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<\/a><\/p>\nStudents in Beth Kelly\u2019s third-grade classroom at Woodstock Elementary spent part of their morning pouring over an array of magazines to identify specific elements of non-fiction text and then use those components to bring a story to life on large paper people cutouts. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking for keywords,\u201d said Finesse Williams. \u201cIt will be all non-fiction facts and after I am looking for keywords, I have to look for photos and after that I have to look for a map.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strewn across the operating tables (combined desks), the student surgeons were carefully using their scalpels (scissors) to cut out their found elements and precisely stitch (glue) them on to their paper patient. <\/p>\n
Kelly got the idea from following discussion threads on Twitter and thought it would be a great way to transform her classroom. <\/p>\n \u201cMy goal this year was once a month to have a transformation day \u2013 have the whole room set up to do something like this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In September, while teaching numbers and place value, her room became a boot camp, where students were issued dog tags with numbers on them so they could spend the day practicing rounding, place value and other mathematical lessons. <\/p>\n This time around, and just in time for Halloween, she wanted to help students apply the definitions of elements they were learning in a fun and engaging way. It also helps reinforce for students how to best support fact-based writing. <\/p>\n \u201cYou know they can identify the features, they can find it in real text. Too often, it is too easy in a worksheet \u2013 it\u2019s too right there \u2013 but this is real life,\u201d Kelly said. <\/p>\n While there were a couple of surgical hiccups (one surgeon got her gloves stuck in the cap of the glue stick), there were plenty more conversations about the elements that make up a non-fiction text. <\/p>\n \u201cI am learning about a lot of non-fiction stuff, like, I learned about what a subheading is,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI learned more about what captions are. It helps because if you know what will be in a non-fiction book, you should know right away \u2013 if you\u2019re doing something like this – which one will be in a non-fiction and which one won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n