Notice and Note in My Classroom

My department and I made the decision to go to Minnesota Council of Teachers of English fall workshop, and we were introduced to Kylene Beers' and Bob Probst's Notice and Note strategies.

Since this workshop, I have been using the six signposts (Contrast/Contradiction, AHA! Moment, Again & Again, Words of the Wiser, Tough Questions, and Memory Moments) within my classroom to engage students with their reading and classroom discussions. It has been helpful across our department because we've all been incorporating this close reading strategy within our literature lessons. We've all been able to report success. Yay!

So what are a few of my strategies?

I teach my 7th graders the strategies using a visual display similar to those presented in the book. I have them take notes in their interactive notebooks with a similar design. However, I require the students to paraphrase the definition of the signpost into their own words. We also summarize why we pay attention to these. 

You can get a copy of this here.

We then read a short story or a chapter of a novel that demonstrates this particular signpost. I use teacher-think-aloud to demonstrate the use of the signpost anchor question. 

As we learn more of the signposts, we add them to our reading log charts. These are meant to demonstrate that my students are engaging with the text. They may use these as a reminder of previous reading, as well. They can also use the page numbers to find textual evidence for their assignments.

This reading log was developed using a model from one of my amazing reading specialists who works with me.

You can get a copy of the reading log, with three of the signposts here.

In 8th grade, we needed to simply revisit the signposts and I use a single page for notes in their interactive notebooks to review these from last year. 

You can have the review sheet for the signposts here.

My favorite strategy to use for discussion requires students to use slips of paper to record a summary of the signpost with a page number. We then use fishbowl discussion to develop our ideas regarding the signposts and students will begin to make inferences.

Students will pull a slip of paper and read the summary of the signpost to their classmates. Those in the fishbowl then use the anchor question to begin their discussion. I do provide other sentence starters for them to use to continue the discussion. 

I've also had my students create a display with the signposts and they'll track the signposts using post-it notes.

I'd love to hear how others are making the Notice and Note signposts work in their classrooms!