Third grade students in Mrs. Carroll and Ms. Rehberg’s classes used *WICOR (an AVID strategy used daily in the classroom) in completing a hands-on rotation reviewing theme. Students were placed into groups using a Jigsaw method, where they had five rotations around the room. At each rotation students read a fictional short story. Student groups read the short story and then discussed what they felt was the theme for each story using evidence from the text. Once the team reached a decision, they wrote their answer on the anchor chart paper in their team color. As students rotated to each station, they viewed other team responses and agreed or disagreed with the theme presented by the other teams. By having each team represented by its own color, students were held accountable to share new information at each station. This AVID activity allowed students to review a vital reading skill for FAST in a fun and interactive way. They were also able to voice their academic talk by agreeing, disagreeing, or adding on to previous group responses.
*WICOR is an acronym for Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading and provides a learning model that teachers can use to guide students in comprehending concepts and articulating ideas at increasingly complex levels. Mrs. Carroll and Ms. Rehberg’s lesson focused on writing, reading, and collaboration.
