One-Pagers

           A few years ago, Walton Middle School began using the AVID program, which helps students learn college readiness skills.  As we embarked on this new venture, a group of teachers were sent to a conference during the summer to learn how to use the AVID program in all classrooms.  I was selected to attend as the representative for the Language Arts Department and when the conference was over, I had taken away a lot of great activities and ideas to use in my classroom.

            The activity that I started using immediately was called a One-pager.  It is a different way for students to summarize and respond to what they have read.  After reading, the student chooses something from the story they read that they would like to illustrate.  After completing the illustration, they choose two quotes from the story that either stood out to them or go with their picture.  Finally, the student writes a response to the story, which can go from whether they liked the story or not to a character or event in the plot that really stood out to them.

            At the beginning of this year, my classes read “Charles” by Shirley Jackson.  It is a narrative nonfiction story about her son’s experience the first few weeks of kindergarten.  After completing the story, the students were asked to complete a one-pager.  Here are some examples:

           As you can see, the one-pager helps reinforce the strategies that good readers use, such as visualizing, summarizing, and supporting opinions with text.  We will continue to use this strategy throughout the year.

                    

Will Matics

7^th Grade Language Arts