Elevating Student Stop and Jots: Crafting Extended Constructed Responses

Feb 23, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Feb 3

How should I handle all these post-it notes?

Which of these situations have you experienced...

A student comes to you and says..."I've finished my book, now what do I do with all these post its?"
You see independent reading books and full of thinking about text
You see students throwing those little treasure pieces of reading thinking in the trash.

Whether it's scenario #1 or #2 or #3, that reading thinking needs to find its way into stretching student thinking about the text.

✔️Your students are reading independently.

✔️They are reacting to the text and jotting their thinking down on post its and organizers.

Now, what do we do with all thinking about reading?

We want students to take their thinking to the next level...

Analytical Written Responses to Reading

Those post-it notes and organizers are full of students' original thinking. Your readers have done the reading work!

Now it's time to take that work and use it to craft a longer written reading responses full of your readers' original thinking and analysis.

But how do we use those jots about reading to write a reading response?

Taking students through the process of using that reading work to craft a response takes several steps.

This process takes place over several days and a series of minilessons designed to help readers review their short jots and annotations, then use those to create an analytical written reading response.

Take your readers through the process with you by using a familiar book that is full of your (& your readers') thinking. Choose a previous read aloud or shared read that you all experienced together and loved.

Revisit the book as a walkthrough to get reacquainted with the book and to review the reading thinking you all did while you read it.

You don't have a previous read aloud with thinking notes from you and your readers?

No worries...just choose a book you know they will like and use it for a read aloud BEFORE you start this series of lessons.

Help your readers understand that they will be putting together all they have learned about reading and writing to craft an analytical reading response. They will be drawing on all of their classroom reading experiences.

Essential Teaching Insights

Reflect on Thinking Types
- Engage in various types of thinking during your reading process.
- Identify and label categories such as predictions, curiosities, inferences, observations about characters, and personal judgments.
- Naming different kinds of thinking enhances understanding of cognitive processes.
Organize Notes into Categories
- Sort notes into distinct categories: reactions, judgments, interpretations, connections, and insights beyond the text.
- This categorization reveals patterns in thinking and highlights interactions with the material.
Select Resonant Notes
- Choose approximately 3 to 6 notes that resonate the most.
- Focus on notes that provoke deeper thoughts, inspire exploration, or represent significant insights.
- This selection is crucial for deepening understanding and engagement with the text.
Elaborate on a Specific Thought
- From the selected notes, pick one piece of thinking to elaborate on.
- Dive deeper into this thought, whether it’s a brief jotting, a reaction, or an annotation.
- Explore how this element prompted deeper thinking about broader themes.
Deepen Analysis of Other Thoughts
- Continue analyzing the other selected pieces of thinking.
- Challenge yourself to uncover new insights and reflections for each note.
- This process enhances understanding of the text.
Reread and Synthesize Reflections
- After expanding on thoughts, reread all elaborated ideas.
- Look for overarching themes and connections among reflections.
- Ask questions about common threads and relationships between pieces of thinking.
Compose a Comprehensive Reading Response
- Utilize expanded reflections to write a comprehensive reading response.
- Structure the essay around each piece of extended thinking.
- Ensure each point contributes to a well-rounded analysis of the text.

Creating a written reading response rich in original student thought and analysis requires time. Minilessons should be sequenced over several weeks, allowing students to understand how to utilize the writing process to refine and revise their reading responses.

The majority of the planning work has already been completed for you. Check out this series of minilessons to guide students through the teaching points highlighted above in Writing a Literary Response to compose a Text Dependent Analysis, Extended Constructed Response, or Analytical Reading Response.