Text Feature Surgery

Gunter’s 5 th Grade Top Docs

The 5 th grade students in Mrs. Schroeter’s class have been hard at work on their nonfiction unit, and part of their lesson last month was understanding how critical text features – items such as bold print, heading and graphic aids – are to comprehending nonfiction. These built in items in nonfiction features are vital to helping students deepen their understanding of the text. The students participated in “Text Feature Medical School” to prepare them for Text Feature Surgery. Each day during the week, the “surgical teams” used their knowledge of text features to successfully complete a text feature challenge and earn the right to practice using the game, Operation.

Once she was sure the students were ready to become surgeons, Mrs. Schroeter transformed a classroom into an operating room. The students were organized into surgical teams. They scrubbed in and began evaluating patients – there were 10 in all. They read each patient’s file and use the patient’s symptoms to determine what text feature the patient was in need of to get better. They then searched through magazines and newspapers to find an example of the feature. Students worked against the clock to successfully perform Text Feature Surgery to remove the feature and transplant it to the patient. After operating with flawless techniques on their 10 patients, the students scrubbed out and completed a thorough post op report on each patient. Impressive work, Doctors!