Using Post It Notes for Text Evidence

Last week I taught my class a great lesson on citing text evidence and using post it notes.  I'll admit.  It was nothing new, but it was exciting to see the post it notes WORK!  Most of the teachers out here reading blogs know about Common Core and citing text evidence.  Close reading is coming back into fashion and students are interacting more with the text.  My students read an article called "I Was Homeless" which was in our Scholastic Scope magazine.  The story is narrative nonfiction and describes the life of Kevin Liu and how his family was wrongfully evicted from their home in NYC.  The family lived for several years in a homeless shelter before finding subsidized housing.  I gave my students the claim and then I had them find evidence in the text to support it.  We posted the evidence on our chart.

I love the evidence that my students were able to find within the text.  Here are a few examples:

My Smarties seem to do a great job of this when dealing with novel, but I don't always get good results with informative text.  It is one of the things I like about discovering that Newsela allows my students to highlight on the computer.  Instant, continuous practice.  WOOT!  

When we finished this discussion I had my students do a timed writing activity and answer a broader question about the challenges the homeless face and what is being done to help homeless families.  I allowed my students to use the article as well as any of the post it notes on the board.  I chose to time them because they need to be able to write a succinct piece for our assessment, and we need to build up our stamina for that.  My students use ACE for this.  Answer, Cite Explain.  I was thrilled to see that one of my Bloggy Friends Erin at I'm Loving Lit also uses this strategy.  Yes!  I was on the right track. She has a great interactive lesson about this.  You can check it out {HERE} if you need something to help your students. Small steps!

Do you use post it notes when citing evidence in text? Often I have my students write and highlight right on the page, but we don't write in our Scope magazines because they are for our team of students. I would love to hear what you do to help your students find solid text evidence and more importantly, what do you do to have them explain it when they have found it.  Thanks for stopping by to visit today!