Grow your readers and teach them how to read like authors! These last few weeks I have been so busy moving around my campus modeling annotation and analysis in grades 2-5. Here is a sample of my time in second grade as we began analyzing the story The Dog Ate My Homework.
We began by cutting out our literary elements cards and sentence starters. Then I annotated through the story as the students followed along. Each time we came to one of the element cards, the students would hold up the card and then point to where they found it in the text.
As we finished reading we then all went to the carpet to begin our shared writing. I wrote the literary element on the chart and then
we chose a sentence starter together from their cards. Students took turns coming up and writing. The best part was that students were locating the information in their text so that they could help the writer spell the words!
Watching this process unfold, it did not take me long to see that the students did not have to go back and reread the entire piece to find the information... they were strategically reading to locate the literary 
element we were writing about.
Even though the annotation and analysis lessons are prominent in unit one of your guides, these lessons are essential ALL YEAR LONG! Once your students know the process, you can use it anytime they are in front of text.
