Unit: Reading Response

(Plus: Book Club Projects)

Overview:  

In earlier units, students revised and developed new reading identities.  They learned to

identify the genres, topics, and styles they most enjoy reading..  Students also learned

to develop first ideas and interpretation in books using basic reading strategies.  

This unit will help students deepen and develop their ideas through shared texts.  Book

clubs, or literature circles, promote reading discussion in shared student texts. Students

choose books of personal interest and develop advanced reading ideas through consistent

conversation and dialogue with reading partners.  Students will also complete dialogue

journals in partnership.  Dialogue journals promote written conversation through informal

reader response entries. 

Rationale:

Learning is a social activity: we share, change, and revise our ideas.  We read information

all around us.  Friends, family, classmates, media, websites, and social networks influence

and inspire our thinking.  Reading partnerships help leverage social engagement to advance

reading skills and strategies. Students will be learn to deepen and develop original ideas

through conversation and discussion with others.   Other ideas will cause students to change

or revise their ideas to integrate new ideas and information.

Essential Questions:

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Objectives:

Students will be able to:

• Develop interesting and original ideas
• Understand alternative ideas and readings 
• Integrate alternate, complex, or contradictory reading ideas
• Identify the most essential and most meaningful ideas from their reading
• Mentor or support reading partners
• Elaborate, explain, and extend ideas in discussion 
• Elaborate, explain, and extend ideas in writing
• Use specific text evidence to support independent reading ideas  

Possible Minilessons:

Setup:

     Reading Survey

     Readers Autobiography

     Book Briefs

     First Chapters

     Map Your Reading

Reader Response

     Tabula Rasa

     Transaction

     Ethical Reading

     Reader Response

     Reader Response Response  

Accountable Talk

     Good Conversations

     Good Conversations:  Follow up Questions

     Good Conversations:  Disagree Agreeably

     Good Conversations:  Piggyback Ideas

     Good Conversations:  Conversation Starters