Read Aloud/Think Aloud Lesson

Here are the anchor charts along with student work based on the lesson we observed today in Cynthia's classroom.

Before
Cynthia got students to make predictions based on the cover page, title, lettering etc.  As students shared their prediction, they came up to write their prediction on the chart paper along with their name.

During

As Cynthia read the book, she had several 'think aloud' moments: The book starts with Once Upon a Time so I wonder if it's going to be a fairy tale.  Does it have a happy ending? a moral?

About the middle of the book, Cynthia stopped the lesson and asked students to come up with some higher order thinking questions that's philosophical and related to the human condition (they've done this before!).  Students wrote their question on a sticky note.

Students then got together with a partner to share and discuss their questions.  Cynthia had the partner chosen already and placed on chart paper.

The class got together as a whole group afterwards to discuss some of the questions.  One student shared that she visited the east and met monks.  She learned that monks take care of others first, not themselves. This was contrary to the monks in the book.

Students placed their questions on the anchor chart before Cynthia moved on to read the rest of the story.

After
Cynthia had several key questions for the class:

- What was the moral/lesson of the story? (a crisis can bring people together despite their differences)
- Why monks? (they're usually selfless but can be selfish at times too)
- How does this story relate to your life?

Assessment
As Cynthia mentioned in our debrief, she will review the sticky notes to collect formative assessment information about the types of questions students are asking (are they really higher order thinking?).  She might use some of them as evidence of student work in her files.