Written by Julie Wright & Elizabeth Keim

One way to create a short text set is to explore a particular topic. We recommend picking something you, or your students (or both!), are particularly interested in. Once you start looking for resources, you will be surprised by how many things there are to find. By using short texts, you can expose your students to a variety of text types all in the name of learning about something fascinating.

Elizabeth is a birder and she spends most of the Spring in Central Park being amazed by the migrating warblers. In the winter she has been known to be on the lookout for Snowy Owls. Once she walked a long way on a beach in Eastern Long Island with some friends toward something that looked like a bleach bottle and eventually, as she got closer, discovered it was actually a Snowy Owl snoozing on a log. You may have read about or seen the post last year when a Snowy Owl was spotted in Central Park. It was the first one recorded in NYC in 130 years!

When students and teachers inquire about a topic, then spend time curating resources to fuel that curiosity or interest, there’s a good chance that new knowledge and understanding about that topic will grow. In addition, reading, writing and talking volume will increase too.

If you liked our Short Texts at Your Fingertips: Field Guides we think you’ll appreciate this connection we’re making to a topic that we enjoy —> OWLS! It’s so much fun to take a topic and text you love and expanding it into a short text set.

TRY THIS

Step 1

We start this text set with the NYTimes article about the first Snowy Owl to be seen in Central Park in 130 years. This could be read independently by upper elementary children and read aloud to younger ones. What’s fun about this NYTimes Article about Snowy Owls is that there are other short texts tucked all across the article including photos and captions that showcase the snowy owl’s adventures. Dive into the article and consider:

Orienting students to the features of a news article
- Byline
- Date
- Structure of a news article
Asking some questions that could get students talking about the article and about snowy owls
- What is this article about? Why is it being written? Who is the intended audience?
- Is there a photo, caption, graphic, or link to other information that helps you read, interpret and comprehend the text?
- What important details (data, facts, information) are shared in the article?

Step 2

Talk to students about some vocabulary words associated with birds, specifically the Snowy Owl. Some to consider are:

Migration and migratory
Nocturnal versus diurnal
Mammal
Wing, wing span, flight, and range

Take a look at a map of the Snowy Owl’s range. Here’s a Snowy Owl Range Map which is a nice example with lots of great bird information. You could use this resource to:

Define range
Teach students about map features

FURTHER STEPS

After digging into all of these sources, you and your students might want to learn more about Snowy Owls. There are some great resources to explore such as:

And now that everyone knows a bit more about Snowy Owls, maybe you explore some beautiful picture books that explore different types of owls. Start by reading both of these books aloud, noting that one is fiction and the other is nonfiction. Create a two-column anchor chart or give students a chance to draw a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two short texts. Ask:

What are the differences between fiction and non-fiction?
How did Jane Yolan build suspense in Owl Moon?

Note: The owl in Owl Moon, by Jane Yolan, is a Great Horned Owl.

GOING DEEP & WIDE

Looking for more titles and short text types that add to and expand your text set? Check out these titles:

STAY TUNED!

More about short texts and short text sets coming soon!

Written by Julie Wright & Elizabeth Keim

A LITTLE BIT OF BACKGROUND

Back in early 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, you may have caught our Short Texts at Your Fingertips Series focused on keeping kids reading, writing, and talking during remote learning. A lot has changed since then, although not as much as we hoped… Something that remains constant regardless of Zoom, social distancing and everything else in this new “normal,” is that kids continue to crave texts that entertain, inform and inspire them.

We are amazed at the number of educators worldwide who visit and revisit the original blog posts in this series. We understand why. Time is never on our side and having resources at your fingertips is essential. We’ve spent hours in classrooms and across screens with teachers putting these short text ideas into action and we’ve added on because, let’s face it, that’s what educators do. We revise, rethink, rework, and redo in order to meet the needs of our learners’ individual and collective needs and wants.

You know that we love all kinds of short texts. Some of our favorites are included in the graphic that follows:

The beauty of a short text is that it naturally invites readers to read, write and talk more! As we co-plan with colleagues, we select one short text and then dream up other possible short texts that will get kids jazzed up and engaged in our literacy work. From that noodling comes short text sets. Say it too many times and it becomes a mouthful. Stick with us and give some of these ideas a try and, before long, we think you’ll have the words, ideas, and texts rolling off your tongues too!

A SHORT TEXT SET AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: CEREAL BOXES

If you liked our Short Texts at Your Fingertips Blog Posts about Cereal Boxes, we think you’ll love these ideas about taking one short text about a cereal box and expanding it into a short text set. Just a reminder: If you don’t have this cereal at your fingertips, swap it out for another type and consider these texts and others to create your text set.

TRY THIS

Step 1

Use the back panel of the Cheerios cereal box for a shared reading experience. Use the back panel (and other panels too!) to explore the activities provided so that students can use different skills and strategies. Invite students to:

Complete a cloze activity similar to a “Mad Libs” and then read the finished piece out loud, showcasing fluent reading.
Play a word study game by making new words using the letters from “Crunch Time”.
Use their reading, math and critical problem-solving skills by solving breakfast equations while “Crunching the Numbers”.

Step 2

Ask students to select one or more short texts they’d like to explore independently or with a partner. In addition, you could:

Invite readers to find cereal boxes at home, bring them to school and set up a “cereal museum”. Students can label the displays with interesting facts.
Host a cereal tasting. It’s oodles of fun. Students can design a survey to find out peer opinions about the crunchiest, sugariest, tastiest cereals.
Encourage students to design their own cereal. Draw it, name it, describe it. Then share ideas with others.

GOING DEEP & WIDE

To go beyond cereal boxes, consider:

Naming the main ingredients listed on the cereal box and research and read to find out more about each.
Watching (or reading) some of the “how is this made?” genre of videos and talk about ideas worth remembering. Here’s a note catcher you can use if you are interested.
Picking a topic from the short text set and going a little further. Invite students to make a list of questions about the topic that pique their interests. Use this to jumpstart a mini-research project. This can be a short-term or long-term inquiry. Regardless, it will get kiddos reading, writing and talking galore!

STAY TUNED!

More about short texts and short text sets coming soon!