♪[theme music]
>>teacher: What did we just read?
>>Sarah: Firefighters wear special clothes to stay safe.
>>teacher: Okay, so does that tell you about turnout gear?
So is that a detail we could write?
Compare and contrast is a very versatile standard. Not only is it addressed
in 3 or 4 um reading standards in every grade level, but it can be used to teach
any other standard as well. For Unit 3 in second grade
uh the standard that we're focusing on is compare and contrast for literature
and compare and contrast for informational text.
The performance tasks that are assigned in the unit are just like what I taught
the kids to do so that they be ready for the performance task.
In a minute when I say go, you're gonna pick up your chair,
turn it towards your partner, sit knees to knees, (put it away) and buddy read.
Okay, you're gonna read a page, ask a... >>class: Question
>>teacher: This side of the room is gonna start with One Afternoon first. Ready...
Go! Well I've gained a lot of feedback from teachers
um expressing their concerns with being able to find pieces of literature to
meet these standards. Especially the compare contrast one where they have to
be similar stories or similar articles. And so I just wanted to let
you know everybody know that using something out of your anthology
and finding little hidden things that are already at your school from
you know twenty years ago, is something that I've had to do. And it's something
that was relatively easy. So that book One Afternoon
I was able to find 7 of them on my school site.
And I just had the kids um trade books and
you know half the group started with Chinatown and the other half of the
group started with One Afternoon, and then as they finished I just had them switch
books.
The two pieces of text that I chose for comparing informational text were two
articles on firefighters. And I found those two articles on readworks.org. They were
ah both about lexile five or six hundred which
is grade level appropriate for second grade.
And I chose those because we also read a story in the anthology about firefighters.
So how I set it up is I have the kids buddy read the story,
ask each other comprehension questions so that they'd be prepared to discuss the
story, they have little conversations about it,
>>student 1: What is the setting? >>student 2: The setting is the L train.
>>student 3: What is the setting...and time? >>student 4: Time?
>>student 4: Um...afternoon, and the street.
>>teacher: And then they filled out a-a graphic
organizer with questions that I chose so they
with their partner they figured out um who the characters were in the story,
what the setting was in the story, problem, solution, and they wrote details
uh from the text onto their graphic organizer.
The graphic organizer that I used in this lesson I got from
um a GATE book that I have, and what it is
it's a frame that you put the GATE icons on normally. So I just took to GATE icons off
and substituted it with questions that I wanted the children to find
in the stories and be able to compare on a Venn Diagram and present to the class.
For informational text they put things like: what were some important details,
what were some topic sentences,
what were some picture captions you found interesting? And so the kids are
able to organize the information before they put it on the Venn Diagram.
Okay, all the information that you need to use is on your...
>>class: Paper. >>teacher: Graphic organizer. Right?
So this is what I want, this is-I want specifically the information
that you did on your graphic organizer. So I wanna know...
um...main topic
Compare and contrast weighs pretty heavily in Common Core like I said there's at
least four standards. Two for literature and two for informational text.
Um, but it's all about what you compare contrast, so
um...the rigor involved is what the important part is and that's where Common Core
steps in because it demands um that you
are way more rigorous in what you compare as opposed to saying, oh both
stories have girls, or both stories have
dogs. Now you'll talk about how the character responded to the problem in
both stories and the kinds of relationships the characters have in both stories.
And so it's ah thinking about the stories little bit deeper when you're comparing.
Here's what we're going to do now. I am going to choose a name.
The person that I choose is gonna come up here,
put their paper under the Elmo, and read their answer.
While that person is reading their answer what are you gonna do?
>>class: Look and listen to that person. >>teacher: And by listening, we have to...
One of the speaking and listening standards for Common Core is being able to present to
an audience, and so having them stand up and present and become comfortable with that
really helps them when it's time for them to be graded on a rubric for the
same standard.
>>student 3: The stories are alike because
they both have apartments and they both
have a boy in the story. The stories are different because they
go to different places and they have a different setting.
>>teacher: Excellent: >>student 4: These articles are alike because they both
talk about...turn-turnout gear.
>>student 5: These articles are different because they... >>teacher: have
um...they have a different author and they both have a different main topic.
>>teacher: When it came to the informational text portion of the compare contrast
lesson, I thought I was going to have the kids do it the exact
same way that I had them do the literature.
Turns out it didn't go over so well. Um, the kids weren't able to
do as much with the informational text independently as they were with the
literature. So they were obviously much more comfortable with the literature than
they were with articles, so I pulled them back and we
did it whole group. So what we did, is we color-coded all the text features...
all of the headings, topic sentences, paragraphs details, picture captions, and
vocabulary words. And I had-we did that whole group, so then they were able to
sit down with the graphic organizer with their partner
and look at their color-coded article and say,
Okay, let's write about um these different topics that were in article or
how these articles had um different headings or maybe how they the same vocab word.
And so it's easier for the kids to
access information from the article after it was color-coded.
This one also talks about something down here that the other article doesn't talk about.
>>student 6: Oh, this. It talks about this. >>teacher: About - what's this?
>>student 7: Fire safety.
>>teacher: Fire safety. Only one article talked about fire safety. The article doesn't.
♪[theme music]