notice and note slides august 2

beers.probst@gmail.com

Notice and Note

Kylene Beers

Robert E. Probst

Twitter.com/kbeers

Beers.probst@gmail

An overviewOf the Notice and Note Lessons

beers.probst@gmail.com

What you’ll find next are some letters that students wrote to some trade authors that humorously remind us of the trouble some students have figuring out theme.

After those letters, you’ll see a few slides that give you an overview of some of the lessons we’re calling Notice and Note lessons. These are text clues that you teach students to improve their understanding of a literary text.

beers.probst@gmail.com

The final few slides are before and after conversations with three students that show how these lessons changed the way these students made sense of a text.

This information will be presented in detail in our new book: Lessons for Unlocking Literature. This should be out in late spring from Heinemann publishers. Thanks—Bob and Kylene

Contrasts and

Contradictions

The character acts in a way that is contradictory to how he has acted or that contrasts with how we would act or that reveals a difference among characters.

Text Clue: Author shows actions or feelings that we haven’t seen before.

Question:Why would the character act (feel) this way?

Memory

Moment

The author interrupts the flow of the story by letting the character remember something.

Text Clue: “I remember…” “The memory flooded back…” “It was a strange memory…” “She suddenly remembered…”

Question: Why might this memory be

important?

Tough Questions

A character asks himself or a trusted friend a tough question or tough questions that reveal concerns (internal conflict) the character has.

Text Clue: Questions, often asked of self, that

can’t be answered Sometimes offered as statement, “I

wonder if…”

Question:What does this question make me

wonder about?

Ah-Ha

The character realizes or comes to understand something that therefore changes his thinking or his actions

Text Clues I suddenly realized… Now I understood why… It hit me with a force… I knew what I had to do…

Question: How might this change things?

Last Line

An author ends the chapter (segment) with a last line that adds surprising information or suggests a new idea

Text Clue: A single-sentence that stands alone

as a paragraph Begins with But, And, or Or Asks a question Might be in italics

Question: What do you think will happen next?

Erin—September, 6th grade

“Um, I think that, I think that next, well next. I think that well, I think more is going to happen with her being with them. And then she will probably go home. Because they don’t seem like forever kidnappers.”

Erin—January, 6th grade

Here, right when Luke, he decides to go to the house, so he had just been thinking about it, but here, he decided to go, well, I noticed that because he was doing something different, like a contradiction on how he had been acting, and so I noticed that. And that made me think that Luke, he’s like maybe getting braver some. But that’s going to be a problem because he needs to stay hidden. So, I think maybe that what’s going to happen is about him not wanting to stay hidden. Maybe like for the conflict.

Mark—August, 8th grade

I guess I think that maybe, I guess that, that something else is going to happen.

Mark—November, 8th grade

I stopped here because notice how it said that he had a sad smile. Smiles aren’t sad. I noticed that because it was really a contradiction and I wondered why he would be sad and smiling. I think that the Giver is smiling because he’s still trying to make Jonas feel good about this assignment but he also knows something that Jonas doesn’t know. This part made me think that something important is finally going to happen that’s about Jonas finding out something.

Megan—October, 7th grade

Megan: Miss—look! It’s that again and again. The story of the Denmark king. See, she’s remembering it again. Where was it first? Where was it? Can you find it? I don’t know where it was but this is like the, I don’t know, like it was a lot, that she keeps remembering this story, remember that her dad told her about the Denmark king and how anyone would fight for him?

Megan

Kylene: Why do you think this keeps coming up again and again?

Megan: Because. Because. I think it is because, oh, I know, see how she keeps remembering that anyone would do anything to save him. Oh—this is that foreshadowing. Here it is! This is foreshadowing. Oh my God. It’s right here! Do you think Mrs. Lowry knows she did this?