Saturday, May 26, 2012

Textmapping

Textmapping was a pinterest find that has really helped my students interact with nonfiction in a way that takes away the dread.  They now feel empowered to dissect and understand nonfiction reading selections.  The idea of textmapping can be explored at the creators website The Textmapping Project.
Students using their nonfiction text features cards to textmap an article on the Greek government.
Creating a "map" key to aid in mapping this article.

Using a teacher directed article to help textmap an article independently.

Almost complete!

Just getting started with the textmapping process.

8 comments:

  1. I love this idea. I would like to use this for my 4th grade self-contained class. What are some key things that you have your student "map out" (i.e. text features, topic sentence, etc)?

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    Replies
    1. Cagney,

      We just mapped nonfiction text features using a set of cards I found through pinterest. You can download the cards as a pdf (it takes a bit as it is a rather large file). The original file has 23 pages with one feature on each page, I just printed them 6 to a page to get more on a page - especially since I was a nerd and printed the cards in color. You can find them here (http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/03/my-march-top-ten-list-nonfiction-reading-resources).

      And be sure to check out www.textmapping.org. That is where I got the idea and just read the information on the webpage to use the activity in my classroom.

      Hope this helps!

      Randy

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  2. What are the little cards that are piled up by the article? Are the cards color coded too? Where did you get the article they are mapping or is it several articles combined?

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    Replies
    1. The small cards came from a pinterest find. I am pasting the link here (not sure how to put a link in the reply without the whole thing showing (http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/03/my-march-top-ten-list-nonfiction-reading-resources). The cards just have different nonfiction text features on them with a definition and an example. I was a nerd and printed each student a set in color. In the above link, you will find a sport where you can download the pdf file that this wonderful teacher created. It is a rather large file, so it will take a little bit to download.

      The article I found online - after a LOT of searching. The one I found/used is from a few years ago about the government of Greece. It fit in our classroom because we were studying ancient Greece and mythology. I just got lucky with it. You can used a chapter from a text or from a SCOPE, Time for Kids, Weekly Reader or other classroom magazine. Or, if you find a good article in an adult type magazine like National Geographic, Time, People, etc...you could use that. Just shrink it down a little when copying so it creates a bit of a white border to give room for students to map. I copied mine at 90%.

      My article came from thecurrentevents.com which is a national newspaper for kids. The one I used was from a free sample on the webpage so you can see what the magazine it like before you order (http://www.thecurrentevents.com/pdfs/newspapers/TCE_Vol9_Iss17_2010_1B.pdf).

      Hope this helps!

      Randy

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  3. Really cool idea...thinking about doing it. I teach 7th grade ELA.

    About how long did it take for you to model and do guided practice? Did you have each student do their own or was this done in groups? Did you tape (make the scrolls) ahead of time or have the students tape them together?

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  4. This sounds like a wonderful idea. I just finished reading the whole textmapping site. Do you allow your children to make up their key with colors or do you like to follow the websites ideas?

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  6. I am doing a very basic version of this with an RSP class. I would love to do it with all classes but I am concerned about using too much paper. Do you substitute this for anything? How would you recommend getting around using thousands of sheets of paper??

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