Sponsler- Inquiry 3 Part A, Step 3

o To what extent were you were expected to follow a scripted curriculum, or add your own

ideas to a curriculum that already exists, or create a unit that is entirely new?

For writing, it was pretty much up to me how much I wanted to follow the Reading Street prompts. My mentor teacher was extremely helpful towards me and gave me leniency on what I could do. While it was lenient, I still needed to hit all the standards that the book mentioned and make sure students wrote in and organized fashion. Outside of my unit planning, I was expected follow the Reading Street curriculum when it came to the reading portion of the book. My mentor teacher picked and chose what parts she wanted me to hit on. She would always have me go over the parts that involved common core standards.

o What was unproblematic and/or challenging about planning a unit in this context?

Explaining sensory detail to the whole group was unproblematic. It was easy for them to work together to find sensory details. The challenges occurred when they were asked to write these details in their own writings.

o What obstacles did you face? How did you overcome them?

One specific challenge was the one on one conferences. To begin, I would get stuck with one student for so long that I did not give even time to all the students who needed it. I also feel like all of the students were begging for attention and help. I overcame this by telling students I would come back to them and having students, who were farther along, edit each others' papers.

o How did working on developing your ‘core practice’ influence the types of learning

opportunities you were able to offer your students?

It gave me the opportunity to see how students can work together and help one another. It also showed me that spending less time on the outline is ideal. In my class, we spent too much time on the draft and it did not necessarily help them to write the paper quickly.

o What dilemmas (if any) did you face and how did you manage them? Consider issues

that may relate to developing your professional identity, developing strong teacher student

relationships, constructing relevant curriculum, or assessing students in

meaningful and productive ways.

Originally I thought it would be simple for the students to write their paper after filling out their outlines but I was wrong. Spending an extended amount of time on the outline seemed too abstract to them for relating it to their writing. This benefited me professionally because I will make outlines a day tops of work, so students see the direct correlation it will have with their paper.

o What enabled you to be successful?

Discussing ideas with my mentor teacher helped me to implement more effective plans. She told me that if I modal a writing that would help my students. It was helpful, but students still struggled. I think next time I will do like the book says and write my writing in front of the students, instead of having it already prepared. Writing is a definite struggle for my classes because they do it so little, but many of the students created coherent descriptive writings that were enjoyable to read.

o Did the unit proceed as you expected? Why or why not?

It did not, but I learned a lot about how instruction can not be abstract to start off with. Students need explicit instruction and then to be slowly released from supervision. When I did not give explicit instruction, very few students gained valuable knowledge from my lesson. This was my first lesson, where we analyzed a song. I then restructured my lesson to be more explicit and it went much better.

o What surprises or “aha moments” did you experience?

Although we read about modeling, it clicked more when I did it myself. Students really respond well to seeing everything they have to do, before they do it. I had a finished models of writing for them in this unit plan. One came from me and was a descriptive piece about my morning and another was a student who had finished her writing early. I think it would have been even better, if I modeled the process while creating the piece to show them that you edit along the way and after.

o What do you still need to learn about teaching in this target area, about your developing

your ‘core practice’ and about teaching literacy in general?

I still need to learn how make students' writing processes the best I can with in 15 minutes. It seems really difficult, but I think it can be done. An easy way to do this is to create opportunities for modeling, that is short and sweet. I want to learn the best way to model for students and keep them engaged while doing so. Next semester, I will be able to attempt these goals. For the end of this semester, I am mostly working with math.

Savela- Part A, Step 3

To what extent were you were expected to follow a scripted curriculum, or add your own ideas to a curriculum that already exists, or create a unit that is entirely new?

The only expectation I was expected to follow while doing guided lead teaching for language arts was to focus on the fantasy genre. At Hope School, the fifth grade staff sequences their language arts units throughout the year focusing on different genres (fantasy, realistic fiction, mystery, etc.). The scheduling of our guided lead teaching coincided with the beginning of the fantasy unit.

Other than that, I was given freedom as to how I presented it. My mentor teacher gave me suggestions of what some interns have done in the past and also told me that I could come up with something entirely new. I considered a number of things: reading a series of picturebooks and working with each one individually on a daily basis, picking a chapter book to read and have a comprehension packet it to go with it, work on a writing project where the students create their own superhero, among other ideas. I chose to do an author study on Chris Van Allsburg with the final project being student produced fantasy stories based on illustrations from one of his works. It was similar to one of my mentor’s previous intern’s work from a few years ago. More recently, her interns focused their unit around one chapter book. It was nice to know that I had a choice when coming up with my unit and that my mentor was flexible and had experience with a variety of different units from previous interns. I felt comfortable that she would be able to assist me, regardless of which route I chose.

What was unproblematic and/or challenging about planning a unit in this context?

            While I am glad I had a choice in selecting a unit, and would prefer it over being “locked in” to a specific plan assigned to me, it was a little challenging to me to determine the general sequence of my unit would be. Since I am more of a math minded individual, it is easier for me to visualize a math unit where students need to be at the end of the unit and the general outline of how to get there. With so much choice in my language arts unit, and due to the fact that I was not as comfortable assessing students’ literacy strengths and needs, it was a little hard to decide on a focus that would benefit the whole class. I was  a little more comfortable when I realized that, during their first genre study, the students were introduced to all of the core practices so I whichever one I would choose to focus on, it would be building on what they have already learned.

What obstacles did you face? How did you overcome them?  Consider issues that may relate to developing your professional identity, developing strong teacher-student relationships, constructing relevant curriculum, or assessing students in meaningful and productive ways.

            My reoccurring obstacle that I face during my internship year is classroom management. While it is expected since I am “just the intern,” I find it frustrating that the class more likely to follow my directions than they do with my mentor teachers (even when we have similar expectations, like independent writing time). I feel like a lot of time is lost on some days when I have to keep remind the students of the classroom expectations.

            What is helpful in these situations is that my mentor teacher will be writing notes in a journal as I am teaching my lesson. While the feedback is not instantaneous, and may not help me during that lesson itself, I like to read the journal at lunchtime (which is right after language arts time) while I have a fresh recollection of what happened during the lesson. It is nice to see what my mentor thought went well in my lesson and what I could try to make things go a little smoother the next time. Her notes address all sorts of things, ranging from how I modeled to how I dismissed tables, to how I dealt with a student who was not following expectations, among other areas. It is encouraging to read that she is providing thoughtful feedback on what she liked and how I could tweak future lessons.

What enabled you to be successful?

            I am a huge fan of the notes that I just referenced in the question above. I think it is an authentic form of feedback and helps me assess what changes I can make as the unit progresses. I also thought modeling the writing pieces helped me out, as well. It provided the students with an opportunity to reference writing other than the books that we read as a class.

Did the unit proceed as you expected? Why or why not?

           

            Other than feeling rushed a couple of lessons due to whacky schedules and some minor misbehavior problems, I thought that the unit went pretty close to as expected. I think this was the case because the students enjoyed listening to the read aloud selections I had made and a lot of them were enthused to do their own writing. They were given a solid three day block to write rough drafts, peer conference, and publish their final draft.

What surprises or “aha moments” did you experience?

            An “aha moment” I had was when I modeled my own writing in response to a prompt that I gave them. During their poetry unit, I was intrigued that my mentor teacher included her own poetry as examples for the students to reference in their poetry notebooks. My instincts told me that that was a good practice, but I was not sure as to why that is exactly true. When I modeled my own little narrative in a visualization piece, I could see how the students were intrigued. As I asked them questions about “what do you think I mean right here?”, they could have immediate confirmation from me, the author. I think that showing my own writing to students enhances the experience of interpreting the writing of an author like Van Allsburg,

What do you still need to learn about teaching in this target area, about developing your 'core practice' and about teaching literacy in general?

            I still need to find a way to be more comfortable with having a “vision” while teaching literacy in general. While I feel that it is more enjoyable to teach it than I previously had thought, I still solidify my approach to teaching literacy. For me, the target areas and core practices of literacy are harder to hold a concrete understanding than mathematical ideas. I think with continual observation and reflection, I will be able to develop my ability in literacy teaching.

Inquiry 3, Part A, Step 3

o    To what extent were you were expected to follow a scripted curriculum, or add your own ideas to a curriculum that already exists, or create a unit that is entirely new?

My unit consisted of teaching the Language Arts portion of Reading Street for two weeks. Because my school is required to teach RS with fidelity, my MT already had established a consistent routine for abiding by this requirement, which I considered to be divided into two distinct parts. The first consisted of daily spelling and conventions learning and involved a lot of worksheets in class or as homework. The second part was the writing assignment, which was introduced early in the week then small amounts of class time are given over the next two weeks until it is due. What I was required to follow exactly as my MT was the pace, content, and routine that the first part of Language Arts was usually taught in, and in regards to the second part I had a little more room for creativity. So while I needed to keep the topic, expectations, and grading rubric for the writing assignment given by RS, I was able to introduce the unit in any way, and include whatever instruction I wanted without the RS script. It did not leave a lot of room, but enough for some creativity.

o    What was unproblematic and/or challenging about planning a unit in this context?

At first I felt stressed from the amount of required spelling and conventions work I needed to fit in, and also how rigid my MT was about when they needed to be introduced. I also did not have an opportunity to observe much of Reading Street being taught prior to my unit so it was not clear to me exactly what the purpose was of all of the worksheets, how they were being given, or which one’s needed to be completed in-class and which one’s were homework. After several days of confusion by me leading up to the unit (and more focused time observing), I became more prepared to mimic the routine on my own. After a while, I did not feel the need to prepare in advance so much because everything was such a routine that it kind of discouraged individual thought anyway, so it was a nice break.

o    What obstacles did you face? How did you overcome them?

One obstacle that I did not foresee was the vastly different times my students would finish their poems. Some were nearly finished the same day it was assigned and other did not even have a start on the day before it was due. What I needed to do was keep the timeline for due dates consistent for the class as a whole, then I selected students who were ahead in the writing process and paired them with each other to revise and edit. As more students neared the revising stage of writing their poem, a big gap started to develop in the class between students nearing the completion of their poem and those who had yet to start. I could not afford extensive time to meet with these students because my core practice was conferencing and I wanted to meet with as many students each day. As I met with and discovered more and more strong poetry writers in the class, I recruited them to help their classmates brainstorm. I was impressed with the helper students’ conviction to help and not just write the poem for the focus student. They listened to topic ideas and helped brainstorm rhyming words.

o    How did working on developing your ‘core practice’ influence the types of learning opportunities you were able to offer your students?

I believe that conferencing with students was a much needed boost in students prewriting. A lot of students have difficulty starting the writing process and meeting with me forced them in a way to think hard early in the deadline. As some students became discouragingly behind in keeping with benchmarks, I could pair them up with a supportive classmate who would help them succeed. I think that while many students did not meet all requirements for the assignment, many would have been further away without conferencing with me.

o    What dilemmas (if any) did you face and how did you manage them? Consider issues that may relate to developing your professional identity, developing strong teacher- student relationships, constructing relevant curriculum, or assessing students in meaningful and productive ways.

The most difficult part of the unit was grading students’ poetry. I have never felt so conflicted. While I knew that my students’ grades were so diluted by participation work that one failed assignment would not impact their overall grade so much, I also knew that the letter grade given on top of the assignment could devastate the child. I did not want to give bad grades, but the truth was that many of the poems did not fit the criteria, or they were not fifth grade quality. What was most conflicting was the fact that I did not agree with RS expectations. It made poetry so structured and inaccessible; I felt like in my demands I was ruining poetry forever for these students. One student cried—not from sadness, but out of frustration. I think she really thought hers was acceptable even after she disregarded all of the advice I gave and suggestions we talked about. My MT assured me that many of the poems she had read from the class did not meet the required standard, and that made me feel a little better, but for the most part I just felt mad at Reading Street for taking what should have been a fun unit, and making it a chore.

o    What enabled you to be successful?

I do not feel very successful after that experience. I do not think all of my students had the same chance to succeed given Reading Street’s expectations, and I really do not think it was responsible to hold me accountable for enforcing those unrealistic and unnecessarily narrow standards of acceptableness in poetry. I hope I have not ruined their creativity.

o    Did the unit proceed as you expected? Why or why not?

The unit did proceed as I expected. I think that is the beauty of Reading Street is once you’re in a routine, it’s pretty easy to stick with it. As far as the poetry unit, however, it went very much the opposite of how I envisioned it. At first, I imagine freedom to be creative, and then I was told to stick with the guidelines so the more I started to think about the “must dos” I lost sight of the fun things I had planned, like a “coffee shop reading” of their poetry. I’m lucky the time was created on day on for me to read some poetry to the class—they really liked that. I think they liked hearing each other’s poems too. I hope they like the poetry book.

o    What surprises or “aha moments” did you experience?

For a long time I could not see the connection between the writing assignment and the rest of what RS was teaching for the weeks encompassing my writing unit. We were focusing on spelling words with same ending sounds that were spelled differently, and the conventions were verbs. I could not really see how a poetry unit really related especially when the story for the week had absolutely no connection. Eventually I did figure out a way to make the verbs relevant to the poetry (and without RS help!). Because the required topic for my students’ poems was to write about an event, I knew that things would be happening (or should be) in their poems meaning lots of verbs. On the day their poems were due, I had students circle the verbs in their poems as an assessment of what they had learned about conventions. I thought this was genius considering my MT was not requiring any assessment of this knowledge.

o    What do you still need to learn about teaching in this target area, about your developing your ‘core practice’ and about teaching literacy in general?

I think that there is more than one way to teach Reading Street with fidelity—at least the language arts portion if not all. With any basal program, I think there is a lot of room for me to learn about how to implement the required content in an effective an interesting way. It can’t be impossible. Because there is more RS material than is humanly possible to include in a year’s worth of teaching, someone is making the call on what is worthwhile to include and what is not. I want to become more informed and objective about making that call. If I eventually work in a school with no required basal, then I look forward to learning how I can take the most effective parts of a structured curriculum and elaborate on it with my own creativity and growing teaching philosophy.

More core practice of conferencing could definitely be developed more. I had high hopes of establishing a method of charting their progress, but they quickly advanced to different stages of the writing process so I missed key benchmarks to meet with them. More distracting was how highly motivated students wanted to share with me their poem every after every revision they made. I grew to the point that only the students who did not actually require my assistance were monopolizing my time. Finally I had to set these students loose on each other and get them to conference with peers.

As for teaching literacy in general, I found that I had to relearn what I was about to teach. I had no idea there were several types of verbs. So many that I do not even know the exact number. I think I always felt I was inadequate at learning and remembering writing conventions, and that is perhaps why I shied away from the subject and chose math for my concentration. What I noticed about the two weeks of this lesson was that I actually enjoyed learning about language arts, which was not the case when I was first learning it as at an age appropriate time in my life. I think I might like teaching reading and language arts in the future. I look forward to developing a writing center in my future classroom, too, so I can begin to implement all of the “fun” I think writing can be.

Richardson Inquiry 3 Part A

Step 3: Interpretations and Implications

            I would say that my unit fit into three different aspects of the literacy curriculum: guided reading, books clubs, and writing workshop. Although I was given an aspect of the language arts curriculum that I was expected to fit my unit into (the fantasy unit), I had a great deal of freedom in determining what exactly my lessons would consist of. My MT and I discussed possibilities and she offered ideas and suggestions but the final decisions were ultimately left up to me. I saw this as a great opportunity but also as a daunting one. Having complete freedom to come up with lessons as I pleased allowed me to be creative with my planning. At the very beginning of my planning, however, I felt completely overwhelmed. With so many available options, I had a hard time narrowing down the main practices I wanted to focus on. Once I finally did select a core practice, it was much easier to select specific activities that would help the students be successful.

            One of the biggest dilemmas I faced during my unit was planning out the timing that each activity would take. Since the students in my classes work at very different paces, it was hard to know how much time to allow for them to complete assignments. This was especially noticeable during setting up the framework of the fantasy narratives. I knew that some students would take a while to come up with ideas and get started on their stories while others would fly through the task. I wanted to allow enough time for the more slow-paced students to complete their work while also not leaving the quick kids with nothing to do. Talking through the process with my MT helped me in deciding to give the process three days and come up with alternate activities for those students who finished early.

            Another dilemma I dealt with was once again part of my writing piece. After giving students the assignment and allowing them to get started, I struggled with being able to circulate around the room as much as the students needed me to. I felt like I was spreading myself too thin- I would spend quite a bit of time helping one student who was having trouble getting started while several other students had their hands raised for help. I didn’t know how to spend enough time with one individual student to support their writing process without feeling like I was neglecting the rest of the students. I eventually found it helpful to gather a group of lower-level students who tend to struggle in language arts at the front table and help them as a group while taking breaks to move throughout the room as needed. 

Poetry unit lesson reflections

o What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson.
During the spelling pretest, students were confused about why it was being conducted in the new way (I read the word, break the word into syllables, have the class break the word into syllables, read the word in a sentence, then repeat the word). When I explained the reason for the change, I think students understood that it was a new strategy for them to do well on the final test. Student also struggled with when a verb is linking or action. Some started to get it, but others continued to struggle and I can understand why. Verbs are difficult to understand when they are not explicit action verbs.

o What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students' performance or products?
Today's lesson was completely teacher-lead and there is plenty of room for students to not understand the content. First, per my MT's demands, the worksheets regarding spelling and verbs must had to be completed whole-class. Whether I choose students at random or not won't help me know exactly which students understand the content or not, not to mention there is no summative assessment for the verb material, just the spelling. However, considering many students still turned in incorrect work after we did the assignment in its entirety as a class is pretty telling of the student.

o What did you learn about your students' literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?
During the spelling pretest, my students did something I was not expecting. As I was breaking words into syllables, I was being careful not to alter the pronunciation. Instead of pronouncing the syllables how I modeled, the students recited their own version back. While "subtle" is not one of their words, I'll use it as an example. I would break the word up and say "suh-tle" then they would repeat back "sub-tle" which is an interesting difference. I won't discourage this strategy because I can see some merit in it, but I was surprised. I always thought altering pronunciations as a bad practice for spelling purposes.

o When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?
It worked out well that my core practice is conferencing because while I am conferencing with students about their writing, I can also give them addition support in other areas, or my MT can pull them aside to reteach.

o If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students' learning?
I needed to teach this lesson the way my MT expected me to, which was very teacher-lead. If I could do it again, though, I would rely more on student input and do a more fun activities relating to verbs. They did an interesting activity for nouns called "noun town" and I think my MT mentioned a verb version called "verb valley." I think if she had allowed me to I would have included it because the students were very motivated to participate for the previous game.

o What did you learn so far about implementing your 'core practice' and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?
There was not an opportunity to conference during my first day lesson because of how much I am required to do for the Reading Street curriculum and the fact that we didn't even get to writing that day. However, this was a learning experience in itself because I am learning how much time I will be expected to commit to the "must dos" of a structured curriculum, and even though the focus of my unit was meant to be conferencing, I had to really plan for time to do it in advance to ensure that I could get to it. I also learned that if I want students to practice their writing skills, I will really need to integrate subjects because as is, students get a cumulative hour a week for writing workshop time, and when asked to write responses in other subjects, students to think of it as a writing assignment and they don't write complete well thought out responses. They seem to think that if it isn't writing time in language arts, then the same writing expectations don't apply. Frustrating!

o What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson.
Today I was able to introduce the poetry writing portion of my unit. Students learned that they would be creating a poetry book and be able to write their own poem to add in it. There was no time to introduce specific elements though, but they were given the handout which contained the project expectations so they at least had a preview. Some students were eager to write poetry and jumped right in to the assignment. One student even finished their poem that day! Others had a very difficult time getting started. I thought choosing a topic was the easy part but many students struggled with that.

o What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students' performance or products?
It was difficult to tell based on what I could see whether students really got an initial start on their project. Like if they were choosing appropriate topics to write on that fit the criteria and also would provide a significant base for inspiration.

o What did you learn about your students' literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?
Students who I did not anticipate getting excited about poetry were really getting into it! They were asking questions about if they would be able to read their poetry.

o When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?
At the beginning of subsequent classes, a repeat of expectations would be given emphasizing the poetic elements that need to be included. On an on-student basis while I am conferencing I will help them to understand the poetic elements and brainstorm ideas for what words they can use.

o If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students' learning?
When I do not have an MT who requires so much busy work that she then doesn't even assess student on, I will use that wasted time to give a more exciting and proper introduction to poetry. I won't require students to write poetry that fits Reading Streets narrow expectations and in doing such, they will enjoy the whole experience more.

o What did you learn so far about implementing your 'core practice' and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?
I will answer this question with my experiences after the first week. Conferencing was a nightmare because within one day every student was at a different point in their writing process. It became necessary to not conference with every student equally, but to instead just check in with students who were moving along and then focus on the students who were struggling. At a certain point, I had to shift my conception of conferencing and ask my highest achieving students who were already done and ask them to meet with their peers to help them write. Because so many students were fighting for my attention, I never could give the true attention each student needed. Clearer expectations for conferences will need to be established for next time.

Lucas Savela - Lesson Response

·      What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

For my lesson, I read the Chris Van Allsburg picturebook Two Bad Ants, without showing them the illustrations. During the reading, I asked the students to either write or draw about what they were seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling throughout the book to promote visualization. After reading the book the second time while showing the illustrations, I gave them some writing prompts to practice writing in detail. To launch this, I shared a piece I wrote from the perspective of a child walking for the first time.

 For the most part, I think the visualization worksheet was a good activity that students could take away from. When I stopped a couple of times throughout the story, there was a lot of participation with students sharing their answers. 

The writing prompt, however, was a different story. Some of my stronger writers grasped the idea of writing to help their audience visualize what was going on in the story without explicitly telling it to the audience. From a number of possible prompts, a lot students chose to write about "a cat chasing a mouse." The stronger students could write from the perspective of the mouse or the cat, and explain from their perspective (a mouse hole being a cave, humans being "giants", etc.)

Some students, who are usually strong students, got carried away in writing descriptive narratives of the prompt they chose. While they had well developed conventions of writing, and were detailed in their sentences, they missed the point to create a piece that would help their readers visualize the story going on. It was a little difficult to help them see where to add visualization because they would show me their work, which they thought was "completed" and have them go back to try to change a bulk of their piece.

It was good to see that the students enjoyed the first visualization activity and that they could identify how they themselves visualized the story. Maybe with more time, the students who struggled would be able to grasp the idea of writing in order to promote visualization.

·      What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

An alternative read to the performance could be that they did not understand what the purpose of the writing activity. They may have gotten excited that they had a choice in the prompt that they could write about that they overlooked the fact that it was suppose to be an emulation of Chris Van Allsburg's style in Two Bad Ants. What the students wrote were similar to other assignments they have done before.

·      What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned that some students are very good at making predictions or inferences. I was surprised at how many people were able to correctly identify where the ants were throughout the story. I even did a quick survey of students who had read the book before, and the students answering did not have any previous exposure to the book. I was really impressed by some of the students ability to infer.

·      When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Throughout the rough draft writing process for their stories based on The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, I will read their stories and giving them suggestions as to where they could implement some examples of visualization. I will also continue to model writing of my own.

·      If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

One thing I was considering doing, and would have done if I had more time for a lesson, would write an alternative story to Two Bad Ants, using no descriptive language at all. After they listened to the story twice, with all of the details and descriptive language, I would have liked to give them a really dry, interpretation of the story. Instead of the ants dropped into a "boiling brown lake," my version would say "the ants fell in coffee." I would try to emphasize how using descriptive language helps us feel from the ants' perspective as opposed to being just told what happened. 

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning? 
From the first worksheet activity, I was surprised at how involved the whole class was, even the students who tend not to pay attention and are easily distracted. They could identify what they saw, felt, etc. In other words, they can recognize visualization when it's there.

I would like to learn how to take visualization to the next level and how students could produce their own works utilizing visualization. At first, I thought the task may be too tough for 5th graders, but there were a handful of students who could produce well-developed narratives. I would like to find a catalyst to help the rest of my students to be able to head in that direction.

Lesson Reflections- Emily Richardson

Lesson One:

What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

Students learned that many books and movies that they are already familiar with can be considered fantasy. When I first asked them to describe the characteristics of fantasies, I got a lot of responses along the lines of “magic” and “animals talking”. Both of these fit in well with the characteristics that we are specifically focusing on for this unit, which was helpful for guiding them to come up with specific examples from the film clip. A good portion of students were familiar with the Harry Potter series and knew a lot about it. Those who were less familiar with Harry Potter were the ones who struggled more- a few of them couldn’t get past the idea of not knowing the details of the story, leading them to focus more on what was happening rather than looking for the fantasy characteristics.

What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned that many of them are actually big fans of fantasy books. I didn’t anticipate this to be the reaction, but they were very excited about moving on to the fantasy unit! From the sounds of it, they have had a fair amount of practice with this genre in previous grades and really enjoy what they have read so far.

When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

The material in this lesson will be revisited throughout the entire fantasy unit. The specific characteristics of fantasy stories will be discussed for several different books as well as reinforced when the students use them in their writing pieces. There is a large anchor chart with definitions of the characteristics at the front of the room as well as a bulletin board with definitions in the back. As we do read-alouds with the entire class and fill out our genre charts for each book, the meanings will once again be discussed and explained as needed. Students who are still having trouble understanding will be worked with one-on-one at available moments during class time to work through the meanings of the characteristics and come up with examples.

If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

If I were to do this lesson again, I would provide more specific examples of each characteristic. I feel like the students did a great job of paying attention as we went through the definitions, but I think more concrete examples would have been beneficial. Also, I would have provided a little bit more of a back-story prior to showing the Harry Potter clip. Because some students were so focused on what they didn’t know rather than the fantasy elements in the story, they missed out on the opportunity to see examples in a very visual way.

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

One way I will be able to tell if students are really reading for comprehension is to see whether or not they are able to pick out the fantasy elements of a novel. Because these elements are not always glaringly obvious, there will be cases in which only students who are really analyzing and digging deep into their reading will be able to successfully pick them out of a text. During both read-alouds and book clubs, I will check to see that students are accurately identifying these main ideas of fantasy.

Lesson Two:

What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

Students were familiar with some of Chris Van Allsburg’s books but did not know much background information about the author. They were really excited about his Michigan heritage and had a lot of questions about where he lives now, if he’s still writing books, etc. When the list of books that he had written was projected from the powerpoint, most of the class got really excited about at least one book. Several of them recognized the titles of movies (Jumanji, Polar Express, Zathura) and stated that they were not aware that these started out as books.

Students responded very well to the story of The Widow’s Broom. They liked the story and were anxious to see how it ended. They were able to provide a lot of concrete examples of fantasy elements directly from the text.

Writing about the theme of the story was the toughest part for most students- some could not remember exactly what a theme was. There were some students who had no trouble picking out a theme but could not come up with reasons to support their thinking when asked.

What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

After looking at some of the responses in the composition notebooks, it became clear that a fair amount of students could not identify a main theme for the story. Some cited the theme as “don’t take other people’s brooms” and some left their page completely blank. It is not fair to assume, however, that all of the students don’t know how to pick a theme. They may have been confused by the wording of the task or were having too much trouble coming up with specific examples. Additionally, some students hate writing and have a tendency to do so unless they absolutely HAVE to. This could also be the cause for their lack of response.

What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I was really impressed with some of their responses to the theme question. Several students provided detailed, concrete reasoning for why they chose a certain theme. They went very in-depth into what the characters may have been thinking and feeling and were able to analyze the story at a high level. This tells me a lot about their comprehension and what they take away from stories.

When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Students who were absent for this lesson will be given an opportunity to read through The Widow’s Broom at available moments during class time or during independent reading time.

The idea of theme will be revisited additional times throughout the fantasy unit, both for future read-alouds and during their book clubs. Students who have trouble identifying a theme will have the opportunity to work with the teachers to discuss possible themes and pick out supporting details.

If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

Prior to asking students to write about theme, I would discuss the meaning of a theme more deeply. I would talk about the strategies they could use to pick out a theme and what kinds of details they could use to explain their thinking. This would hopefully help to avoid answers such as “the theme is that brooms can come alive.”

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

I learned that I need to spend a little more time focusing on theme. Doing an activity along the lines of a think-aloud for determining the theme of a text might be a beneficial experience for the students.

Inquiry 2

Emily Sponsler's Blog Postings for Inquiry 2:

One:

o What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

After showing students a poster and modeling how to write a paragraph with descriptive sensory words, most of the students learned that sensory words describe a noun using your five senses. About a quarter of the students showed they did not understand how to add a sensory words on their outlines. I did one one one conferences with these students the next day. One on one conferences was how I chose to differentiate my instruction. I felt this was the best way to differentiate for a 15 minute lesson.

o What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students' performance or products?

It was a struggle overall for students to grasp onto sensory words. If I were to do this lesson again, I would have students practice identifying sensory words more before we started our big outline for their papers. Having the skill of identifying sensory words down, would have made the outline much simpler to do.

o What did you learn about your students' literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned that writing is something they do not have much practice with.. Some students have the self motivation to make their writing the best they can,while others need to be monitored a lot further. In this lesson specifically, students showed me whether they put forth effort at planning or not.

o When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Students are already working on a new writing with poetry and I have shared my conclusions with my mentor teacher. While grading their descriptive writings, I am writing one thing they did well and one thing they should work on for their other writings. For students who show a lack of description in their next writing (after poetry), I will have them in for lunch to give them more instruction and practice with writing descriptively.

o If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students' learning?

If I were to do this lesson again, I would model more of what I wanted to see on the outline. This would hopefully give students a better understanding so they could do their outline efficiently.

o What did you learn so far about implementing your 'core practice' and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

Now, I am working in the other classroom a majority of the time. The other classroom has the subjects: math, science and social studies. To continue my development in my 'core practice', I will be grading their future writings. Therefore, I can analyze their writing and judge what they need to work on. This will also show me the growth students make from their last writing. This will help me to judge what students commonly struggle on, so we can remind them of conventions they need to follow and model specific writing strategies that will help them.

Two:

o What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

After modeling how students should use organizational strategies and their sensory words, in their writing, students started writing their own writing if they were done with their outline. The students that struggled also struggle with reading and smaller writing assignments. I did one on one conferences with these students once they started writing.

o What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students' performance or products?

My teacher and I discussed the possibility that the topic may have been difficult for students to imagine. The topic entailed students to visualize themselves as 20-years-old. She said it is hard for them to visualize tomorrow, let alone when they are 20.

o What did you learn about your students' literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned that student struggle with simple conventions of writing such as paragraphing and punctuation. Many of the students need to practice making a new paragraph, when they start a new idea. That will be one of the comments I will ask the students to work on, for their next writing.

o When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Students are already working on a new writing with poetry and I have shared my conclusions with my mentor teacher. On their writings, I will write what they did well and one thing I think they should work on for their other writings. For students who show a lack of description in their next writing (after poetry), I will have them in for lunch to give them more instruction and practice with writing descriptively.

o If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students' learning?

If I were to do this lesson again, I would make students move on from their outline and start working on their writing. I would do this so students would have more class time to transfer their thoughts from the outline into a story in their writing. Six students, out of fifty-eight, did not finish their writing and I did not receive a final draft. This happened on their previous writing also and my mentor teacher says that she told them writings are worth a grade. This change would have given students who struggled more time to work through their difficulties in writing.

o What did you learn so far about implementing your 'core practice' and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

Now, I am working in the other classroom a majority of the time. The other classroom has the subjects: math, science and social studies. To continue my professional development with my 'core practice', I will be grading their future writings. Therefore, I can analyze their writing and judge what they need to work on. This will also show me the growth students made from their last writing. This will help me to judge what students commonly struggle on, so we can remind them of conventions they need to follow and model specific writing strategies that will help them.