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Figure 1.3: Sample Guess Yes or No sheet with revisions.
They look at the country map of Japan and conclude that the star next to Tokyo indicates that Tokyo is the capital, which means sentence four is true and doesn’t need to be changed.
You Do It Together, and I Help
“Now that you understand what to do, work together to complete the remaining statements. Read the paragraphs together, talk about any visuals, and decide together which statements are true and how to turn the false statements into true statements,” Miss G. says to her students.
She circulates among the groups, making sure that students explain their thinking to justify whether a sentence is true or false. She notices one group of students changing a false sentence by simply inserting the word not: “Japan is not the world’s largest economy.”
She helps them change the sentence without using the word not: “Japan is the world’s third largest economy.”
She then makes a new rule and announces it to the class: “When making a false sentence true, the word not is NOT allowed!”
TIP
Don’t let students take the easy way out and use the word not to make false statements true. Disallowing the word not requires students to think about how to make a false statement true.
The Class Debriefs
After the trios finish reading, verifying, and changing sentences, the class regroups and focuses on the last six statements. If students believe that statements were already true, Miss G. has them locate and read aloud the place in the text that confirms these statements. They also read aloud portions of the text that let them decide that statements were false and share their thinking to determine that.
One student says, “You can see on the map that Japan is made up of lots of islands in the Pacific Ocean—not the Atlantic Ocean!”
Students express amazement that seaweed is indeed eaten almost every day in Japan and point out that the article didn’t talk about life expectancies in the United States, which they intend to find out. (See figure 1.4 for a sample student-completed sheet.)
Figure 1.4: Sample student-completed Guess Yes or No sheet.
To conclude the lesson, Miss G. asks students to look back at the article and write one more true statement or find one that they can easily turn into a false statement. She asks students to do this individually and not to tell anyone whether their statement is true or false. When students have had two minutes to write this new statement, she lets several students read theirs to the class and call on other students to guess whether it is true or false and to turn false statements into true statements.
TIP
Creating these statements helps students read carefully and supports the development of close reading.
Planning and Teaching a Guess Yes or No Lesson
Create ten statements about the text using key vocabulary, including false statements that can easily be turned into true statements. Write some statements that require students to make logical inferences. Use the following seven steps when teaching a Guess Yes or No lesson. The first time or two, it helps to have ten statements so there are several to use for the “I do, and you watch” and “I do, and you help” modeling. Later, when students do all of them in trios or individually, you may want to have fewer statements.
1.going to use the details from the text Tell students the purpose of the lesson: “Today we are going to use our close-reading skills to determine which statements are true and which are false, and we are going to use the details from the text to turn false statements into true statements.”
2.Have students read each statement with you, and ask students questions to build meaning for vocabulary. Point out morphemic connections students should understand. Help students use the context of the sentence to determine the appropriate meaning of multimeaning words, and help them clarify the meanings of homophones.
3.Have students use pencils to write a yes or no next to each statement to indicate their guesses. Assure them that they can erase any incorrect guesses and change them to correct guesses as they read.
4.Model (“I do, and you watch”), and then have students work with you (“I do, and you help”) to complete the first several statements. Be sure to locate evidence in the text to verify your answers.
5.Have students work in trios to read and decide whether each remaining statement is true or not. Have them turn the false statements into true statements without using the word not. Observe their interactions, and intervene and coach as necessary as the students work together (“You do it together, and I help”). Use your observations to formatively assess their close-reading and inferencing skills.
6.Gather your students and have them read each statement and share how their trios turned false statements into true statements. Have them read parts of the text that prove statements are false.
7.Have each student write one or two new sentences that are true or false. Let a few students share their sentences and call on other students to tell if they are true or false and to turn false statements into true statements.
Guess Yes or No Lessons Across the Year
In subsequent lessons as students demonstrate their ability to make predictions, to support and change their predictions based on information from the text, and to apply this strategy by creating one new true or false statement, you should fade teacher modeling and turn over the responsibility for all ten statements to the trios. Continue, however, to begin every lesson by having students read each statement chorally with you to build academic and subject-area vocabulary. When your observations of the group interaction indicate that most of your students can successfully complete most of the statements most of the time, have students do the lesson independently (“You do, and I watch”). Use the results of this assessment to determine which students can meet the standards and which students need continued work on that skill.
How Guess Yes or No Lessons Teach the Standards
Guess Yes or No lessons teach Reading anchor standard one (CCRA.R.1) because students learn to read closely to determine whether statements are true or false, to make logical inferences, and to cite textual evidence to support their responses. These lessons also teach Reading informational text and Language anchor standards four (RI.4, CCRA.L.4). Before students read, they read the statements together, and the teacher helps them use context and morphemic clues when appropriate to determine word meanings. The lessons teach Speaking and Listening anchor standard one (CCRA. SL.1), as well, because they use a combination of small-group (trios) and teacher-led collaborative conversations with diverse partners to discuss various aspects of the content of the text.
CCSS in a Find It or Figure It Out Lesson
Find It or Figure It Out is a lesson framework you can use with both informational and narrative
