I have been using reading response journals for years, and find that the more you share good responses, the more students pick up on them. For those of you struggling with getting the students to "think beyond the text" and share their strategy use, I do a lot of talking and thinking during my read aloud. Also, I have bought the strategy posters from the Mosiac site, and USE the sentence stems to spark both discussion AND response. I have typed the sentence stems up and have the students paste the handout into the back of their journals to refer to for their third paragraph. I have found that the more you model, the better they do. We work cooperatively to write entries based upon our read aloud from time to time, as well. I have the students "assess" sample entries from time to time with a rubric to help them see the difference between a quality entry and simple summary. At my grade level, I find that a good summary at least tells me a child has read something, and is able to tell me basically what is happening in the book, so I don't get too upset if that is all they do. Those are the students who need some individual help to put their thoughts together when writing their entry.
Hope this helps for some of you. I'm by no means and expert! Joel/OH/4th _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
