Text-to-Text Connections

Yikes – it has been quite a while since I posted anything.  The last few weeks have been pretty rough all the way around.  On top of everything, we are smack dab in the middle of conferences and report cards.  Conferences have been going really well. I have about 5 left.  We also cut way back on report comments, so life has been easier in that area.  I used to write basically a research paper on each student.  It literally took hours to write each report card and then hours to proof and print.  It almost makes me worry that I haven’t spent enough time because it was about 1/4  of the time I usually spend.

At any rate, I have been working on text-to-text connections with my students.  I have realized that I need to work on different types of t->t connections.  First, there is the typical fiction to fiction connection.  But even with fiction books, you have the surface connections and the higher level, theme connections.  I have touched on the general connections and plan to do an amped up theme and higher level connection unit later in the year when the kids have had more experience with inferential thinking.  Here are the books the I worked with:

***This paring was suggested by Debbie Miller in Reading with Meaning.
I saw this pairing on Mrs. Jump’s Class Site

I have also been working on non-fiction to fiction connections.  With the Common Core increasing the focus on non-fiction text, I wanted to include more non-fiction in my classroom.  I have been working with my students to show them how authors include real facts in their fiction books and our schema about a real topic can be helpful when reading fiction.  Gail Gibbons is a great author for any non-fiction connections! Here are the books the I worked with:

Finally, I want to work with non-fiction to non-fiction connections.  We will probably do this later in the year when we do a written research unit about animals.

Here are a few inspirational charts and printables I found through Pinterest! Check them out!

from Mrs. Jump’s Class

from First Grade a la Carte

Happy Monday!