1. Writing Well About Reading
Interpretation Book clubs

2. Take a moment to record reading from yesterday

3. Take a moment to record reading from yesterday
If you finish, talk quietly with someone near you about your reading plans for this year.

4. Notice: I said 40 minutes of working on reading, not reading.
Thinking is more important than reading hundreds of pages!

5. Teaching point
So our work for today is to answer this question:
“What are some qualities of strong writing about reading?”

6. Examples
After hearing what I am going to read, with a partner, you need to…
1. tell each other what a typical, no so great, fifth grade notebook entry about this would sound like.
2. Then, the harder job, tell each other what the best, most mature and thoughtful entry you could imagine.

7. What are the differences between your two ideas?
Let’s dive deeper.
We are doing a gallery walk or a chalk talk with some sample writing.
Remember, no talking, only writing what your thoughts are.

8. What are the differences between your two ideas?
Let’s dive deeper.
We are doing a gallery walk or a chalk talk with some sample writing.
Remember, no talking, only writing what your thoughts are.
Since this took longer than a normal lesson, please now begin to read. We will have time to share, but it will be in writing. So today, read, aware that you’ll write about that reading later.

9. share
Writing about reading
Instead of talking with your partner about whatever you have been thinking as you read, will you open your reader’s notebook and write an entry that captures your thinking? Make this writing about reading represent your best thinking and your best writing about reading.

10. Homework
Readers, today in school, you studied examples of good writing about reading. I hope you are starting to form an image in your mind of what it means to write well about reading. Remember the words of that song, “If you don’t have a dream, how are you gonna have a dream come true?”
Continue to keep what you noticed in your mind, holding yourself to doing the best writing about reading you can. Make sure you read at least thirty minutes, and at least twenty-two pages. Then write!
By the end of this week, please bring in something that makes our reading workshop the best it can be.