Cause and Effect

Today we read Apples to Oregon. This story is a tall tale, and the students really enjoyed it! I liked it because it wasn't a tall tale they were familiar with, so they went into it tons of new predictions and ideas. After we read the story, the students responded to the text in their reading notebooks. We have been working on cause and effect for a couple weeks now. Today I gave them half of the answer. They either knew the cause or effect. Then, they had to look back to see what caused the effect or what was effected by the cause. After the students finished, we discussed the answers. I loved seeing that some students went ahead and wrote "so" at the end of their cause statement because we have talked about words like so, because, then, and next that usually point right to the effect.

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Comparing and Contrasting: Problems and Solutions

We have been reading a lot of literature that involves cause and effect, problem and solutions, and compare and contrast. We most recently read Mama, I'll Give You the World by Ronnie Schotter and a story called "What if it Happened to You?" from our text. Both of these stories had problems and solutions. The students at first, felt that a problem had to be a concrete, obvious, problem. For example, the picture tore, so we taped it back together. These stories helped them to realize that problems can be emotions, lack of interest, and etcetera.

After reading and talking about the text on two separate days, I wanted to see if students could compare the two selections. I divided the class into three groups, and each group worked on comparing a specific relationship. This helped students focus on the problems and solutions with just that small relationship. It also helped them see the specific text evidence that proved that particular problem or solution. Then we started feeling in out Venn Diagram by groups. Students were surprised to see all the similarities of the stories!

I feel this activity really helped the students in answering the writing prompt portion on their literature tests. They were all able to identify problems and solutions within two passage selections!