6th Grade Reading Strategies DBQs

DBQ Activity: Image Analysis

Propaganda Poster from 1917.

Students will walk through a one page guided Document Based Questioning activity over the use of propaganda using a primary source.

Let’s face it, close reading isn’t often a skill that comes naturally. When our students get a new reading assignment, their first instinct is often to race to the finish line rather than engage deeply with a text. Getting students to slow down, engage with the text in different ways, and reflect as they read are challenges for every teacher, and are the goals of close reading. They’re also at the heart of the Common Core English Language Arts standards. There’s no magic way to turn your class into top-notch readers overnight, but there are specific close reading skills you can teach that will help your students now and down the line. This Close Reading includes a Primary Resource excerpt from "Uncle Toms Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It breaks down the vocab used and gives teacher lead questions, student creation of questions, as well as a summary. We all know that it’s not enough to just understand what a text says. Close readers not only grasp an author’s message, but they also take a look under the hood, so to speak.

Resource for SS.7.C.1.3 Describe how English policies and responses to colonial concerns led to the writing of the Declaration of Independence. This close read model on an Excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s Testimony Against the Stamp Act (1766). This model walks students through teacher guided questions, student created questions, vocab, a summary, and an exit question about the Stamp Act. This is great for an ELA, Reading, US History, Government, or Civics class.

The purpose of this interactive notebook is to enable students to be creative, independent thinkers and writers. This forms & types of government interactive notebook has class notes as well as for other activities where the student will be asked to express his/her own ideas and process the information presented in class. This guided gradual release model walks students not only through the forms & types, but the Systems of Government as well. You literally don't have to make a single lesson for these two combined units. Requirements vary from teacher to teacher and has been set up according to the directions of the teacher (already been given, but can be altered in this 16 page long Microsoft Word document that you can alter if you would like. Pick and choose pages if you would like as well! It's all already done for you! The only think left for you to do is assess the students after they assess themselves in the learning goal chart found on page 16 that has the students motitor their own learning! Wow, amazing... I know. But the best part is the EOC Practice items to check their understanding as they go. PHEW! That's a lot of stuff for 16 pages... a lot of stuff that you now don't have to do if you purchase this awesome item.

Why Close Reading Now? I wear a variety of professional hats—Department Head, Social Studies Coach, Youth In Government Advisor, Interactive Notebook Team member for the District, Chromebook Leader, tech Leader, School Based Leadership Team, AVID Tutor, and most of all Teacher. To keep myself honest (and humble), I spend a lot of time in classrooms watching kids and teachers at work. During the past few years, I've observed a transformation in the teaching of reading from an approach that measured readers' successful understanding of text through lengthy packets of comprehension questions to one that requires students to think about their thinking, activating their "good reader" strategies. The National Assessment of Educational Progress even made one of those strategies—making reader/text connections—a thinking strand within its framework (National Assessment Governing Board, 2002). For a long while, this approach looked ideal. What could be better than creating metacognitive readers? 16 Files for your Civics or US Government classroom