Making Inferences About Characters

Whether students are just starting second grade or in the last days of fifth grade, students need instruction and practice with making inferences. In upper elementary inferencing can be combined with other objectives and activities like analyzing characters and novel discussions.

My students are currently reading Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. To build on our work with inferences yet diversify the standard making inferences graphic organizer & activity, I came up with an interactive, group activity in which students make inferences about characters in a particular chapter. It's super easy to adapt to any novel or story and to tweak things to meet the needs of your students.

1. Select three or four characters from a particular chapter.
    I chose Melody, Mom, and Dr. Hugely from Chapter 4.

2. On a large piece of bulletin board paper (or chart paper), write each character's name across the top. Approximately six inches under each character, glue/tape a large picture of a book (represents text clues). About six inches below each book, glue/tape a large picture of a light bulb (represents inferences).

3. Split students into groups of 3 or 4 and assign each a different character. Students return to the chapter and find facts/details about their character. They record their facts on post-its and post them on the book icon under their character's name.

4. After listing several facts, students use the facts and their prior knowledge to make inferences about the character in that chapter. They record their inferences on post-its and post them on the light bulb icon. 
For groups that needed scaffolding, I gave them some questions to guide their inferences. (For Melody- 'How was she feeling about the testing?', 'How do you think she felt about school?', 'What was her opinion of Dr. Hugely?'; For Dr. Hugely- 'What was his opinion of Melody's intelligence?', 'What was his reactions to her answers?')

5. The activity can end with students making the inferences or it can be a spring board for a small group or whole class discussion.


The beauty about this activity is that if you use an index card to write the characters' names, the large graphic organizer is reusable. Also, if multiple groups are doing the activity, you can take the post-it notes and stick them on a piece of construction paper and label them with the group's name so you can check their work at a later time and know whose work it is.

Smenters???

With the implementation of Common Core comes the directive to do more small groups. Small groups for reteaching, small groups to facilitate genuine conversations, small groups to provide differentiation, small groups to encourage collaboration, small groups to provide hands on activities.... I do see the benefits of small groups, but one of my biggest concerns is the time that students spend working independently while the teacher is meeting with other groups. Although small groups are supposed to be flexible, engaging, and rigorous, they can all too easily fall into the old school "Blue Bird Reading Group" model.

Since last year I have been working to find a way to do small groups without having students miss out on valuable instruction and to limit the "busy work" students often get while the teacher is meeting with other groups. The solution I developed over much trial and error was.... drum roll.... Smenters. It's a combination of centers and small groups. (Yes, it's been a long year, and we're only on week 3.)

Just like with 'traditional' centers, students rotate through set activities in a group. The activities may be a group activity or an independent activity. The big difference is that the teacher is at one of the rotations/stations and teaches/facilitates that station. It still provides students with the opportunity to receive differentiated instruction that meets their needs and strengths, yet provides engaging and purposeful activities while they are not meeting with the teacher.

Because each activity is limited to a specific amount of time, it helps students stay on task, and the movement of moving from one center to another is great for students who need a chance to get the wiggles out once in a while. Kids usually enjoy and are motivated by working in small groups, and it tends to encourage participation by all students.

Although centers can definitely require a lot of teacher prep and organization, they don't necessarily have to. The beauty of my "smenters" is that they employ the idea, organization, and flow of centers, but the teachers main task is still similar to what it would be in a traditional small group.

Here's an example of the "Smenters" I did with my group of twenty-six fifth grade students today. I had two groups of nine and one group of eight, all heterogeneous and randomly grouped. We are currently reading the novel Out of My Mind and working on the skills of memoirs, inferencing, analyzing characters and reading non-fiction texts. Students were in each center for 20 minutes.
  - CENTER #1: Working with a partner on a laptop to research Cerebral Palsy. (The main character of the novel has CP.) I put shortcuts to three websites in a folder for easy access. Pairs spent time reading and browsing the three different sites and then took notes on a provided note outline.
  - CENTER #2: Independently reading Chapter 6 of the novel.
  - CENTER #3: **teacher facilitated center** Participate in an Analyzing Characters & Inferencing activity.