Article of the Week (AoW)



Article of the Week (AoW)

So what’s an AoW?

An Article of the Week (AoW) is author Kelly Gallagher’s way of helping students build prior knowledge, and it’s a great way to support the common core standards. The Article of the Week allows student to not only learn about the world around them, but supports the development of tangible skills.

“Part of the reason my students have such a hard time reading is because they bring little prior knowledge and background to the written page. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge.

To help build my students’ prior knowledge, I assign them an "Article of the Week" every Monday morning. By the end of the school year I want them to have read 35 to 40 articles about what is going on in the world. It is not enough to simply teach my students to recognize theme in a given novel; if my students are to become literate, they must broaden their reading experiences into real-world text.” -Kelly Gallagher

How does it work?

When you give the article, spend up to 15 minutes doing the following:

• Framing the text (i.e., verbally trying to hook students into the content)

• Modeling one of the tasks assigned to students in the AoW (annotating, citing evidence, writing a constructed response, using complete sentences, writing an argument with appropriate and sufficient evidence).

• Explicitly teaching some of the tough vocabulary students will encounter

• Giving students time to get started on the reading task

In Class:

• Every Monday, handout a 2 page article to each student.

• Ask students to “Cold read” the article. Student cannot annotate at this time. They can only mark words they don’t understand, but the overall task is to get a general understanding of what the article is about.

• After a few minute I ask the students to stop and give me a one-sentence summary telling me what the article is about.

• Go around the room and read the article aloud and discuss.

• Show video clip that accompanies the article.

There is no right or wrong way to teach and assign the article of the week. Find a way that fits and works for you!

Homework:

• Show evidence of close reading in the margins (i.e., annotate)

• Highlight or mark important or significant passages

• Write an IVF summary paragraph

• Answer questions using complete sentences

• Respond to text dependent question using evidence from the article in the constructed response format

• Write a 1-2 paragraph argument

At the beginning of the year, spend time explicitly teaching and modeling each of these skills.

No additional class time is given for the AoW prior to Friday when it is due.

On Fridays, students are expected to submit their work, and you can also allot time for discussion of the issues raised in the article (this is a great chance to practice some Speaking and Listening skills, too).

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