Reading Response Blog #29

5/25/2015

We have been working very hard becoming fantastic readers this year. Not only have our reading skills improved, but we also have grown in our abilities to reflect and write about our reading. The Reading Response Blog has really helped!

This Week's Prompt:

Go back to the earliest Reading Response Blog posts (Here are links: #1, #2, and #3). Read your responses to the prompts.

How have you grown in your ability to reflect and write about your reading? Compare and contrast your responses at the beginning of the school year to now.

I can't wait to hear your reflections about your responses!

31 Comments

Layla

5/25/2015 02:31:57 pm

Dear Ms. Kimball,
At the beginning of the year, I didn't know to write about my reading including my thoughts. I thought that I should just write about what happened in the book, not what happened AND my thoughts on what I just read. Now at the end of the year, I have learned that there should be a balance. I first write about what happened, then I reflect upon it and write about what I think about it. I think that I have improved for the better in this area because it makes the response more interesting to read about my opinion, not just about the book.
From,
Layla

Ms. Kimball

5/26/2015 02:19:20 pm

Dear Layla,

It is so great to hear that you recognize how much you've grown in your ability to reflect on your reading. I noticed throughout the year that you learned to predict which types of questions I would ask of students' posts and would include answers to those potential questions in your initial responses. I agree that your responses became progressively more interesting because you learned how to balance details from the text with your reflections on the text. Amazing work this year! You should be extremely proud of your progress and skills!

Sincerely,
Ms. Kimball

Layla

5/28/2015 01:35:20 am

Dear Ms. Kimball,
I often add things to my post because I think of things to say AFTER I write the response. Thank you, by the way.
From,
Layla

Nathan

5/26/2015 01:33:43 am

Dear class,

One thing that has changed a lot is how I reflect on the text. I just told what happened. Not why, and not what I thought of it. This is a very good skill to have; with it, you can predict, and evaluate. I now tell the text, then say what I think of it. It is great to have a equal amount of both.

Sincerely, Nathan

Ms. Kimball

5/26/2015 02:23:23 pm

Dear Nathan,

When you wrote, "I just told what happened," are you describing how you responded in your earliest posts? Also, when you say, "This is a very good skill to have," are you referring to reflecting on the text? You've definitely grown in your ability to balance your reflections on the text with specific details from the text. I agree that it's such a valuable skill to have, and makes reading people's responses much more interesting!

Sincerely,
Ms. Kimball

Sam

5/29/2015 12:37:23 am

Dear Nathan,
I agree with Ms. Kimball it was a little hard to understand you at points, but with a little thinking I got it. I think your reading responses have defiantly grown since the begging of the year. I think your reading responses are still growing.

Sincerely,
Sam

Sage P

5/26/2015 01:35:09 am

Dear Class,
I think I have grown so much in my ability to reflect about my reading. When I looked on blog #1 I saw that the length was ten times shorter than it is now. I also looked at everyone else’s response from the beginning of the year, they were all really short compared to the end of the year. Another thing I realized when I looked at my old summary of my reading, was that when the prompt was to write a summary of my reading, I was just saying what happened in my book. I realized that over the year I learned how to write a good summary of my reading. When I looked at my old blog post I couldn’t believe how much I have grown with my reading blog response.
From,
Sage P.

Layla

5/26/2015 07:37:58 am

Dear Sage P.,
When I looked back on the early responses I found the same thing! Everyone's response was short and brief, not really explaining the book.
From,
Layla

Sage P

5/28/2015 01:35:12 am

Dear Layla,
I know right, I felt they were all really short. I couldn't believe how everyone has grown throughout the year.
From,
Sage P.

Olivia Y.

5/26/2015 08:37:59 am

Dear Sage P.,
I found the same thing on the early responses!
Everybody's response were short not really explaining much
about the book.

From,
Olivia

Sage P

5/28/2015 01:29:35 am

Dear Olivia Y,
Thank you for responding to me! When I looked at my old responce I was shocked, it was SO small, and wasn't even a summary!

Ms. Kimball

5/26/2015 02:28:36 pm

Dear Sage,

I agree! You have grown so much in your ability to reflect about your reading, especially in your ability to summarize, which is a challenging skill. Your responses have always been very clear and interesting to read, but I feel that you pushed yourself over the year to think more deeply and thoughtfully about texts. I was always impressed at your efforts to reflect insightfully.

Sincerely,
Ms. Kimball

Sage P

5/28/2015 01:31:39 am

Dear Ms. Kimball,
Thank you so much for taking your time to respond to my response! Did you notice a big difference for everyone else's responses in the class?
From,
Sage P.

Sage W.

5/26/2015 01:42:52 am

Dear Class,

I looked at he first blog and checked my post. It was a blog on summarizing and to be honest I confused myself. I didn't really explain what my book was about and I didn't include who the characters where and why they were important. I remembered that we had just done a blog on summarizing. I looked at the more resent blog and saw it was much better. I still need to work on rereading to make sure spelling and punctuation is correct. But I think that I am much better on my blogs and being able to reflect on my reading.

Sage W.

Ms. Kimball

5/26/2015 02:32:26 pm

Dear Sage,

Isn't it amusing how our own previous writing can confuse ourselves? I've had that same experience! You have definitely improved the clarity of your reading responses. One thing that made a big difference was your use of modifying clauses to explain who the characters are, as well as other important details. You are now beginning to emulate the great writing that you read! Keep it up!

Sincerely,
Ms. Kimball

Sage W.

5/31/2015 02:32:41 pm

Dear Ms.Kimball,

Its funny because I don't even remember my writing being confusing, short, and lacking of correct punctuation. I hope that I can keep improving though because I know my writing still isn't perfect but I think if I've changed so much in the past year I can improve a ton during middle school.

Sincerely,
Sage W.

Julia

5/26/2015 01:43:17 am

Dear Class,

One thing the blog helped me with is my summarizing skills. My summaries are shorter, but have the same big ideas. This means I don't have many small details that are not necessary for the summary, making my summaries better.

Sincerely,
Julia

Ms. Kimball

5/26/2015 02:37:05 pm

Dear Julia,

I chuckled when I remember that your "Reading Ranger Power Verb" is "summarizing." You definitely took to heart the idea that summaries do not need to be loaded with specific details. I hope you will continue to use modifying clauses to subtly add details to enhance readers' understanding of the text through your summaries. Details are important so long as we don't cloud the big ideas with excessive retellings. You have an impressive ability to distill information down to it's essential ideas.

Sincerely,
Ms. Kimball

Sam

5/27/2015 10:41:02 am

Dear Ms. Kimball,
At the beginning of the year, my blog post were— you could even say— sloppy. There were stupid errors that could have been fixed with a little bit of my time. The structure was also pretty boring; I didn't have much flow or creativity. For example on one of my post I did this boy format, so boring I even get bored of reading it. Vs today my blog post are much better, not saying all the flaws are gone but a lot of them.

Sincerely,
Sam

Sage P

5/28/2015 01:33:33 am

Dear Sam,
I really liked your blog response, it was really funny. I also liked how you did an example of your response today and a response from a long time ago. Great response!
From,
Sage P.

Sofia

5/27/2015 11:22:01 am

Class,
I have definitely improved on my reading response blogs since the beginning of the year. My grammar has improved greatly, and the way I place my words in a sentence is very different than how I had in the first few months of school. My responses are more appropriate, in the sense that I don't use weird faces like "^-^" Or ":)" any more. My reading skills themselves have also improved. I can use a lot of the Reading Rangers' powers, and I am able to use them more easily than in the start of the school year.
Sofia,

Marc

5/27/2015 11:27:21 am

Class,

I have definitely improved in my writing over the year. When I looked back at the first blog, I could barely understand it, because my commas were terrible! My commas were not correct, so I would pause at unneeded times. Also, I would not put commas in the needed places so I would speed right through everything. In my opinion, I have improved on commas.

My summarizing, was also just telling about the book. I was just talking what happened and not sharing my opinion on it, so you guys would not know if it was good or bad. Also, I did not give background info about the characters, so you probably had almost no clue who these people were!

I think we have all improved in our responses over the time that we've had this year.

Sincerely,
Marc

Alec

5/28/2015 01:38:48 am

Dear Class,
I definitely improved on my reading responses since the first one I did. My first one had no thoughts in it and only had 7 sentences. Even I didn't understand my summary. Wow. Now I write more and actually type my thoughts and make my responses clearer. My old self does not know anything. But now I know.

From, Alec

Rheona

5/28/2015 08:47:02 am

Dear Ms. Kimball,
I think that for my first few blog posts, I tried my hardest and they came out better than I expected. However, I did do some things that I never do now. For example, after every other sentence, I'd put a new paragraph. Also, for titles or names or special details, I would alway write them in ALL CAPS. I think I did this because I wasn't sure what do with the important things and wanted them to stand out. Also, when I summarized things, I would give the whole story away!
Some of the similar things I still do is I like to learn from the technics other people use. I also still like to go over my work as many times as I can and make sure it all makes sense and the grammar is the best I can do.
From,
RHEONA

Kaela

5/28/2015 08:48:41 am

Dear Class,
I am very unhappy about my first 3 responses to the blogs for one thing I forgot to capitalize the titles of books. Also, I was very lazy and had no intentions of making it interesting I am pretty enoyed at myself for being so boring and lazy but I thank you all for responding to me so nicely! Thank you for reading.
sincerely,
Kaela

Talia

5/28/2015 01:06:42 pm

Ms.Kimball,
My blog responses are very different now from what they used to be. This is because I work harder on the posts now than I did then.
One way I work harder is that I now make my posts longer than I did then. I often have two or three paragraphs in my posts now. In my first post I had one very short paragraph. Another way is that my punctuation and spelling are much better now than they were then. Now, I check my work before I submit my post. I didn’t do that at the beginning, so I had lot’s of mistakes. My last way I work harder is that I have more variety in what I do for characters and books than I did then. In my first two responses, I used the same exact character, and had very similar evidence. Now, I use all different characters and books.
That is one reason why my blog responses are different now from what they used to be. I work harder on my posts than I did then.
From Talia

Mikey

5/28/2015 01:28:45 pm

Dear Ms. Kimball,
I think I have improved on elaborating about the topic. On my first response, not only did I only write two sentences, but I didn't even answer the question! Now I feel I do better elaborating and putting more details in about the topic.
Mikey

Amy

5/28/2015 01:33:34 pm

Dear Class,
The first reading response I wrote was very small and had 3 sentences. I only included the name of the book, I include very little detail. In my new reading responses I write at least a paragraph. I include details about each of the characters and the setting. I have also found that my grammar has gotten better throughout the year. My punctuation has improved as well when I look back I realize I didn’t use commas, now there like my bestfriend!
Sincerely,
Amy

Arim link

5/29/2015 12:53:03 am

Dear class,

In the beginning of the year I thought I just had to write about books I read ones. So even if I finished a book I still wrote about it. Now I know that I have to write about a book I am reading. Another thing is that in the beginning of the year I always got my blog late. Now I get it more on time but sometimes it is still late.

From Arim

Forrest

5/30/2015 10:55:44 am

Dear Ms Kimball,

As I was reading my entry from 9\22\2014 I noticed I failed to describe what the Thunder Clan was. In the sentence I wrote “he was a warrior in training for the thunder clan.” The reader would have no idea what I meant by saying the Thunder Clan. Now I would know to explain what the Thunder Clan was. Another example is from my entry from 5/19/2015.I know would write “the Golden Room is a place with a arch of trees and a golden carpet of pine needles.” In my earlier entry that would be written as “golden room.”

I couldn't understand in my earlier entry what I ment be writing I think he is fair because he wants peace because he wonders why clans fight. I should have wrote this differently. There should have been a period in between the first because and peace. This is what I think it should turn out as. I think he is fair because he wants peace. He also wonders why clans fight?

From,

Forrest

Yubin

5/31/2015 05:36:54 am

Dear Class,

In the blog #1, #2, #3, I had a response about the book "Frozen" from Disney's, and "Jodie's Daddy is a Garbageman" by Matthew Licht.

Compared to the first three blogs, It is pretty detailed, but it is not perfect. For example, when I wrote that Elsa had magic powers, I did not write that she hurt her sister, Anna, with them. But now I am much better at detailing them.

Sincerely,
Yubin

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Ms. Kimball's Grade 5 At Underwood, 2014-2015

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