GLT Reflection

This week, students learned about what concept books are and the characteristics of a concept book. With the help of my students, I created a concept book about Halloween as an example. They also worked on a page for a whole-class concept book—each student drew and wrote about what they would bring to a birthday party. Some students seem to be struggling with the idea of a main idea and its supporting ideas (and that each supporting idea has to be different). For instance, while coming up with ideas on the Halloween book—students came up with supporting ideas like, “batman” which I took to mean “costumes”. Students then went on a tangent about different superheroes which I had to stop and explain that those were great ideas for a costume or superhero book but not a Halloween book.

When prompted, students were able to give supporting ideas to support a main idea but were unable to come up with a main idea/supporting ideas on their own. Students may be struggling because they are just beginning to sort out books by genre and are getting confused by the different kinds we have already exposed them to. I will re-teach the material by continuously going over books that are concept books to them—identifying the aspects that make it a concept book and reinforcing the idea that concept books are all about one main idea and that each page supports that idea. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would go over more books with them to use as examples—especially books that they have not been exposed to. In implementing this core practice, I think I need to continue to expose my students to different genres so that they can see and be exposed to the different books that are out there.