Research Clubs!

We are entering our final unit of the Lucy Calkin's Reading and Writing Workshop. For our reading unit we are beginning research clubs on nonfiction texts. We have previously studied nonfiction and this unit will focus on researching animals from not only various texts but online resources as well. To begin to unit, students will be placed in heterogeneous groups. With is being the end of the year and have working in homogenous groups all year, I mixed up the groups differently this time. We will see how it goes! Each research club is assigned an animal and each person in the club have a different job on synthesizing information from their resources. This unit required more prep than the others. Each group will have a book bin with different club member notebook pages that give them a job for their research. After their research work, they focus on interactive and sharing their information that they found with their group and class. I am exciting for this unit because it shares many aspects of reciprocal teaching, nonfiction and research all in one. At the end of the unit, students should be "Experts" on their animals and will present their animal to the class. This unit will take us to the end of the year and I am hoping the engagement piece will aid in end of the year behaviors as well!