Clapping for Ana

This week during readers' workshop, students were asked to take post-it notes of their thinking. They would write text to self, text to text, or text to world connections as well as questions and any other thoughts they may have while reading. For those students who are reading chapter books, at the end of the book they will take all their post-its and put them on a "post-it note" book tracker, making a collection of thoughts from each book they choose to read. For those students reading shorter works, it was still a good way to practice recording our thoughts while reading each day. 


One specific student, Ana, did a great job tracking thought in the book Martin's Big Words The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport. Ana shared with our class at the end of reader's workshop that MLK Jr. had warmed her heart. She thought he was brave to do what he did and that his story was really inspiring. The whole class was so proud of Ana that they began to clap for her! And since her share we have read Martin's Big Words as a read aloud and then continued on to Back of the Bus by Aaron Reynolds so we could learn more about Rosa Parks (who was mentioned in Martin's Big Words). As a class, we feel for these people and are very interested in this history. Ana has also chosen to read more books about figures of the civil rights movement and seems to have found a collection in the classroom library that she really loves. So, three cheers for Ana and her post-it share that brought the whole class closer as readers!