Informational Text Walk & Notes

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One literacy strategy that my class & I did this year is an "Informational Text Walk & Notes" activity. For this unit I wanted to address the following standards: (1) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. (2) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.1.A Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which ideas are logically grouped to support the writer's purpose. (3) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.1.B Provide logically ordered reasons that are supported by facts and details, and (4) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.1.D Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.

Introducing the lesson:
  • Use the TIME FOR KIDS website for polls (http://www.timeforkids.com/news-archive/polls) to discuss different issues that have "pro" and "con" sides of an argument. As a class discuss different issues that TFK has on their poll website. Our class voted on which issue we wanted to learn more about and choose the topic, "Should kids have a TV in their room?
  • Explain to students that they will be deciding if TVs should or should not be in kid's rooms by first doing research.  
Set Up
  • I choose 5 articles from sources such as Parent Map, NYT, Scholastic, and Time For Kids and laid several copies of articles about TV in kid rooms on each of my table groups. I also allowed students to do a computer station where they could do their own research.
  • While students rotated between each station they had to write down the name of source and notes. (Ex: Header: Scholastic, note- TV has done XYZ). Students had about 10 minutes at each station.  
Writing
  • We student sentence frames and graphic organizers to begin writing. Students looked over their notes and had to decided if TV in rooms was good or bad and began their persuasive stories by saying, "TV is good/bad in kid's rooms because__________."
  • Students use a Claim-Evidence-Reasoning formate to write their paper. 
  • I did a writing conference with each student after their draft to look for evidence (did they cite an article using words such as "according"), reasoning (how they connected the evidence to their claim), and a conclusion. 
  • Students needed to use evidence to argue and persuade readers why TV is good or bad 



Try out this lesson and let me know how it works in your classroom! 

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