Comparing & Contrasting

The last couple days we have been analyzing our research by comparing and contrasting the details we gathered from two different texts.  This project not only showed me which students are able to compare/contrast information on a topic, but also who can understand how to infer when two details have the same meaning, but are described in text differently (i.e. combat lasted for 25 hours vs. the battle lasted through the night).

Here is the outcome of analyzing our research. WOW... first graders can do this?  I am still amazed every single day.  I would change this assignment next year by to using less complex texts. I really need to stick with texts within their Lexile and I was aware of this right after the first day of research.  I was pushing their independent reading comprehension to some levels of frustration and I needed to jump in and assist with understanding content.  Topics such as the Star Spangled Banner, The Declaration of Independence, and The US Constitution are hard to understand in the first place.  The US Flag, Statue of Liberty and The Bald Eagle were much more appropriate. 

The app we used to complete this graphic organizer was Tools4Students.  A really neat app that provides free graphic organizers.