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Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal
|Grades||4 – 6|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Three 60-minute sessions|
- Learn and apply the comprehension strategy of making connections
- Define and understand the three types of connections (i.e., text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world)
- Make connections and react to various texts using a double-entry journal
|1.||Explain the strategy. Explain to students that there are three main types of connections that we make while reading texts. Use the making connections posters while discussing each type with your students.
|2.||Demonstrate the strategy. Display a blank copy of the Double-Entry Journal and demonstrate how to use this technique. Explain to students that, in the first column, they should choose a quote or situation from the text that they can react to. Then, in the second column, they should record their reaction. Reinforce the fact that these reactions should make a connection between the text and themselves, another text, or the world. (Refer back to the making connections posters during this demonstration and discussion.)
Read aloud the first few pages of Harvesting Hope and model the process of completing the double-entry journal. An example follows:
Use chart paper or an overhead projector to model the process so that all students can see your reactions and reflections and follow along as you complete the double-entry journal.
|3.||Guide students to apply the strategy. After reading several pages of Harvesting Hope and modeling the process, have students begin offering their reactions to the text as a way to practice the technique together as a class. Have students take part in completing the double-entry journal together.
|4.||Practice individually or in small groups. Divide students into groups of three. As you continue reading the story, stop every few pages and ask students to record their reactions to the text on their own copies of the double-entry journal and then share their reactions with their group. Continue reading and stopping periodically for reactions until the story is finished.
|5.||Reflect. Gather students as a whole class to discuss the process of making connections. Ask students which types of connections were the easiest and the hardest to make?
Day 1: Stage 2—Teacher-guided small groups and student-facilitated independent practice (40 minutes)
Before beginning Stage 2, students must be divided into three instructional-level groups. Students with similar instructional needs should be grouped together. This does not necessarily mean that students in each group are on the same reading level. Instead, they may have similar needs for comprehension instruction (e.g., students who have trouble making inferences or students who need extra practice making connections between texts).
Students are working in three different areas during this stage:
- Teacher-guided small-group instruction
- Student-facilitated comprehension centers
- Student-facilitated comprehension routines
Classroom management is at the discretion of each individual teacher. You may want to assign students to small groups and set up a rotation schedule, or you may want to allow groups of students to choose their own activities. Regardless, each group of students needs to visit the three areas at least once in the three-day period.
|1.||Teacher-guided small-group instruction. Choose one group to begin with you as follows:
|2.||Student-facilitated comprehension centers. Students may be assigned to centers or choose activities on their own.
|3.||Student-facilitated comprehension routines. Working in small groups, students engage in three different literacy strategies. Students should already be familiar with each of the strategies and have practiced them over time. For more information, review the Summary Sheet: Student-Facilitated Comprehension Routines or refer to the text Guided Comprehension: A Teaching Model for Grades 3–8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen.
For Days 2 and 3, pick up where you left off the previous day. The suggested time for each session is 60 minutes, however, since the group on the first day only had 20 minutes in small groups, you may want to meet with them for another 20 minutes and then switch groups for the last 40 minutes. The rotation should continue until all three groups have visited all three areas. On Day 3, students will spend 40 minutes in small groups, leaving 20 minutes for whole-group reflection and discussion (see Stage 3).
|1.||Talk to students about the making connections comprehension strategy that they have been learning. Ask them to tell why and how the double-entry journal helps them better understand texts.
|2.||Give students time to share the activities they completed in the student-facilitated comprehension centers.
- Adapt this lesson and have students practice the making connections strategy with other texts. With continued practice using the double-entry journal, students should be able to apply the technique independently.
- Access and use other lessons based on the Guided Comprehension Model to teach additional comprehension strategies:
- Guided Comprehension: Evaluating Using the Meeting of the Minds Technique
- Guided Comprehension: Knowing How Words Work Using Semantic Feature Analysis
- Guided Comprehension: Previewing Using an A