Category Archives: how-to/tips

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Analyzing What I Read: My First Time Using CommonLit

As a reminder, this Student Exemplar blog is used as a way for Mr. S’mores to provide examples of blog assignments to students. For this assignment, students are to read a specific text, using CommonLit.org for the first time, and reflect on the learning experience. In this post, though, I’m reflecting on a different text at CommonLit in order to show model the style of such a response, but avoiding doing the specific analysis work my students are responsible for conducting.

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I enjoy reading, but sometimes it takes me several times reading through a text to begin to understand what it is saying. This can be frustrating, but there are some things that help me improve.

Today I used the CommonLit website for the first time. My teacher assigned my class to read “How Jackie Robinson Played Baseball,” by Jessica McBirney. He told us he selected questions based on specific standards for us to answer. He said that the standards on identifying and analyzing key ideas and details are the same standards we will be tested on when we take our next CFA (i.e., Common Formative Assessment).

I like the text we read. I love sports, and Jackie Robinson’s one of the greatest baseball players of all time. I learned several things I didn’t know and some I’d forgotten:

  • He was arrested and jailed for disputing a black friend’s arrest.
  • He joined the military, but never was called to action in battle.
  • He was removed from a bus by military police when he refused to sit in the back of a segregated bus.
  • He started in the Negro baseball leagues, but eventually grabbed the attention of the Brooklyn Dodgers and was drafted.
  • He helped the Dodgers win a National League pennant, and in 1956, he led them to being World Series champions.

The questions at CommonLit made me look closely at the text. One question asked me about the central idea of the text. I had to read four options and decide which one was the best response. I also had to select a detail from the text that best supported the central idea. There were also a couple questions that required me to give longer responses about why Robinson is an American hero and how American culture has changed over the last 60 years.

CommonLit allows me to type responses directly onto the page. This is different from Blackboard. It also makes it easy to listen to an audio version of the text.

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Choose Your Hiking Partner Wisely: A Lesson Learned from Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”

Note: This post serves as an example for students as to how a blog post can be written. Notice: Paragraph 1 begins with an introduction to the text recently read. Paragraph 1 ends with a grabbing reaction to something in the text (This is what many of my students identified as an area of research on a Free-exploration Friday.) Paragraph 2 briefly states why I chose to research my selected topic. Paragraph 3 introduces readers to what I researched (This can include questions I looked up or ideas I was curious about.). Paragraphs 4-6 goes a little deeper into the research and gives my own insight and experiences. Paragraph 4 can also reflect on my experiences in the research process (What part was fun/interesting? What part was difficult? Did I find what I needed? Did I find anything interesting that I didn’t expect to find?. Finally, the last paragraph offers the reader something to think about or asks a question. This is a great place to ask your readers to respond in a certain way. It’s fun to generate discussion. Notice that paragraph length usually varies in blog posts to maintain readability and interest. Oh, and if you need a picture for your blog post, see my list of creative commons licensed photo sites here. 

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This week my teacher introduced me to Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” The protagonist of the story wouldn’t be the kind of person I’d want to travel with. Besides the fact that the man sets course to travel through the frigid -75 degree Yukon Territory with his dog and very few supplies, he seems so unrepentant of his poor choices and so bent on a dream of finding gold that he’d be unlikely to work with me to survive. He’d die and leave me alone, or he’d leave me to die.

Dying in a frozen wilderness is not on my to-do list, so I’ve decided to look up some information about carefully selecting the right kind of hiking partner.

Backpacker.com warns hikers to avoid these types of partners: the slacker, the foghorn, the moocher, the germ-y chef, the re-arranger, the thrasher, the worrywart, the perfectionist, the space hog, the in-house snacker, the nightlight, the tailgaters, the doorstop, the soloist, the slob, the pyro, and the party fouler.

You’d have to visit the article to get a full idea about what some of these are, but two partners that would drive me crazy are the slacker and the moocher. A slacker as a partner would never carry his load of our responsibilities. I’d be the one making sure the food is cooked, the bug spray is packed, the tent is set up, the trail is marked, the surroundings are safe, our decisions are good, etc. It isn’t that the slacker can’t or won’t do anything; it’s just that he’ll wait for me to do it first.

Not much different, a moocher for a partner would be worse than a slacker. This moocher probably would come entirely unprepared — not enough clothes, food, supplies. And guess who he’d bug to get his needs? Yeah, me.

The main character in “To Build a Fire” is a “chechaquo” — this is, a newcomer who is seeking gold in Canada’s Yukon Territory. He makes the unwise decision to travel alone with his dog. And he dies. He classifies as a slacker. He didn’t come prepared for the terrible cold and repeatedly made decisions that just made his situation worse.

So, what kind of hiking partner should you seek? Backpacker also gives some recommendations. You should find a person who enjoys the same things while hiking (caving, birding, photographing, etc.). You should also find a local hiking club to plan trips with experienced, skilled hikers who know the trails, know what to take, and know how to adapt and survive under special or extreme circumstances.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post as much as I have enjoyed researching a topic related to this story. Have you ever had a bad hiking experience as a result of someone you traveled with? Maybe you’re experiences have been good. Maybe you have a tip for my readers. Leave me a response below!