.  But those same savvy readers know that a story is a story is a story, no matter whether it's true or false.  And how do we think about the stories we read?  We think about the characters!  This means we temporarily set aside all that we've learned about reading nonfiction -- boxing in main ideas of sections, listing (with bullets) the details that support those ideas, turning headings into questions, and using text features to deepen our learning -- and return to our sticky note type thoughts.

Readers should ask themselves: 

• What kind of person is this character?  What are their traits?
• What does this character want or need?
• What are their obstacles, dangers or struggles?

After we finish the text, we can use the "Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then" one-sentence summary frame to help us focus on what this true story taught.

When we read Bamboo Valley: A Story of Chinese Bamboo Forest, we realized quickly that we needed to expand our definition of a main character to include animals, or perhaps even plants.  In this story, readers found the main character, a young panda, used his persistent, peaceful nature to overcome many obstacles to surviving alone in the forests of China.  They summarized this book like this:

The panda wanted to find a new home with water, live bamboo, and shelter, but everywhere he looked there was already another animal living there or no food, so he kept looking and walking for many miles, then he finally found a new valley with live bamboo & water.

But just thinking about what you read isn't always enough.  Just as we would ask ourselves, "Why is this important?" after we finish an informational text, we must think deeply to find the unifying ideas within a narrative nonfiction.  One strategy for digging deeper into a true story is to think about the character's choices, challenges and lessons.

Today, our readers recognized that, on a December 1st, very long ago, Mrs. Parks made a pivotal choice, or a choice that changed the course of her story, when she said "no" to not only the bus driver, but also the police officer, when she was asked to give up her seat.  Readers quickly saw that the immediate consequence of her arrest was only one of many effects of this choice.  (We learned that the word "consequence" doesn't always mean "punishment"!)  As a result of her personal choice, the women of her community organized a bus boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought national attention to her situation, and people all over the nation sent their support to those boycotting the buses.  Ultimately, her simple choice to say "no" led to change on a national level.  To us, this meant we could make a small choice -- whether it's picking up trash on the beach or playground, or inviting someone to join us at the lunch table or on the recess field -- and know that our small choice could somehow lead to a big change, bigger than we might ever imagined possible!

Readers, we thought about so much more today.  What were some of your "take away" thoughts after reading Rosa, by Nikki Giovanni?  What do you recall about her challenges?  What helped her through these challenges?  How could we carry a little piece of this story and what it's taught us into our lives today?  Take a moment to share with the world and our Chets Creek community what lessons we could take from this remarkable story.  

Nonfiction Reading

Even little baby readers know that reading nonfiction is different than reading fiction.  I'll never forget the day that my own daughter came home with her first nonfiction book in a bag and announced, "Mommy, I can start anywhere I want to when I read tonight, because this book is NONFICTION!"

Now that we are more sophisticated readers, we know that this is only partly true.  Good nonfiction readers do begin their nonfiction reading differently than their fiction reading, but it's not really about just picking a starting point.  Reading nonfiction means thinking about the text before, during, and after our reading.

PREview, PREdict, PREpare

We've learned that nonfiction readers spend time before they ever begin reading the main text previewing the text.  They focus on the text feature, which includes photographs, captions, diagrams, charts, maps, headings, footnotes, text boxes, and more.  We use these text features to get an idea about the topic of the text and predict what main ideas we'll learn about.

Taking it a step further, we've learned that sometimes readers can rephrase subheadings into questions, giving us a guiding purpose for our reading as we move throughout the article or book.  As we read, we'll carry these questions in our mind, looking for the answers.

Stop and Think

Reading nonfiction means stopping and thinking many times throughout the text.  As we come to the end of a section, we should stop to ask ourselves, "What did I just learn?"  We can take this time to jot a quick main idea in the margins or box the main idea phrase in the text.  The best readers might also underline the key words in supporting details, helping them hang onto their learning as they read.  

Good readers will also ask, "How did this section fit with other sections I've read?"  This second step helps us to recognize how the author has organized the text.  Is the author writing to describe?  Are they comparing and contrasting more than one idea or topic?  Am I reading about a cause and its effect?  Is that cause a problem?  If so, did they also write about the solution?  Does this text teach about a series of events that happen(ed) in a particular order, or sequence?  Understanding how a text is structured gives us a glimpse into the author's purpose and helps a reader to understand the most important ideas of the text.

Think Back, Write Long & Talk

Good nonfiction readers do not just read texts and walk away.  The best readers know that they're really reading nonfiction to become experts.  The goal is to truly learn from our nonfiction reading.  Learning means the knowledge you gain from a text becomes YOURS forever and always.  In order to achieve this level or understanding and forever knowing, good readers will think back on all that they've read, asking questions like: What is the author's big idea?  What do I think the author really wanted to teach me?  What does that mean?  Why is this important?  

Two strategies for helping readers reach these deeper understandings are writing and talking.  By putting what we've learned into our own words, orally or on a page, we're truly making it our own.  

Readers, what are some strategies you've enjoyed learning and practicing for nonfiction reading?  What is something you've learned about how reading nonfiction is different than reading fiction?  How can these nonfiction reading strategies help you in your fiction reading?

Multiplication Strategies are Evolving!

Our work with multi-digit multiplication has certainly made progress since school started in August. Here is a review of the development of this learning trajectory:

Multiplication Cluster

This strategy of decomposing one of the factors has empowered students to learn how to solve problems using mental mathematics. It has reinforced the concept of multiplication in that one factor represents the size of groups while the other factor represents the number of groups.

Open Array Model 

This model has been fantastic as we have made sense of multiplication with larger factors because it has helped us not lose sight of the value of each factor and it has enabled us to decompose BOTH factors and keep track of finding all of the needed partial products.

Transition to the Traditional Algorithm

Recent efforts in math have been to use this model (which also decomposes both factors like the open array does) to understand how and why the traditional algorithm works. With this model, we practice multiplying in the same order that is used with the algorithm, but without the succinct regrouping. *Notice that the SAME four smaller problems solved here match the four smaller problems in the open array model above. These SAME four smaller problems are also calculated in our heads when using the traditional algorithm (below) too!

This transition strategy is a current focus during small group center time (when they work directly with me using the white boards). The students are catching on VERY quickly! It's quite impressive!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later in the school year, we will connect all of the above pieces to this famous and widely-used strategy:

Traditional Algorithm

Aah......our final destination. Once students feel they are ready to exercise this strategy, they must be able to explain it to me!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can you see how all of these strategies are related? :-)

Deep conceptual understanding is realized when one can solve a problem in multiple ways and make connections between strategies and models in how they are related and why they work. Mathematical conversations have never been more fun!

Partial Quotients

Some of you have been wondering about the Partial Quotients method for solving division problems (also known as Russian Peasant).

This method is important because it draws upon important ideas in multiplication (the inverse operation of division). Did you know that multiplication is also referred to as "repeated" addition? Well, division is also referred to as "repeated" subtraction.

635 is the DIVIDEND of a division problem. It represents the TOTAL.

15 is the DIVISOR.

In this division problem, the question we are trying to answer is "How many groups of 15 are in 635?"

This leads us to think of multiplication to help us find the number of groups of 15 that can be made with a total of 635. Since division is repeated subtraction, we must subtract away groups of 15 until we no longer have enough left to make another group of 15. 

A brainstorming process happens next. Because 635, is so much more than 15, we don't want to take away only a few groups of 15 at a time. The goal is to work as efficiently as possible. 

We know that 1 x 15 is equal to 15, therefore 10 groups of 15 (10 x 15) is equal to 150. Working with landmark multiples of 10 (10, 20, 30, 40) is important and is built from our knowledge of basic multiplication facts. 

Notice that this brainstorming process has helped to determine that 40 groups of 15 is equal to 600. (This is close to our total of 635.) Using this problem helps us to "take away" (repeated subtraction) 40 groups of 15 from the 635 total, and this leaves only a difference of 35. 

Then, taking away another 2 groups of 15 (2 x 15), leaves a final difference of 5 (which is the "remainder" as 5 is not enough to make another group of 15).

This work shows that 42 groups of 15 can be made (or subtracted away) from 635 and that there will be 5 left over. It is very helpful to represent this remainder as a fraction since we are left with "part" of a new group of 15 and the fraction helps us to understand that this is what the remainder (left-over) means. 

42 groups of 15 were made and we have "5/15" or "1/3" of a another group.

The above example has shown the most efficient way to subtract groups of 15 (40 groups and then 2 groups), however, students may solve this problem in many different ways. Below shows another example of how the Partial Quotients method might be used to solve this same problem.

You will notice that 42 groups of 15 were still subtracted, but the process occurred in four steps instead of two steps.

In addition to this strategy, there are other division strategies students use to solve division problems. Page 9 in the student planners highlight a few of these strategies (such as use of a multiple tower or ratio table/skip counting). 

This Partial Quotients method will be a preferred method as we progress through the 4th grade as it connects with the traditional algorithm for division, which is a major focus in 5th grade. 

Happy Mathematizing!