Collaborative Reader Responses

My students love working together on collaborative reader responses - they get to work with their classmates, it changes it up from their regular reader responses ... and best of all, they get to talk.  ;)

This activity works with read alouds, whole group novel studies, shared reading activities, literature circles, content area reading … basically any activity where the whole class or groups of students are reading the same text.  

Students first answer the reader response question individually (on their sticky note), all at the same time, and when all students in the group have completed their answers, they stick their notes on the sheet.  They then take turns reading their answers aloud to the group. 

After all answers have been shared, working together, they will reflect on the strengths and areas of need in their own answers to take their individual responses and combine the best parts of them to form the best possible answer, making improvements as they write.  

You can see on this picture how the group examined each answer and circled the part they would use from each.  This collaborative discussion really helps the students dig into what makes a great reader response - and how the individual parts can work together to make an excellent answer.  

I have made a resource using this collaborative reader response strategy.  My Stick-It Together - A Collaborative Reader Response Activity contains organizers with 100 different reader response questions covering the reading comprehension strategies, story and literary elements, genre, and text structures.  Each organizer has information about the strategy behind the question, and a checklist of success criteria for the reader response.

I have also included a rubric for assessment (for teacher or peer assessment - my students really enjoy doing peer assessments with these group responses), and an exemplar for each level - level 1, 2, 3, 4.  These exemplars come in two forms - one assessed with the criteria, and one without the criteria so you can examine and level them as a class.

You can take a peek at my newest resource by clicking HERE or on any of the pictures.

I also have a version specifically geared to 1st - 3rd grade.  You can take a peek at it by clicking HERE or on the picture to the right.

Primary Grades