Using Informational Text as a Vehicle for Adventure
Don’t you wish we could take class field trips across the globe?! Well, today, I am going to talk about how to make your students world travelers by using an interactive text journal!
Informational text should allot for 55-60% of the reading material that your middle school students are using. Within that range of material, a variety of topics and activities can help ensure that your students are becoming well-rounded readers!
I highly encourage exposing your students to information that enriches their cultural and world knowledge, as well. Expanding our understanding of other parts of the world helps to increase our global and culture awareness and makes us feel more a part of this big world around us. So, take your kiddos on a journey around the globe with this Interactive Travel Journal!
The Travel Journal
This resource is designed to help students strengthen their reading, writing, and analyzing skills. Students will be given the opportunity to learn about 20 different countries from around the globe! In addition to informational text articles and comprehension questions, students will be challenged to research and write about current events, use their creativity to post and caption the best “instagram” photo. They can illustrate and write about the countries’ flags or become travel bloggers and design their own webpage dedicated to the country!
But, that’s not all. This journal is jam-packed with rigorous and engaging activities for your students. They will be learning about history, art, food, culture, current events and so much more!
The resource is completely editable, so that you can add/adapt whatever you’d like to make this fit you and your classes’ needs.
- Teacher Directions
- 3 Travel Journal Covers
- 20 Unique Informational Text Articles
- Annotation guide and comprehension questions
- Identifying main ideas graphic organizer
- Current events research activity
- #instapassport activity
- Learning languages activity
- Analysis of the flag
- Professional blogger project with template for blog post
- Compare & contrast essay
- Travel itinerary project
- Build a board game project and supplies
- Inspiring art activity
- Food & culture activity (building a menu for their assigned country)
- Writing a narrative essay/short story project
- Sensory language interactive notebook page
- Sentence variation interactive notebook page
- Design your passport
- World gallery hop whole-class activity
- Colorful countries page
- Rubrics included for all projects
Suggested Uses:
There are several different ways to use this product. It is totally up to you! Some examples include:
- Assign each student a country and have them complete the same activities and projects.
- Assign each student a country and have them CHOOSE from the activities and projects.
- Give all of the articles to students and allow them to CHOOSE the country that appeals to them.
- Split students into small groups. Assign each group a different country. The group will then split the projects and activities accordingly among members.
This activity can take anywhere from 2-6 weeks, depending on the depth that you go into. If your students are completing different projects, it is really fun to have them “visit” other students countries. Adding the component of presentation can help increase students’ knowledge and skill application. As they learn information about the other countries, they can have color them in their “passport,” marking that they’ve been there.
Countries to “Visit”
The following countries are included in the Informational Travel Journal:
- Sri Lanka
- The Maldives
- Ireland
- France
- Italy
- Greece
- Portugal
- Spain
- Costa Rica
- Argentina
- Brazil
- South Africa
- Kenya
- Thailand
- Japan
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Morocco
- Egypt
- Jordan
I hope that you and your students’ wanderlust grows after using this fun travel journal!
Happy Traveling!
