How to Plan for Novels As Shared Reading

I am a firm believer that my number one job as a Reading teacher is to find a way to get my students to ENJOY reading.  Yes, I also need to make sure that they are making inferences, identifying main ideas, analyzing characters, yada yada yada...But in order to get them able to do those things independently, I need to get them reading.  I believe that my students are more interested in reading as a result of choosing novels for shared reading.  I have tried a lot of things in my eleven years in the classroom.  Sometimes I laugh (or cry) at how little I knew.  I mean, I knew what shared and guided reading were.  But maybe I thought there would be specific SOPs that would just fall in to place when I started.

Today I'm going to share with you just how I make novels and trade books work as my shared reading texts in my 5th grade classroom.  Bear with me, though, because I've put a lot of thought in to my entire year -- yep, I plan my entire year based on our shared reading titles -- and I want to do my best to explain a clearly as possible.  Please note: If you have ANY questions, do not hesitate to comment below with those questions.

STEP 1: Gaining materials:

Shared reading means every students has a copy of novel while a fluent teacher reads aloud, stopping periodically to evaluate the plot, character actions, etc.  This can be expensive, especially if you are not offered any kind of monetary support from your administration.  It has taken me at least 8 years to build up a large collection of class sets of novels.  GOOD novels.  Novels that I LOVE to teach -- not just novels that were cheap and aren't my favorites.  I have purchased some class sets of novels from Scholastic, using both dollars and points, requested class sets of admin was feeling generous, and I've received some awesome class sets from Donors Choose.  This did not happen over night, and there were times when I taught a book I did not love.  As a result of me not loving the book -- my students often felt the same.

I may or may not have a container problem.  

That depends on who you ask.  

I took this picture last year, so some of the titles have changed, 

and my school did away with Journeys.  

STEP 2: Know your school district's curriculum map and map out your entire year.  

I'm lucky enough to teach in a school where I have some freedom over my instructional choices.  Our district's school year is broken in to four marking periods, with a specific list of standards that must be taught during each marking period.  We have access to materials from a publishing company, but my principal allows me to use additional novels, rather than textbooks and workbooks.  I work on STEP 1 over the summer before school starts.  It can be cumbersome the first time I do this, but with time it gets easier.  I use a cutesy calendar that I found for free on Teacher's Pay Teachers, and find that colorful pens.  The first thing I do is write in any school calendar days/holidays.  Next, I look at the online curriculum map provided by my district to see what the major skills are for each quarter.  Then, I choose the novels that best suit those skills.  Then I write those things in, planning a couple chapters per day (this, too, depends on the books and their complexity).

Here are the calendars I created last year.  I taught one 

section of fourth grade and one section of fifth grade. 

Lucky for me a lot of the skills overlapped, 

but I knew I would have the fourth again as

 fifth graders, so I used different titles.  

Here is an up close photo of one of my calendars. They aren't fancy.  

And they aren't in depth as far as the structure of my lessons.  BUT, there 

are no words to describe just how easy it is to lesson plan when I have 

a full calendar sprawled out before me.  We all know that things  happen 

and calendars are never perfect.  There's always some sort of last minute 

assembly, or special project due by 10am, but you weren't told  about it 

until 9:15am.  So, my calendar has changed.  Sometimes things happen out 

of order.  It's natural, and I just have to be flexible.  But the overall structure 

of my year is created for me in this calendar.  And it truly is a lifesaver for me.  

Step 3:  Determine CONSTANTS and VARIABLES across all shared reading texts.  

Whether you plan to read the entire Hunger Games series, or jump around from historical fiction to fantasy fiction, it is important that you have some basic consistencies across all of the books you will teach.  These consistencies will help structure your entire week, month, marking period, and year.  Your kids (and parents) will love you if you have recurring items that are a constant in their novel-studying lives.  To determine these things, you must assess what kinds of things are required for you to teach (some teachers work in schools that separate writing from reading), what kinds of materials are available to you and your students, and how comfortable you are with taking the plunge to focus most of your instruction using novels.  My school uses a separate grammar book, so I teach grammar separate from our novel studies.  We also use Units of Study for writing, which means our long term writing assignments don't always align with those of the novels.  We DO, however, always use our current and past shared reading texts as excellent mentor texts whenever we need to.  

Constant 1:  In my classroom, my vocabulary lists come directly from our novel.  I focus on teaching my students Tier 2 vocabulary words that appear in novels at their grade level.  Tier 2 words are words that are beyond basic sight words and high frequency words, but are not words that are only used in specific domains.  Of course, if we come across a Tier 3 (domain-specific) word, it becomes a point of discussion, but my students' vocabulary lists are Tier 2 words from the chapters we are currently reading.  They receive their list of 10 words (per week) before we read.  When we come across the word, we try to identify the meaning of that word through context clues (and probably some guidance from me, if it the context isn't clear).  Once we've agreed on a definition based on those context clues, someone does a quick online dictionary search on Learner's Dictionary and - BOOM - most of the time our definition is spot on.  This method is two-fold because it allows students to gain new vocabulary from the book versus some random list I found while sipping wine and searching Google.  Second, my students receive guided practice almost daily about how to use context clues to figure out the meanings of new words.  And, for those kids who know how to do this, it is still a confidence booster that they really ARE smart and they really CAN figure these things out if they need to.  

Constant 2:  In addition to vocabulary, I pull comprehension and discussion questions from all of the books we read.  I use these questions to guide our class discussions as we stop periodically to read.  I don't stop all the time, because there is something to be said about fluid reading where we get sucked in to the novels.  But sometimes I stop if I think it's complex section or at the end of a chapter.  Sometimes these questions ask about a character's motive, or a recall of the events leading up to the climax.  Sometimes I turn these questions in to Text Dependent Analysis prompts.  I give a weekly assessment (of student vocabulary) and I usually add some of these comprehension and discussion questions to that assessment.  Students are able to use their novels to answer these questions -- mostly because they require evidence from the text.  

Constant 3: Finally, from the start of the year to the very end, my students are always on the hunt for literary devices in our shared reading books.  Last year, we focused mostly on similes, metaphors, personification, and imagery.  Next year, I plan to expand our study of literary devices.  I have found that being on the constant lookout for these devices has really improved the relationship my kids have with the words on the page.  When we come across these items, they make immediate mini lessons on what good writers do.  We discuss how an author could have said something boring, but instead used an imagery technique that really illustrated the scene with words.  It starts slow, especially with my fourth graders, but as the year progressed, my kids found some great examples of literary devices in their independent reading books as well!    

Variables:  While a lot of my instruction remains constant, there are certain things that I can teach with certain novels that don't work with other titles.  If I'm teaching characterization, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick is one of the best.  If I need to focus on nonfiction text features, a trade book about rain forest food chains is going to be my book of choice.  These variables are often standards dictated by my district, and they are the most important when aligning my calendar to the district curriculum maps.

Step 4: Get to know those books.  

Despite being extremely busy people, it is imperative that teachers are well-versed in the novels they plan to teach.  There are some fabulous items on the internet that can really help you develop lessons, but your kids will know from the start if you are truly vested in a book.  I recommend keeping a notebook with each of your teacher copies of the novel.  Use this notebook every year.  Add to it as you teach, and keep it for the following year.  When you are pre-reading the novel before you teach, pull our your constants (as discussed above), write them down, and you will have them as long as you teach that book.  

 Here is an example of my simple novel notebook.  I tend to read new

novels over the summer, late at night, so they definitely aren't fancy.

 While reading, I underline vocabulary words and write them in my novel notebook.

I also write any discussion or comprehension questions (and their answers) that I

believe are important to revisit during class discussions.

(below) While I'm reading, or even while I'm teaching, I'll make a quick

note with the first letter or the name of the literary device I find.  If my students

aren't on their A-game, I can easily prompt them during our discussion

with these pre-marked devices.   

Step 5: Don't give up! 

This process didn't happen for me overnight.  It may take awhile for you to get in to a groove that works for you and your students.  What's important is if you believe that novels will improve your reading class, that you stand up for what you believe in!  Your kids will love you for making this choice!

P.S., I am in the process of typing up my novel notebooks.  There are no bells and whistles or fancy worksheets.  You will find, however, awesome, age-appropriate vocabulary words, kid-friendly definitions, discussion questions, and endless examples of literary devices.  They are available for sale here.   

   

Link to Novel Notebooks.

Something that's working...

While I don't blog often, and I don't always blog about teaching, I find that if something really is working well for my kiddos, then maybe I should share.  This post will not lead you to any fancy Teachers Pay Teachers items.  If I'm industrious enough, I may be able to pull some signs together to add to my store for free, but that is not the purpose of this blog entry.

Something I created over the summer is working well.  Really well.  So I thought I would share.

I created a Literary Analysis Wall.  And maybe I thought only a few students would use it, or enjoy it, but right now hands are up in my classroom throughout shared reading.  If there is ANY downtime in my classroom, I am fielding a line of students who are excited to show me something about the book they are reading.

Here is the wall:

To show you how much I lack as a blogger, I started this post back in December.  That was when I had these fancy post-it notes that are so bright in color.  But I ran out of those right around the time I ran out of spending money.  Enter dollar store sticky notes.

Anyhoo...It all started with an important part of shared reading.  I read out loud while all of my students have a copy of the novel.  (For more info on how I teach using novels instead of anthologies, I'm working on a post here.)  First of all, I always read ahead of my students, whether I've read the book before or not.  I make notes in my book before I read it with them, while I read it with them, after I read it with them, over the summer when I take the book home, etc., etc., etc....  My point is that the more experience you have with a novel as a teacher, the more the kids will get out of it.  It helps if you love the book as well.

While reading ahead I make marks right in my book if there's any kind of literary device or examples of something that I want to teach in Writer's Workshop, etc.  I just make a simple 'S' in the margin if it's a simile, or an 'I' if it's an excellent example of imagery.  'I' also represents idioms, but the good news is they are easy to tell apart from each other. For the first couple months of school, I stop during shared reading when I come across an example of a literary device.  It sounds something like this:

"Wow!  What an awesome example of excellent writing.  I love how the author compared Josie to a statue.  And notice how she wrote "Josie was a statue standing above me..."  Did she even have to use 'like' or 'as'?  I wonder what that kind of writing is called when an author compares two unlike things without using 'like' or 'as' -- HANDS UP ALL OVER.  

Then, I pick someone with their hand up and they tell me it's a metaphor (hopefully, they do.  They are still kids, and sometimes they get these things confused, so we use all of it as a teaching moment).  Once we've all figured it out, that student gets a sticky note, writes the title of the book, the quote from the book, and their name.  Then they hang it on the appropriate section of the wall.

Now that we are in June (and this probably started in November), I don't even need to stop.  Hands just shoot up during shared reading.  We stopped so much that some days I have kids keep their notebook open and they just write the page number and go back when we are done to tell me, so we can just keep reading.

And then it gets better.  Every.Single.Day. at least twelve students are standing next to me with their own independent reading books open to show me a literary device.  Sometimes they have it, and sometimes they are close, but their imagery example is not juicy enough.  High level readers, on level readers, low level readers, COMBINED.  One parent actually told me during my last conference with her that she was yelling at her daughter one night.  She told her she was acting like some animal I can't recall at this moment.  Her daughter whipped her head around and screamed back, "THAT'S A SIMILE!"  We all shared a laugh, while I silently cheered for that little girl who has come a long way since she started at my school in September.

The bottom line is that my fourth graders (who will become my fifth graders) are paying close attention to their books.  They are in tune with what they are reading.  And, a few seconds with one child will sometimes help me help them realize that an example may seem like imagery, but it's really just a detailed description versus a description with sensory words.

Happy June!

New Year's Organization Challenge: week 3

The challenge for this week involves space and storage planning.  Think about your physical classroom space and what part(s) of the room are and aren't working for you.  Think about the subjects you teach, and how you store your materials for easy use.

The first thing I suggest doing is creating an ideal layout for your entire classroom.  IDEAL.  Even if you don't have all of the furniture or storage items that fit in to this idea plan, sketching out a plan will help you itemize the things you still need to make your classroom the ideal space for you.  This plan may change over time, but keeping this plan in the back of your head will keep you grounded when you are out shopping and find something that is a great deal, but not a part of your plan.

Next, make a plan of how you will store specific items like student books and materials, teacher supplies, community supplies, novels, computers, centers, etc.  You'll need to 1.) figure out where you want to keep these items, and 2.) how you will store them to make everything work for YOU and your students.  While I keep my students in mind when I create and plan anything, ultimately it has to be something that works for ME because my students follow my lead when it comes to handling and maintaining materials.

Here are some ways I keep things organized in my classroom.

I don't keep a teacher's desk.  I use a student table and keep my everyday items on a clipboard and inside chair pockets at my table (since those chair pockets aren't assigned to any one specific student).  My 1920s elementary classroom has an old coat closet.  I use two large metal storage cabinets -- back to back -- to divide this closet in to two sections.  One side of the closet is for students to store their book bags and coats.  Since hooks are limited, they are numbered and students are assigned a number.  It did mean that I have to call certain numbers to the coat closet first, since some hooks are underneath others, but the kids are pretty good at getting it right.  And when they pack up? I just call the numbers in the reverse I did in the morning.  

The cabinet that is on the other side of the cabinet shown below is filled with community supplies.  At the start of the year, we ask students to bring in tissues and lined paper.  I buy baby wipes in bulk and store them in that cabinet as well.  One shelf is solely designated for guided reading books that go with the Journeys series I have in my classroom.  Of course there is a sign on the cabinet that just says "Please ask your teacher before getting supplies from this cabinet."  It has not been an issue.  

This cabinet faces my "teacher side" of the closet.  Students do not go inside this side of the closet unless I ask them to get something.  Extra bins and other supplies are stored in clear bins so they are easy to find.  Items that I need regularly -- like staples and dry erase markers -- are kept in an over-the-door shoe holder on the swing door to the closet.  

At the entrance of my "teacher side" of the closet, there is a wide section with one built-in closet with no doors.  This is where I keep any teacher guides that I use all the time, or books that I cannot get rid of because they go with the curriculum materials that belong to my grade level(s).  

I am lucky to work in a building in which I can choose the materials we use for reading instruction, so I do keep my student Journeys books on a cart by the door.  Those books are only used periodically.  The majority of my reading instruction comes from novels/trade books.  Over the years I have really built up a large selection of class sets of these books.  Due to large class size caps in my district, I have 34 copies of each book in each of these bins.  If I had to pick one organizational method that makes the most sense for my room, it is the purchase of these bins.

*Bins with green labels are 4th grade titles and blue labels are 5th grade titles.

*The pink and purple bins are materials for a classroom volunteer who pulls an accelerated group for me each week.  

*The bins on the bottom belong to the Journeys series (so they belong to my school).  

*And I <3 greek mythology, so I hold on to those materials in their own special bins.

Anyway, the point of these pictures is to prove that I've made a plan to make my classroom work.  People always ask me how I keep things so neat and organized, and the truth is that it works for me because I've made a master plan.  This doesn't mean that messes don't happen.  I do have to spend time each week putting things away.  BUT, because I have a place for everything, I know exactly where it all goes.  

New Year's Organization Challenge: Week 2

How did we do with last week's challenge?  I found the top of my teacher table by Friday, and when I had students help me clean the room before dismissal, I even let someone wipe it down (the normal rule is they don't wipe my table top).  I also sent home every graded paper and all turned in homework assignments with the students on Fridays.  I do this on a regular basis, and attach it all on a weekly report that their parents sign.  They bring the weekly report back, and keep the piles of papers at home!  I also cleaned off a shelf in one of the cabinets in my closet.  I was able to organize the materials for my monthly school store.  It felt good!

Here are the challenges for this upcoming week.  Choose 3 or more of these challenges to meet by Friday:

1.  Empty your teacher desk drawers.  Throw away anything you know you won't use or need.  Reorganize the materials you will use, but don't forget to wipe out the drawers before you put anything inside.  This will make you feel amazing every time you go to open a drawer!

2.  Open a cabinet with shelves or drawers.  Choose one shelf or drawer and throw away or give away anything that you haven't used in three years.  Anything in this drawer/on this shelf that you are keeping can stay just for the time being.

3.  Find TEN items to throw away or recycle.  The only restriction on this TEN is that it has to be items that belong to you (not student work).  If it's still usable, consider donating it to another teacher.
4.  Go through your bulletin board and classroom decor pile(s).  You know there is stuff in there that you haven't used in years, and stuff you know you won't use again.  If it's in great shape, see if you can give it to a student teacher.  Only keep what you know you will use.

5.  If you have old curriculum materials that are not a part of the new curriculum stuff you use, figure out what to do with it.  Ask your admin what you should do with the textbooks that are not in use.  Ask if there is a closet in which they should be stored.  Every school district has different rules about how to handle old books, so make sure someone gives you the correct response.

BONUS:  Take all of your cleaning supplies and personal supplies (ex: bottles of lotion, wipes, board cleaners, etc) and figure out where you can store them so they are easy for you to get to, but out of the way.  Picture this area like a little kitchen cabinet in your classroom.  I have a lot of random things that fit in to this section of my teacher closet, but they are so helpful to have on hand.

Again, let me know how it goes!

I got new tables this year, and I sit with the students in the middle of the room.  Of course, I also have a small pile of things that I always need on hand (a clip board for grades and important papers, my roll book, and the novels we are reading).  Since taking this picture I got new chair pockets, so I keep a majority of the things I use every day in my own chair pockets.  It's very handy.

Who wants to get organized for the new year?

I am challenging my fellow teachers to get organized in their classrooms as a resolution.  Each week, I am going to challenge you to choose THREE things from my list of five organizational tasks.  The goal is that by spring break you will go in to the end of year pack-up with an organizational plan.  These next few weeks of January will be focused on eliminating unnecessary clutter.

Here are five tasks for this week (choose THREE or more):
1.  Open up a cabinet with shelves or drawers.  Choose one shelf or one drawer and throw away or give away anything that you haven't used in three years.  Anything in this drawer/on this shelf that you are keeping, can just stay for the time-being.

2. If you have a teacher's desk or table, find the top of it by the end of the week.  Get it to a point that you can wipe it down with some Lysol.  You know you need it.

3. Find FIVE teacher books to give away or donate. Not the kind that belong to your school.  I'm talking about those books we all buy when we hit up Barnes and Noble, or when we used to teach that one novel but don't anymore.  Give them to a younger coworker, or throw them in your trunk to donate to a local thrift shop.  

4.  Find something that needs fixing.  It could be a computer that's having issues.  It could be a wobbly student desk, or a poster that has faded from the sun.  Fix it.

5.  Make sure all of your teacher guides and teacher materials are sorted by subject and/or grade level.  For example, one shelf may be Literacy while another may be Social Studies.  If you only teach one subject but your grade levels vary, perhaps one shelf could be designated to each grade level you teach.  It doesn't have to be a shelf.  It can be bins or drawers.  See #3 above while you work on this challenge, because my guess is you'll find plenty of books or materials that you know you bought on a whim but don't plan to actually use.  

BONUS: Take every homework paper in your classroom and A.) return them to students to take home, or B.) recycle those puppies!

Here is a flashback photo of when I was given the task of creating a guided reading book closet:

Report back to tell me your accomplishments!

DIY Chromebook Storage

Last year I submitted a Donor's Choose proposal for a set of Chromebooks for my 4th and 5th grade Literacy classroom.  With a lot of help from social media shares, I received 14 Chromebooks by spring.  It was awesome!  I was also lucky enough to find an extra laptop cart hidden in a closet, so I had a place to store my Chromebooks, which made setting them up go pretty quickly.

But, that cart was really big.  I don't know if it was created to store 17 inch laptops from the early 2000s, but it was really hard to rearrange my furniture around it.  So it got me thinking of alternatives for storing my Chromebooks, and of course Pinterest.  I stumbled across this page that showed an Ikea cabinet as storage.  Hmm.  I happen to live about 5 miles from the first Ikea ever built in the U.S.  I'm so close that my husband has been known to get up on weekend mornings and go over and eat their $1.00 breakfasts before hitting up Home Depot.

I made a plan, and this is what I came up with:

I bought this Ikea cabinet in white (it is available in bolder colors for those braver than me).

I liked how the original post separated each Chromebook but wanted something that allowed them some "air" so they don't overheat when being charged.  I remembered seeing a ton of teachers who use dish drying racks and other paper sorters to store their machines.  I would have done the dish drying rack method aside from the idea that I wanted a cabinet that had locking abilities.  So off to Amazon I went.  I have Amazon issues, but that would take another entire entry.

I found this literature sorter.  And I bought two.  I love it so much, I'm trying to figure out a way to organize my home office so I can buy more.  And then set up a spare bed in that room so I can lay around and stare at the magnificence of the mesh organizer.  

Before I even assembled the cabinet, I was having nightmares about how I would handle all of those cords.  I definitely thought about this part for a few days.  AND I'M VERY GLAD I ALREADY HAD MY CHROMEBOOKS BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS PROJECT.  Why?  Because different models of computers have different locations for their charging ports.  And the only lonely Chromebook I already had has a port on the side near the back.  But the new books have a charging port on the back of the actual machine.  So knowing the location of these was the focus of the entire configuration.  If you are going to do something like this, make sure you already know where each machine charges.  

I ended up with some cord clips of the cheaper variety.  And zip ties.  If you don't have zip ties, you need them.  Even if you aren't making your own computer cabinet.  I will always find a way to use zip ties.  You can zip them through grommets of a pocket chart to hang on a stand. You can connect two desk legs together  if making a group.  YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CORDS FROM BEING YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE.  

Just buy them in bulk, okay?

Of course, I needed power strips.  And, I made sure that they had extra long cords on them.  This was key when assembly started.:

I assembled the cabinet first.  It was actually quite simple.  I assembled it on top of a table so I didn't have to spend the entire cord zipping time bent over or on the floor.  

Then, I thought about where I would put the power strips.  In the original post, they are inside the cabinet.  But, I wanted to be able to switch them off easily, so I actually mounted them to the back of the cabinet (with zip ties, of course).  This cabinet is considered a TV stand, so there are two 3 inch holds on the bottom of the unit.  I decided that I would feed each charging plug out that bottom hole and up to the power strip.  First, I needed to figure out where to put the power strips.  I marked spots for the zip ties and brought a drill in to school.  

And then I had my first lesson on drill bits.  When the first two wouldn't even start to penetrate the metal cabinet, I almost scrapped my plan.  Luckily, our building engineer had come in for something else.  He took a look at the bits I used and immediately told me they were for wood.  He helped me find a drill bit that worked great in the metal.  It was a little smaller than the hole I needed, but it created a "starter" hole that I made bigger with another drill bit.  Once the holes were drilled, I started zipping those power strips on.  I didn't get a picture of it, but I actually used a sharpie and wrote the number of each Chromebook above the outlet in case I needed to remove just one plug.  (I also wrote the number on the actual plug as well during set-up.)

I placed each cord inside, with the thicker part of the cord going through the hole on the bottom and around the back to get plugged in.  Once I had the first 8 plugged in, I slid the shelf under them and installed it near the top of the cabinet.  I did this to the other side of the cabinet as well.  Once that was done, I placed the computers in the mesh organizer, lined up the chargers with each computer and installed a cord clip under the top shelf.  Then I zip tied every darn cord that was hanging all over the place to keep it all tidy on that top shelf.  I also numbered each slot of the mesh organizer so students know where each computer goes.  There are also numbers on the side of each computer AND a number right at the tip of the charger so plugging them in is easy.  

I did remove the computers when I had the cabinet moved to the floor, but here is what it looks like completely assembled.  The last computer in the photo is my "old" chromebook, and the empty spot is for my teacher lap top.  I will only have the power strips turned on if the cabinet is open because I do not want anything to overheat.  To prevent the doors from possibly shutting on their own, I used an extra-large binder clip on the shelf (upper right) to prop that side open.  

P.S., That cord sitting under the cabinet has since been zip-tied to the power strip on the back of the unit.

Eureka!

Warning!  There is nothing fancy about this blog post.  There are no links listed and nothing here will WOW you.  I'm blogging now about my own experience two weeks ago when I taught similes and metaphors.

In the past, I have taught similes and metaphors as two different ways to compare.  Although I introduce them together, I would generally teach similes (an easier skill, IMO) and then I would move to metaphors.  Well, two weeks ago, I decided I would teach them as the same skill.  I mean, after all, they are used for the same reason, right?  

So I created a T-chart on the board.  "Simile" titled the left column, and "metaphor" titled the second column.  We first gave each of them the same definition: the comparison of two unlike things.  We wrote that definition under each column.  We focused on the fact that they both have the same function.  Then I asked my students this important question:

If they are both the same, why are there two kinds?

And that's when I entered the key words "like" or "as" under the simile column.  We discussed how similes have those key words inside of a comparison sentence.  

Then we used this example of a simile: My sisters is a sweet as an angel.

It's not earth-shattering.  It doesn't dig down in to the depths of great novelists.  It just is a plain simile.  And with this plain simile, my students were able to identify what/who was being compared, and they identified the key word AS.  

Next, instead of giving an example of a metaphor, we took the simile above and we changed it in to a metaphor.  Because we know that a metaphor has the same function, this was a simple task of rewriting the comparison without using like or as.  And in a flash, we got this metaphor: My little sister is a perfect angel.  Yes, we added some words.  We did that to make sure our new metaphor made sure that the reader understood the meaning of the comparison.  

We did a few more of these together.  And each time we created a simile, we identified WHY it was a simile, and then we changed that simile in to a metaphor that made the same comparison.  

Each morning of last week, I had my students write a simile comparing two unlike things in their morning warm up.  Then, I had them convert them in to a metaphor.  Did all students write perfect metaphors?  No.  But, for a new skill, most of my 4th graders have really grasped the idea.  

And I think it all has to do with my different approach....