Comprehension Focus Groups: A theme focus - "Overcoming Obstacles"

Heather Zimmerman contributed today's post. More about Heather's work implementing comprehension focus groups in middle school can be found here.

I wanted to work in the theme “Overcoming Obstacles” for one of my Comprehension Focus Groups (CFG) at some point during the year.  Third quarter worked out to be a great time to work in this CFG.  After a CFG focusing strictly on informational texts, working in a few fiction texts was welcomed.  I also had a CFG lesson shared with me by one of my colleagues, Norah Olig.  The texts in this lesson were thanks to her!

After working with my students during the last CFG, I noticed they were still struggling with author’s structure.  I decided to incorporate in my graphic organizer two components that focused on this.  One area focused on the words the author chose and the other area focused on the title of the text.  I also went back to some of the important components we worked on from first quarter: theme, conflict, Beers and Probst’s signposts, and point of view.

I have been very pleased with my students’ progress and hard work.  We are currently in the writing phase and they are passionately writing their texts about obstacles from their own life.  They are working on word choice, adding a theme, and focusing on adding a signpost. I am proud of how much I have seen each of them grow as readers and writers so far this year.

Here is an overview of my first CFG:  

• Theme- Overcoming obstacles
• Graphic Organizer (Click here)

• Texts- (A special thank you to literacy coach Norah Olig for finding and grouping these texts.)
• YouTube Video: Overcoming Obstacles By: Steven Claunch
• “I Never Said I was Not Difficult” By: Sara Holbrook
• Silent Football from ForTheTeachers.org (three levels of same text)
• http://www.fortheteachers.org/Reading_Resources/Silent_Football_1.pdf   N-P
• http://www.fortheteachers.org/Reading_Resources/Silent_Football_2.pdf  Q-U
• http://www.fortheteachers.org/Reading_Resources/Silent_Football_3.pdf  V-Z
• Shark Tale from ReadWorks.org
• I found a text that seemed to be at a higher level for some of my students- “Shark Attack Survivor” Adapted by Kristin Lewis for Action Magazine (May 5, 2014)
• On My Honor By: Marian Dane Bauer (Since this is a chapter book, students read three chapters and then we went into phase 2, the discussion phase, and then back into phase 1, the reading phase.)