Lesson Plan: Literary Responses with Blogs

Ohio Content Standards

Grade 6

• Writing - Writing Process - Write responses to literature that extend beyond the summary and support judgments through references to the text.
• Reading - Reading Process - Apply self-monitoring strategies to clarify confusion about text and to monitor comprehension.
• Reading - Reading Process - Use criteria to choose independent reading materials (e.g., personal interest, knowledge of authors and genres or recommendations from others).
  

Materials & Technology

• Independent Reading Book for Students
• Printouts of Writing Prompts and Rubric
  
• Blogs

Background
In addition to the novels we read in my 6th grade language arts class, each student is required to read two books independently each quarter. Along with the reading, I have students respond to prompts in their blogs that require them to make references to their books. Each entry is graded according to a rubric that is introduced to the kids before they begin writing.

Preparation

1. Teach a lesson on how to choose a book for independent reading that is based on the reading process content standard above.
2. After students have selected a book and started reading, go over the writing prompts with them, being sure to clearly discuss your expectations. I only require students to write a paragraph in these entries.
3. Make sure students know what you mean when you say "examples from the novel." I'm not interested in page numbers or actual quotes; I just want to students to know that their paragraphs are incomplete until they have referenced the book in some way.

Student Examples

• I got confused...
• At first I thought...but...
• I started to think...
• See a whole set of entries

Evaluation

I have yet to give a grade for these entries. As you can see when you read them, they don't all follow the rubric. Writing in blogs is new for my kids and I haven't had the time to give as much feedback as I would like. My goal for the blogs is to begin giving feedback with each entry so that I can later evaluate them as I would a portfolio--one grade for a series of entries, instead of a grade for each entry.