In Reading Workshop, chart paper is great to use when recording or keeping track of student ideas and when modeling tasks for students during the mini-lesson. But I often find it limiting during times when I want to organize information into tables and Venn diagrams or when I want to refer to a specific task sheet that I expect students to complete on their own during independent reading time.

For this reason, I often use Microsoft Word to make poster-size versions of graphic organizers or informational posters. Many times during the active engagement part of the mini-lesson, I want to model for students how to do a task that they will be expected to do on their own that day. As a class, we complete the task together using a blown-up (poster size) version of the recording sheet so that all students can easily see the work I am doing.

If you are interested in doing this yourself, just click on the "properties" tab before choosing to print a document, and find the option for 2x2 poster printing. You will have to glue the four pieces of paper together to create the poster.

I also put them on poster board to make them more durable. The best part is that the posters are now reusable if you laminate them! I write on them with a Vis-à-Vis overhead projector marker and then clean them off and store them for the following year when I teach the same lesson.