Articles of the Week May Be For You

Are you looking for a routine to incorporate into your ELA block next year?  Articles of the Week may be for you and the last month of school is the perfect opportunity to give them a try.

I discovered Articles of the Week while reading Kelly Gallagher’s book Deep Reading.  I knew this concept was a strategy I could use in my social studies classroom because the best social studies instruction is a balance of content instruction and reading strategy instruction.  Unfortunately, social studies is a subject that often gets placed on the back burner as teachers strive to catch students up in reading and math.  Well-meaning teachers are actually hurting students.  In "Why American Students Haven't Gotten Better at Reading in 20 Years," Natalie Wexler summarizes the implications of current research on the subject: "The best way to boost students’ reading comprehension is to expand their knowledge and vocabulary by teaching them history, science, literature, and the arts, using curricula that that guide kids through a logical sequence from one year to the next."

Articles of the Week give students an opportunity to work with informational texts daily.   The daily exercises students complete are designed not only to improve students' comprehension of the text, but also to aid them in retaining that information.  For teachers who teach both ELA and Social Studies, they accomplish two goals at once!

My Articles of the Week are used for a variety of purposes, including:

·  Increasing comprehension and retention of content related texts.

·  Add rigor and depth to content related reading.

·   Require students to actively engage in learning content presented.

·  Make challenging texts more accessible.

·  Improve thinking through written responses.

The procedure for Articles of the week is simple.  Students read the article on Monday and answer comprehension questions.  On Tuesday, they read another short related article and edit it for grammar mistakes.  On Wednesday, they answer questions related to finding evidence in the text.  On Thursday, the focus is on main idea and summarizing.  Finally, on Friday, students must write a short response using the A.C.E. strategy.  An A.C.E. helper is available to help students with the short response.  

AOWs are a vital part of my classroom.  I encourage you to give them a try in your classroom. Articles of the Week are a great routine to incorporate a variety of literacy skills across the content areas.



Want to create your own AoW?  Go to this Padlet for resources to get started!