Identity (Integrity )

An anchor chart is an artifact of classroom learning. Like an anchor, it holds students' and teachers' thoughts, ideas and processes in place. Anchor charts can be displayed as reminders of prior learning and built upon over multiple lessons.

This strategy provides tools to create questions that help students engage critically with Perspectives central texts and examine them for issues of power and social inequity. The activities suggested here also encourage readers to bring their knowledge and experiences to the reading of a text.

This strategy gives students tools to use when exploring, thinking about and discussing read-aloud texts.

Realia are real-life objects that enable children to make connections to their own lives as they try to make sense of new concepts and ideas. This strategy brings the Perspectives central text to life for students by using everyday objects during the read aloud.

Student journals are a collection of students’ written and illustrated predictions, reactions, understandings and questions based on Perspectives central text read alouds.

Students explore the same Perspectives central text from various viewpoints and identify author, speaker point-of-view, publication date, intended audience and characters.

During Cracking the Code, students examine texts for bias related to race, gender, class, religion, age and sexual orientation, among other identity categories.

Students make connections to read-aloud texts by relating the text to themselves (lived experiences), to other texts (read in any setting) and to the world (current and historical events)