FIRE!!!!!!

Who hasn't seen a fire of some sort? They are destructive, scary and they hurt people. They take away homes, cars, and even lives. Can you think back to when you were a child and you learned that "Only YOU can prevent forest fires"? Does anyone remember who said that ? If you guessed Smokey the Bear, you are right!!

In this activity, meant to teach the reading comprehension strategy of synthesizing, students will build upon their background knowledge of forest fires, read a book about forest fires and then be able to synthesize the two forms of information together.

Prior to reading the book  Fire in the Forest: A Cycle of Growth and Renewal,by Laurence Pringle,  students will be given a graphic organizer that looks like a bulls eye.  In the inner most circle, students will write down key concepts from their existing knowledge of forest fires. During the reading of the book, the students will write down key concepts that they learn from reading the book. These concepts will be written in the middle circle. Once the book has been read, students can look at what they wrote in the inner circle, and then what they wrote in the middle circle and synthesize the two together. The key concepts for the synthesized information will be written in the outermost circle.

For example: If I were doing this activity about a book on being a teacher, my inner circle might have key concepts such as "summers off", "coloring all day"and " playing with toys".  In my middle circle, I would have concepts similar to "assessments", "CCGPS" and "EOCT".  In my outer circle, I might synthesize this information into something like "teachers no longer get to play with toys and color all day since the school systems adopted the CCGPS".

This comprehension strategy helps students connect what they are learning with what they already know.
What do you know about forest fires? What might you be able to learn when you read our book? Do you think that your opinion of a forest fire might change when you are able to see a bigger picture?