Critical Reading & Writing (OR Close Reading?) with History

So the buzz phrase for language arts that I'm seeing everywhere is Close Reading.  In the district I'm working in, we're focusing on something called Critical Reading strategies (skills and behaviors that AVID identifies for academic success).  With Common Core directing our students to be able to read and then WRITE about what they read (and even citing proper evidence), students will definitely need better reading skills, especially with non-fiction texts.  After doing brief research on what Close Reading is, I feel the Critical Reading strategies we work on are quite similar.  Different name/term for similar things?  That doesn't happen in education (insert sarcasm).

Basically, Critical Reading strategies in our district help teach students skills that they need to read and interact with text on a deeper level.  Some key strategies Critical Reading includes are below with an emphasis on marking the text.  Knowing how to mark text is key because this is how students interact with text no matter what comprehension skill or focus they have while reading.

• mark the text (what is marked is dependent on what the focus is for that lesson)
• purposeful rereading
• ask questions
• pause & connect
• summarize
• analyze evidence
• analyze author's purpose/point of view
• writing to respond to prompts using textual evidence

ANYWAY, I wanted to share some reading and writing strategies I have used in my classroom.  Most of the texts I use are primary sources that relate to our 5th grade history curriculum.  I find that it interests students while challenging them as well.

Pocahontas Myth

The Pocahontas Myth by Chief Roy Crazy Horse article that I used can be found at this link.

Basically, students read about Crazy Horse's viewpoint of Disney's movie version/life story of Pocahontas.  I do show clips of the movie here and there so students who have not seen the movie can get a gist of its outline.

For this text, I chose to focus on clarifying (for meaning) and pausing & connecting text within text.  Therefore, our markings were specific to these strategies. We marked clarifications on the left and connections on the right. A sample of what we did is below:

Happy Birthday Dr. King!!!

I feel it is so important to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his vision, and accomplishments.  This month has basically been dedicated to the man.  Not only that, I mention him throughout the year often.  However, January is a good time to remind students of his messages.  Here are some things that we have worked on the past couple of weeks since winter break.

Ok, fifth graders won't just read or listen to Dr. King's speech and totally get it.  They need background knowledge and guidance to understand the main messages.  Therefore, we listen to parts of the speech at a time, pause, reread & discuss, take notes, and continue.  This site is where I go to get the audio, since youtube is blocked at my school.  It also has words underneath if needed.  I feel breaking down the speech also allows kids to focus on each section at a time.  Here's a sample of how we marked the text: Marking up MLK's speech