WONDER-ing Through Our New Read

FINALLY: It's Wonder day #1!  What a thrill to 1. be finished with our big -- and important, but tiring -- round of assessments and 2. get to share this amazing book.

We started out with a very brief preview of the book cover; I decided not to do very many previewing activities, because I'm coming around to the idea that previewing may be more for book selection.  When we're picking out books, we'll read the cover, the blurb, maybe the first chapter, and check out other features to see if it's a book that suits us.  In this case, the other sixth grade teachers and I have already selected the book.

In "real world reading," we also don't have a teacher to guide us through pre-reading activities and discussions ... so today, in an effort to practice doing things the "real" way, we kept it simple.  We just checked out the cover.

We talked about the differences between observations and inferences  (Mrs. Siegfried, are you listening!? We're being all science-y! Woo hoo!)  We observed, for example, that the eye on the cover is bright blue, a big contrast from the rest of the picture.  This led us to wonder why that particular feature was so different.  Later, in the chapter about Auggie's birth story, we had a big AHA! moment that led us to infer why Auggie might want the eye to look different.

Everyone did a lot of thinking in their readers notebooks today! So much thinking on our papers!

Remember our big take-aways? Not just about the book?
1.  Readers ALWAYS have questions.  (It's a "misperception" that good reading means you know all of the answers) Readers wonder.
2. Readers store those questions in their brains and have the patience to wait and look for answers.
3. Readers pay attention to details that help them answer the big and little questions.

Challenge: Do you remember our conversation about Via? Why did we infer in the first chapter that she was Auggie's sister? What later information helped us know for SURE that she is?

Here's my WONDER-ing from block #1 ... what else do you have in your notebook?

Nerd note: I'm currently reading this great teacher book called What Readers Really Do.   Yes, kids, for fun. I embrace my inner nerd... and I'm enjoying trying out some new ideas on you. Bwahaha. :)

Let me know: what do you think of the book so far?