Our Research....Sharks and Dolphins...

I am hoping we will be super excited about our writing during the final quarter of first grade. One of our writing projects involves research. Take a look at some of the Common Core expectations for first grade.

Reading
RI.1.5 Know and use various text features (headings, table of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.
RI.1.7 Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key details.
RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.

Speaking
SL.1.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Writing
W.1.6 With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.
W.1.7 Participate in shared research and writing projects.
W.1.8 With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather           information from provided sources to answer a question.


Take a look at how we will generate some enthusiasm for our wonderful research project about dolphins. This is a wonderful story based on true events.

Check out the trailer if you haven't seen this movie yet. We watched it in class before spring break. We are falling in love with dolphins!

We will check out Winter at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida. You can read all about Winter, the dolphin that inspired the movie, and Hope, the dolphin that was rescued 5 years later. You can catch the dolphins swimming in their home. Click here: Winter at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Then we will dive into our resources and begin to focus on our research. We will be looking for information about appearance, habitat, diet, and interesting facts. One day we will look in our books to find facts on one focus, such as appearance. On the next day, we will check out our online resources to gather more information about appearance.

We have a variety of books about dolphins and sharks!

The collection includes a range of reading levels.

We need lots of different text features to help us gather information.

Students will work with one other partner. Partners will be super organized. They will have all 6 books in their collection during their research time.

Our tech expert, Jennifer Green, helped us out so much with our online piece. She created our very own Symbaloo with all of our online resources. This will make our first attempt at online research so successful!      Check it out right here: Dolphin and Shark Research Symbaloo

We will view this slideshow to understand the expectations. You can 

check it out by clicking on the arrows above. 

Each day, I will model what the researchers in Room 103 should do. I will model my thinking and interactions with my partner as I search for information to add to my graphic organizer. I will use a different topic, elephant so students will understand how the research should go. Then they will go off and do their research about dolphins.

Take a look at other resources that will guide our work. We will research and find the most important information about habitat, diet, appearance or fun facts. We will use "key words" to record our information, not full sentences. We will have to think hard about the most important, or essential,  words to write. Not an easy task! 

Later, when we begin to write our book, the rubric will help us to understand what good writers need to do.

Wonder what will else will guide my instruction?  At the beginning of Unit 2, Opinion Writing, I gave a prompt to see how students were doing. This helped me to decide what mini lessons were needed for the whole group and gave me information to guide small group instruction.

At the end of the unit, I gave the same prompt and students wrote again. After scoring this new piece of writing using the opinion writing rubric,  I used this information to make decisions about opinion writing in my class for next year. Also, I used this information to determine what the class and individuals did well and what they were ready to work on next during our research unit. 

What did I find out?

As a group...

Stronger Reasons

Many students wrote reasons to back up their opinion, but their reasons were not as strong and convincing as they could have been. An example would be that soccer is the best sport because you get great snacks after a game. This is an expected first grade reason and it sounds good to me, too!  The problem is that you can get great snacks after baseball, basketball, or football practice too. As a group, I need to support our writers to use the best and most interesting information during the next unit, research and writing non fiction books. I can support their efforts by encouraging students to anticipate what the reader may want to know in our books. We will brainstorm what information the reader might want to know if they are reading about the diet of our dolphins. We will brainstorm questions that readers may have the day before we do our research. It might look like this:

• What do dolphins eat?
• How much do they eat?
• How do they find food?
• What physical or behavioral adaptations help them get food?
• Are dolphins food for other animals?

Understanding Expectations

Students in first grade have difficulty remembering or understanding the expectations for first grade writing. Some forgot to clearly state their opinions. I will continue to provide a visual summary of the expectations fro this type of work. As a class, we will brainstorm and create these expectations to ensure that many students understand and use this list when doing their research or writing their nonfiction book. Critiquing books from previous years will help this issue, too. Students will better understand expectations when we look at others' writing and use a checklist to determine if this writing meets the expectations.

Small Group

It takes awhile for first graders to master all of the writing expectations.  This prompt showed that I need to meet with some students to review and support capitalization, punctuation, and rereading to see if writing makes sense. Other students need to focus on using strong words to make their writing come alive. I have created a list of student names, what they are ready for next, and how we will tackle this in small group as we proceed.