This is one of my all time favorite reading responses.
My students love this reading response as well. In my classroom, I read aloud at least once a day. During this read aloud, the students (out of habit) grab their Reading Journals and prepare to write and/or draw as I'm reading. While I'm reading, I often engage the students in a discussion at certain parts of the story.
This reading response is often a tool the students gravitate towards in order to express their thinking throughout the story.
The Behavior Over Time Graph (or BOTG as we refer to it in my classroom) is part of Systems Thinking. Yes, with all my students K-2, I have used Systems Thinking visual tools including the BOTG.
Introducing BOTG
I use a familiar story the first time I expose the BOTG to the students. This first time, the students do not have their own copies. We complete a BOTG on chart paper. You will have to create your own on chart paper. I have a digital copy on Notebook for SmartBoard. On this digital copy, I have a star that can move along the bottom of the graph to show time moving.
On the side of the graph, we draw a happy face at the top and sad face at the bottom. In between, I ask the students for suggestions of feelings that would be in between these two.
On the bottom (to show time), I explain that as we turn pages in the story, the star moves along the line. So when we get to the middle of the story, the star will be in the middle of the line. When we get to the end of the story, the star will be at the end.
I begin reading and reiterate that the star on the graph is at the beginning or start of the time line.
You will not always mark on the graph for every page. Only plot for important parts of the story.
As soon as we identify an initial feeling of the main character, I stop and ask the students what the character is feeling and why. I then bring their attention to the star on the time line and slid my finger up to the feeling we identified and draw a dot. I also label the dot. Example: Maybe the character was happy because it was his birthday so I write 'birthday' above or next to the dot.
I continue reading and stop again when the characters feeling changes. At this time, I explain that I'm moving the star because we are no longer at the beginning of the story. We've moved on in time inside the story so the star has to move. I again ask the students what the character is feeling now and why. I start at the star and slide my finger up to the identified feeling, draw a dot and label. We continue this throughout the story.
At the end, we review the graph and I have students explain in pairs or to the class how the character felt and changed throughout the story. Naturally, you will notice this is also a great tool to foster retelling.
**If you don't have a SmartBoard and are using chart paper, I place my chart paper on the board and use a magnet along the time line.**
Before having the students do this on their own, I scaffold over time. We will complete a few class BOTGs then class BOTGs with student copies then on their own with class read alouds then on their own with their guided reading books.
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