Author Posters by Marcus

Our author posters are important because they teach us what techniques the authors like to use. For example, an author I was studying used a lot of comparison & surprising fact or statistics.

The authors also teach by using goals. Goals are goals for the techniques. For example, help the reader grasp an abstract the idea (or describe/ show the scale/ parts of something).

Here are some pics of the author posters that we did in reading in fourth grade:

The photos in the video above were taken by Marcus during our nonfiction author study celebration. Each book club made a chart to teach the class about techniques commonly used by the author they studied and the goals for each of the techniques. Marcus compiled the photos into the video.

Research Celebration! by Maddie

I like to research animals because you learn more about the animal you choose. I chose frogs.

I got to learn more about frogs, like that some frogs eat other frogs! Some frogs also eat other insects or rodents.

My classmates chose a topic and for a couple weeks, we gathered ideas, facts, and things we didn't know about that topic.

My video will show my classmates' projects. Everyone included one idea from their notebook and added facts using a paragraph or boxes and bullets.

The video above includes photos and video that Maddie took during our nonfiction research celebration, during which each student shared a slide they created in a class slideshow on Google Drive. Each classmate has access to our class slideshow, and so can share it with their families at home through their Google Drive account.

Nonfiction Celebration

For the past month, we've been reading nonfiction texts and learning how to move from thinking about topics to thinking about main ideas that are supported with facts and details (i.e. evidence) from the text.

To celebrate this hard work, students chose a page of notes from their reader's notebook that they were particularly proud of and created a visual that taught an idea from the text with evidence. They added color to show meaning and may have included visuals. The work on each student's poster came from their notes on their nonfiction reading.

Before our celebration, students practiced teaching their reading partner and gave and received feedback to improve their presentation. They presented their posters to a group of three classmates. We ended the celebration with a gallery walk to share our notes and posters with the whole class.

The video below includes photos of the posters created as well as a few moments of the teaching happening.