The students are still working on how to do annotations when we are reading a story or any text. Since last wee, we have been reading the story “A river ran Wild”. We use pens to highlight important words. We do it together so we can discuss how to determine important words. We also write the main idea on top of the page. When we do not understand a sentence or a word, we write a question mark.

This book is about the Nashua River and the impact of human activities from 1400s to 1970s. The students have been doing annotations (highlighting important words, writing symbols like ? and *, and writing the main idea on each page). The book does not really specify the years 1400s, 1600s, 1850s, 1960s, and 1970s but the students, after several readings, can figure these out sometimes with the help of the teacher. The annotations will help students fill out a chart by answering these questions. Students’ written responses should include page numbers to show support their answers with evidence. All these questions are to be answered in the 4 time periods implicitly mentioned in the story, i.e. 1400s, 1600s, 1850s, 1960s, and 1970s. I have taken pictures of my students’ written responses.

• What was happening in or around the river?
  • 1400s
  • 1600s
  • 1850s
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
• How did the people use the Nashua River?
  • 1400s
  • 1600s
  • 1850s
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
• How did the people change the river?
  • 1400s
  • 1600s
  • 1850s
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
• Was the change positive or negative?
  • 1400s
  • 1600s
  • 1850s
  • 1960s
  • 1970s