Lesson 4 Reflection

Genre unit day four was definitely one of my favorite lessons thus far. I really felt like the students learned so much content but did it in a way that was new and interesting for them. I also felt that the students did a lot of self-regulating of their own behavior and therefore, I did not have to intervene for behavior management issues as much as I would have expected when introducing a new learning style. We decided to test out the “fishbowl” strategy that we learned about in book club plus! We did alter it a bit for scaffolding purposes but I was very pleased at the result. The students applied the 6 strategies from Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey: asking questions, visualizing, determining Importance, synthesizing, inferring, and making connections. They learned these strategies on a level that I truly feel they are likely to consciously or unconsciously use them in the future. They also learned about the genre of historical fiction by listening to and discussing the book Encounter. They also learned about some historical content of Christopher Columbus and the Taino Indian people. Finally, they learned how to be respectful audience members, team members, and practiced their oral speaking skills by working in groups and sharing their answers through a version of a fishbowl.

The students that struggled were the ones that have difficulty working with their classmates and in groups on a regular basis. I have three Asbergers students so this impacts their teamwork skills greatly. Yet, despite these issues I still feel that they had a meaningful  experience and learned the content while engaging in the lesson. During day four I learned that my students are actually quite thoughtful even while working with their peers and engaging in a student led discussion as opposed to a teacher led discussion. They seemed to really love the fishbowl!

If we were to re-teach this lesson we would have the students who are in the center of the fishbowl call on students in the outside of the fishbowl when they are ready forthem to add their ideas. This time we added some of our thoughts and expanded on what the students in the center said before calling on those in the outside of the circle but we think it may be more beneficial for the students in the center to call on those in the outside and then once all students have given their thoughts we could expand on their ideas and add any needed details. We think this would help the students to learn how to have a discussion as a class without us having to lead it all the time. We also think it would help them to take ownership of their thoughts and ideas and to realize that everyone in the class can help each other learn about each strategy and idea. It also helps students to understand how to be a respectful audience member and participant. If others are talking while they are talking they will understand what it feels like to be the teacher when they are talking.Collecting the notes from each group helped us to assess the groups beyond what they said in the fishbowl. It helped us to remember what they said and see where they are at in terms of the different strategies.

Lesson 2 Reflection

On day two of the genre unit we had student working with the rough draft of their change papers that they wrote the previous day. They worked with their peers to help them edit and revise their papers. They began by reading their papers aloud to each other.  They worked with a set of “guiding questions” to help keep them aware and focused on the important issues. I know that by working with their peers they will learn about the writing process and be more cognoscente of the issues in their own writing after peer editing. Most of the students did very well with this lesson. At the end of the peer editing time I asked them the following questions about what they thought of the process:

-How was peer editing helpful? 

-What did you learn from your partner’s suggestions and

this process? 

-Would you like to engage in peer editing in the future? 

-Are there any changes that you think would make this process helpful?

Most of the responses were very positive. I did, however, have a few students that struggled with the partner aspect of peer editing.  These are the same students that normally struggle when working with their peers so I expected this but encouraged them to try to work and help each other.

Something I learned about my students that was not necessarily an objective was how much they enjoy reading their writing aloud. I think this was beneficial in improving their oral skills but also it allowed them to have some ownership over their own writing. Even though they were working to correct each others writing and getting constructive feedback they seemed to be genuinely proud of what they had written. Many of our students really need this boost in confidence along with an improvement in verbalizing their ideas and reading with enthusiasm.

I will re-teach the peer editing process in the upcoming genre unit when we have the students going through the writing process again. We will review how to give constructive feedback, highlight the writers strengths, and give them suggestions on organization, voice, grammar, etc.

If we were to re-teach this lesson we would require the students to write comments and suggestions for their partner and give that piece of paper to their partner to help them partner edit. We did not do this because we wanted them to have a conversation with each other about their papers rather than just writing on each other’s paper, but then we think that some students went to make their changes and forgot some of the things they had talked about with their partner. We think a good way to solve this would be to tell them to discuss their work first and to go through both papers and the comments for each paper and then to take a minute to write a few of the most important comments for each other. We would also ask them to write a question that they have for their partner that they would like to be clarified in their final draft. When we asked the students what they would change if we were to do peer editing again, a couple students said they would like to have written comments and we agree with them, but we also do not want to lose the discussion element of peer editing. We think by having the conversation and the written comments the students would be able to edit their rough draft better, which would then lead to stronger final drafts. Having the students write comments for their partners would also help us to assess the students and how the peer editing time helped them.

Lesson 1 Reflection

On the first day of teaching I was a bit nervous but after looking back and reflecting on the events I can see how beneficial all of the choices were and how my students and I were able to learn and grow.

This was the first day of the fifth grade’s “genre unit” curriculum. The students were able to make a personal connection to the concept of change that will be present in all of the texts that we will read during the unit. Students were able to make a personal connection in their own lives prior to reading these texts. They gained valuable experience with the writing process as I had them doing a writing and beginning to edit it. I know that making real world connections allowed our students to better relate to the characters in the books because they will better understand the situations that they experience. So overall, students were preparing to make text-to-self connections. The students that struggled with this were the students who have struggled with the writing process in the past. The writing topics our students have had so far are: my special place, turkey writing, and a haunted house writing so this was a more difficult and personal topic than we had  ever presented our students with. 

The main goal of the lesson was to allow students an opportunity to make a connection with the theme of change. I did , however, learn about how my students approach the writing process as I coached many one-on-one through their brainstorming. Although this wasn’t a goal of my lesson I feel that I have a better understanding of their thought process when beginning a writing.

I have begin conferencing with students while showing them their corrected papers. I spend about 5-10 minutes whenever I can throughout the hectic days with each students to discuss their writing, what the challenges seemed to be, their strengths, weaknesses, and set a “writing goal” with them for their next writing piece.  I have a large table in the back of the room near my desk and this is wonderful for having writing conferences with my students. I call students to work with me when they have silent reading time, have finished their work, or during any other times that I feel conferencing would be appropriate throughout the day. Conferencing is something I will do with all of my students because since it is still so early in the year, I feel that they all need “additional support” in some category or area of their writing; they can improve in some way. 

If we were to teach this lesson again we would go over the revising and editing process with the students and what it means to revise and edit (we have added this in red to our lesson plan). We feel that this would help the students have a more meaningful revising and editing process because we noticed that some students only make a few changes for revising and editing and then are ready for their final draft. We think the peer- editing lesson tomorrow will help with this, but we also want our students to be able to revise and edit their own work to make their writing stronger without having to always rely on their peers to help them. We think this change in the lesson would help to strengthen students’ final drafts.

GLT

I was excited to teach my literacy lessons as I am to teach all my lessons. The lessons That I taught were all similar to what my CT has done in previous years. My CT also did a similar lesson before I took over to give me an idea of how it might look. This was helpful not only for me, but also for my students. For my students to have a similar lesson prior to mine made the transition to my teaching easier when the class had some idea of what was going to be expected of them in the first few lessons.

I feel that my lessons went well. I was surprised how well the students behaved for me during my lessons even while my CT was not in the room. Class management was my biggest concern entering GLT. I had been in charge of the class multiple times while my CT was out of the room and it did not always go as well as I would have liked. This may have been because it was the end of the day or during a time where I was not so sure what they should be doing because my CT had to leave without briefing me.

The first two lessons focused on one mentor text where they had a chance to notice how the mentor text arranged things and we had a chance as a class to go over these and make a class copy with notes. The following lessons followed this same format and that made it easier in my opinion for the class to notice things that were the same and different from the previous texts. With each mentor text the lessons went better. I felt like I had control of the classroom and the students were staying on task for the most part.

If I had this to do over I may have changed the amount of time spent noticing on mentor texts after the first one. There were many students that finished quickly and I would have liked to have something more than just trying to get them to expand on what they have done.

I will not be continuing to teach writing, but I knew this before I started. My CT did not want to give up literacy completely yet. By the end of my GLT I was ready to have a break from it, but I would feel confident if I was asked to continue teaching.

I would have liked to have done some lessons that may have been more entertaining to my students, but I think that most of my students learned what I wanted them to learn.

The thing I feel I most need to work on after GLC is planning my time better. i do know now how I would plan my time for the lessons that I did, but some things I guess you just need to try before you know.

GLT

I was very excited to start my Guided Lead Teaching. The first week of my Guided Lead Teaching I didn't teach. I started the second week. I thought my lessons went very smooth and my students understood them.

I taught reading. I had a mini-lesson everyday followed by conferencing with my students. I started with questioning. We talked about different ways to keep track of our thoughts. I had my students explain ways they used. Then I had students brainstorm other ways to keep track of their questions. Many students said they write them on sticky-notes. Many students also said they don't go back to their question after they write it down. Many students said they don't really do anything with their questions. We suggested some ways and I asked students to try one method we brainstormed. I felt like my lesson could have gone a little better, so I added more to my second day.

I went back and talked about questioning again. This time I decided to read a picture book to my class and have them write down their questions. We made a T-chart with questions, answers, and evidence. I asked my students to support their answers using evidence from the book. My students took well to this idea, as we had a large group discussion about questions and answers from the picture book. I had students continue to try to use this type of organizer during their reading. My class continued to use the question and answer organizer for our classroom re-aloud book. We are still using it as we read.

The majority of my lessons were based around using evidence to support their thoughts. We talked about how their thoughts change as they read and how this helps them to tell the story. We used another organizer for this lesson, which took up the majority of my lessons, to help my students chart their thoughts.

My students have used a lot of organizers during the course of the year to help them throughout their books. The one thing I noticed when conferences with my students was that many of them decided to try out our new organizers while reading their personal books. I think many of my students have found a liking for the question and answer organizer.

One of my favorite lessons was called Kitchen Gadgets. I brought in a handful of different kitchen utensils such as a bottle opener, cheese grader, nut cracker, and many others. I had my students work with their table groups and observe the objects. They were able to guess what the object was and use evidence to support it. For example, the bottle opener, many of them said they had one in their home, or it had grooves to help grip a bottle. My students said they had a great time with the activity and they really used their evidence to support their answers. We had a great group discussion about the different objects.

I talked to my mentor teacher and I will continue to teach reading from now on. I am very excited that my lesson's went well. I am also excited that my mentor teacher enjoyed my lessons.

Genre Unit Reflection 3

Students learned a lot in this lesson. They learned about the 6 strategies from Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey (Asking questions, Visualizing, Determining Importance, Synthesizing, Inferring and Making Connections). We discussed each strategy, what it means, and an example of when we could use this strategy when reading Encounter, the story I had read them the previous day. They had been introduced to these strategies before, but had not gone in depth with them so I felt that making the connections to Encounter would be very helpful to their learning process. They were later given the chance to focus on one specific strategy with a group and to make more connections with this strategy to Encounter. I re-read Encounter to them before doing this. We then did a version of the fishbowl and had the students sit in a circle and when it was their group’s turn to share they came to the center of the circle and shared their findings and then asked the outside of the fishbowl to add anything else. This allowed me to see which strategies the students were struggling with and also which specific students were struggling more than others. Synthesizing is a difficult strategy for the students to understand. I could tell this group was struggling so I asked them specific questions that they could answer and use as their ideas to share with the class. I said to them, “Columbus is often looked at as a hero, so that’s something we already know, but how does this book show him in a different way?” I also asked, “How does what you already know about Columbus (hero, discovered America) and what you just learned about him inform you about his life and what happened with his discovery? How does this help you to better understand the story?” This helped them to focus their thoughts and work together to have ideas to share with the class. The class seemed to struggle with this strategy too because the outside of the fishbowl didn’t have much to add after the group shared their ideas. I will re-teach this material when we read Guests. When I’m reading aloud to the students I plan to do think alouds to help them have a better understanding of the story and I will also be sure to synthesize with my think alouds. I’ll be sure to tell the students that I am synthesizing and why it is synthesizing. At other times, I will stop and ask for students to synthesize from what we’ve read. I hope that this will reinforce the synthesizing strategy and help students to think about this while they are reading on their own.

Beyond my objectives, I learned about my students note-taking processes. I gave them the option of taking notes while working with their groups so that they would be able to reference them when sharing in the fishbowl. I found it interesting that every group took notes and they relied a lot on them when sharing. I’m glad that I gave them this option, because I think if they’d tried to discuss the strategies and then share without any notes they would have had a difficult time. However, I was impressed by their note-taking skills. They all had taken notes that were very helpful to them and I think it made the sharing of information more successful. I will keep this in mind for further lessons and fishbowl activities; note taking is helpful to the students. It also helped me to assess them because even though I listened to all of their conversations I couldn’t remember everything they said after. I collected their notes, which helped me to remember.

Another alternate read or something that I learned about my students that I did not realize going into the lesson is that they have a hard time delving deeper into material. They tend to give me the very basic answer and don’t think further into what they are reading or what I’m asking them to respond to. They think of the quick, more obvious answer and stop there. This is something that my CT and I talked about and are really trying to push them to work toward thinking beyond the obvious. We are trying to do this in all subjects so I think that will really help when it comes to their writing and sharing of information with the class as well.

If I were to re-teach this lesson I would have the students who are in the center of the fishbowl to call on students in the outside of the fishbowl when they were ready for them to add their ideas. This time I added some of my thoughts and expanded on what the students in the center said before calling on those in the outside of the circle but I think it may be more beneficial for the students in the center to call on those in the outside and then once all students have given their thoughts I could expand on their ideas and add any needed details. I think this would help the students to learn how to have a discussion as a class without me having to lead it all the time. I also think it would help them to take ownership of their thoughts and ideas and to realize that everyone in the class can help each other learn about each strategy and idea.

We didn’t have any time for retelling so I will do that with tomorrow’s lesson. I’ve also decided to make it more exciting by having the students act out their retelling with groups and then share with the class. I’m excited to see how that goes tomorrow!

Genre Unit Reflection 2

Students learned a lot about how to edit their paper. I spent a lot of time going through my example paper and editing it based on peer editing questions. I went through my paper paragraph by paragraph asking the students questions from the peer editing list such as “is the central idea or point supported by important and relevant details, examples, and/or anecdotes?” If they told me no, I asked them what they would change and for suggestions. They did a great job giving me suggestions of how to make the paper stronger. They learned how to use the peer editing questions to help their partner improve their paper. They were then given time to do this with their partner and as I walked around I heard a lot of good conversations. They were staying on track and really working to give each other comments and suggestions. I also heard them asking questions when they were unsure of something in their partner’s paper, which I was very impressed by. I did of course have a few students who said they had no comments or questions for their partners so they were struggling with the peer editing process. As I was walking around I noticed two groups who had written this on their peer editing form, so I sat with these groups and asked them more specific questions in order to help them peer edit with their partner.

Beyond my objectives I learned that my student really value the opinions of their peers. They were very open to the suggestions of each other and really wanted to help each other improve their writings. I was worried they would give quick comments and not fully engage in this activity since they have not done anything like this yet this year. I also had to remind them that they do not have to change everything that their peer suggests, but that they should take it into consideration. I learned a lot about how my students work together and that they enjoy learning from each other, which is good to know for planning future lessons. I will try to incorporate partner work and group work whenever possible so that they can learn from each other and enjoy their learning process as well. I think it’s important for literacy learners to engage in peer work and I’m glad that my students realized the importance of this as well.

As I walked around to work with students while they were peer editing I also noticed a couple students who are still struggling with their rough draft writing and needed additional help. After they finished their peer editing they were given time to make any changes their friend suggested and then work on writing their final draft. I spent this time working with struggling students to help them improve their rough drafts. I looked at their five square organizers with them and helped them to organize those in a way that would help them to fix their rough draft. I asked them if their draft was saying what they wanted to say, including all of the details they wanted the reader to know about. With all 3 students who I worked with this led to a conversation about what they wanted to say and what they were missing in their paper. I helped them to form their thoughts and then gave them some of the remaining time to fix their rough draft. I reminded them not to rush into their final draft until they were satisfied with their rough draft. I will be sure to pay extra attention to these students’ papers when I’m grading their final drafts and I will conference with them to continue to help them with their writing process. I will conference with other students too, but I will begin with these to be sure they have their ideas fresh in their mind when we are talking about their papers. We have team time at the end of the day every day where we only go to work with our team time buddies Thursdays and Fridays so Mondays through Wednesdays we do mini grammar lessons or work to catch up on work. This is the time that I will be able to conference with students about their writings while others are catching up on other work or working on their grammar.

If I were to re-teach this lesson I would require the students to write comments and suggestions for their partner and give that piece of paper to their partner to help them partner edit. I did not do this because I wanted them to have a conversation with each other about their papers rather than just writing on each other’s paper, but then I think that some students went to make their changes and forgot some of the things they had talked about with their partner. I think a good way to solve this would be to tell them to discuss their work first and to go through both papers and the comments for each paper and then to take a minute to write a few of the most important comments for each other. I would also ask them to write a question that they have for their partner that they would like to be clarified in their final draft. When I asked the students what they would change if we were to do peer editing again, a couple students said they would like to have written comments and I agree with them, but I also do not want to lose the discussion element of peer editing. I think by having the conversation and the written comments the students would be able to edit their rough draft better before moving on to their final draft.

An alternate read or something that I learned about my students that I did not know going into the lesson was their peer editing skills. I knew that they had not done it yet this year, but I had assumed that they would have past experience with it. It was interesting to listen to their conversations. Some students had great conversations that seemed to be helpful to their partners, but others weren’t sure what to say. The questions I gave them seemed helpful, but sometimes they still weren’t able to answer them or help their partner. I had modeled what to discuss with their partner for peer editing using a paper that I wrote on the same topic, which seemed to really help them understand what I was asked for. However, some seem to lack the oral skills to have this type of conversation with their peers. They were answers the questions yes or no and not continuing with the conversation about what made the answer yes or what to fix in order to change the answer from no to yes in their partner’s paper. That is certainly something I will have to think about before I do peer editing again. My CT and I have talked about doing more Readers’ Theatre to help my students with their oral skills, but I also think they need conversational skills. If anyone has any suggestions for the students who got stuck that would be great!

Here are the peer-editing questions that the students were given to start their discussions of each others papers after reading their paper aloud to their partner:

· Do they have a strong/exciting lead?

· Is the central idea or point of the writing clear?

· Is the central idea or point supported by important and relevant details, examples, and/or anecdotes?

· Does the writing begin with an interesting and engaging lead, continue with a middle that supports and develops the point, and an end that summarizes this point?

· Is the writing interesting with engaging words and different sentence lengths and types?

· What do I as the listener think is good about the writing?

· Do I have any questions and/or suggestions for the writer?

· Do they have a strong ending?

Genre Unit Reflection 1

Students learned more about historical fiction. We reviewed what historical fiction is since they studied it in the last genre unit and we are continuing it with this genre unit. The students then learned that they will be reading two historical fiction stories where the main character has to deal with change. We talked about text to self connections and that it is important for them to try to relate to the characters in the stories so they can fully understand what is happening. We also reviewed what a good lead and ending entail. Even though it wasn’t part of my objective, as I was teaching I realized that it would be important to review because some of my students are still really struggling with this. I gave them an example of when I had to deal with change, moving to college. I asked them to give examples of good leads for this topic to help them have a greater understanding of what a good lead is. I think this helped them to learn more about good leads, but we will continue to focus on this when they do their peer editing tomorrow. I also learned that some of my students are struggling with using their five square organizer to help them write their rough draft. As I was walking around and helping students with their five squares and rough drafts I realized that some students are doing a wonderful job using their five square to help their writing and other students are still struggling. I spent some extra time with these students as the others were writing. As I already stated I will continue to re-teach a good lead and good ending with the peer- editing lesson tomorrow. I plan to give students an example of a paper that I wrote to have them help me edit it based on the peer editing questions they will be using with a partner. I will purposely write a weak beginning and ending so that the students can have practice improving them, which will also lead to a conversation about what a good lead and ending entail. I will also use a five square to show my students how I transferred my information from my five square to my rough draft and how it was helpful to organize my ideas. Hopefully this will reinforce the ideas that my students need review of. Even those students who are doing a good job with their lead, ending, and five square can benefit from this review because there’s always something to improve on. Also, they can help give examples, which their peers can learn from as we discuss the ideas. If I were to teach this lesson again I would go over the revising and editing process with the students and what it means to revise and edit. I noticed that some students only make a few changes for revising and editing and then are ready for their final draft. I think the peer- editing lesson will help with this, but I also want my students to be able to revise and edit their own work to make their writing stronger without having to always rely on their peers to help them. I think this change in the lesson would help to strengthen students’ final drafts. Looking for alternative interpretations of my students’ products is difficult for me. I think the most important thing to look at is that even though my students are writing a rough draft it does not mean that they are not struggling with their work. Some students who I thought were working well and seemed to be writing just fine were not. When I walked around and checked in with students I found that I needed to stop and spend extra time with certain students. Having the time to do this I think was very helpful to those students, especially the lower students in my class. I also realized that even higher level students can be pushed further. At first I went to work with the lower level students, but then when taking a second to make an alternate read of my teaching I decided to check in with some of the higher level students to make sure that they were challenged and know I except a lot from their work. I hope to see this show in their final drafts as I pushed them to really think about the details of their writing since they already had a good lead and were on the right track with their work. Overall, this lesson involved a lot of students work time, which was great because I had the time to check in with many students to see how they were doing and give them one on one help.

GLT Plans

My placement has been great and my CT has been open for questions about anything I need. I have been able to do a couple of the DRA tests. Doing this really helped me get a feel of what the students in my class should be able to do to be considered grade level. I feel like I have a better sense of what the DRA number each student has actually means ability wise. This should really be an asset when I am planning my lessons.
I have been so caught up in getting information and getting my math unit finished that I have not really had a chance to start my lessons. I do have an idea in my head of what I am going to do it is just finding the time this week to get it all down. Having the two classes deadlines so close really makes it hard for me to keep track of both units. I really focused on the math knowing that it was due first. I do look forward to having time to workshop in class.
I am nervous to see how the students are going to react to me as opposed to my CT. I also almost feel weird teaching, since my students have been reading independently for 45minutes and freewriting on most days for another 45 minutes. I have not seen an actual lesson for literacy taught. The topic that my CT gave me was pretty wide open and I do like the freedom that he lets me have.
I taught 3 math lessons that my CT had prepared and he gave me some really good feedback and each time I became more confident. I feel like with most things the more you do something the better it becomes. The more students get used to the idea of me teaching the better I think things will go as well.

My Experience in the Classroom and the Planning Process

My guided lead teaching planning is going well so far. It is interesting because our teachers have to follow “Genre Units” given to them. These documents have very strict guidelines of what to teach (different genres of literature) and how to teach it.  I think the entire process of planning though has been made much easier and more powerful by team planning. Since my CT and Shayna’s CT team teach and plan together we were lucky enough to be able to follow the same format. 

Planning has been interesting because we have quite a different philosophy of teaching than the genre unit that our school follows seems to have. Shayna and I both feel that teaching needs to be done using the arts, group work, and overall innovative and engaging means that get students up, moving, and in turn thinking and internalizing the concepts that we are teaching. The genre unit does give some useful suggestions for ways to teach in this way but the majority of it is taught in a way much differently than we would otherwise choose. Therefore, Shayna and I have been working to take the concepts that the genre unit wants us to teach, and the way they suggest for teaching it and try to “spice it up” and add our own input and ideas to each lesson. Although the genre unit has been a great starting place it is difficult to make sure we don’t stray too far from the genre unit.

As many of the other interns have discussed and some of you in your blog postings that I briefly skimmed for this week, you are feeling so excited but nervous to begin GLT and I feel the same! Lots of mixed emotions because I know I am ready to begin GLT and the learning experience that it will provide me but I really cannot believe that I will be in charge of teaching literacy and math for the rest of the year! And in turn, obviously I am responsible for the students learning the content for these two subjects. I know that once I begin teaching it will take time before I am comfortable in front of the class but I am eager for this to happen. Also, I am struggling with thinking about how to develop my own personal teaching style without stepping on my CT’s toes....For example, I would like to have my own attention grabber. Is anyone else struggling with this? At times I feel restricted and overly influenced by the manner in which my CT teaches, not that she isn’t wonderful but I want to be able to develop a style of my own. I think although the time in the classroom at times has felt weird simply because we take an odd backseat role...I am thankful for it because I have had time to observe and get to know the students. By observing I see what gets students engaged, how they learn, what they don’t seem interested by, who requires special attention. etc. I know that I am very qualified, as all the interns are, but the comfort will have to come with being in front of the class and being enthusiastic about what I am teaching and learning about what I works for the students and for me as their teacher (intern).

GLT lesson

I'm am currently working on my guided lead teaching lesson and have come to a little bit of a halt. I'm teaching how to make meaning out of text. One of the concepts I plan on teaching is how to keep track of questions while you read. I am not sure if I should try to do a hands on activity with my students, or just make a chart and come up with ideas. I am at a loss. I wanted to see if any of you had any ideas of lessons I could possibly use. I am also having trouble coming up with a GOOD idea for talking to my students about how readers make meaning out of text. I know that I can just use a chart or have students list ideas, but I feel like it would be more valuable for students if I could come up with a mini lesson.

How is everyone doing with their lessons? Are you guys planning on teaching the first 2 weeks or the 2nd 2 weeks? What concerns do you have?

I am really nervous that my mentor will have to drop whatever we are working on, in order for me to be able to teach my two-week lesson. It would be kind of nice if we didn't have restrictions on when we could teach our lesson. Are you guys running into this problem? How do you plan to handle it? I find I'm having this problem with both my math and literacy lesson plan. I am hoping my stress level with go down soon. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I don't think i've been this stressed out in a long time. It's so hard when all of our work is due in the same two weeks. See everyone on Tuesday. I look forward to using a workshop method and talking about our lessons.

My unit planning! I would love suggestions!

My unit plan for literacy is a genre unit on historical fiction. Our district requires that we teach genre units as our English language arts material. Through this genre unit we teach both reading and writing. The issue with it is that it is already set up and doesn’t give us much freedom to try new things and teach how we would like to. Lauren and I team teach so we’re planning together and we’re trying out best to spice up the unit. We’ve found that one way we can make it more exciting for the students is to add group work. Right now the unit is set up where the teacher does read alouds to the students and then the students write about the readings based on a specific topic that relates to the reading. It is great for the students to make text to self connections or text to world connections, but it doesn’t allow them to improve their speaking which our students really need to work on. We also think that if their speaking skills improve, they writing would improve since students tend to write how they speak. My CT has done readers’ theatre with my students once and it went very well, but Lauren’s class has not yet done so. Lauren and I are going to try and incorporate readers’ theatre at least once a week because it will allow us to still follow the genre unit plan, but also add the speaking element and group work as well. We’re still in the planning process but we would like to try readers’ theatre a couple different ways. I think it could work well if we had the students break into groups and each practice a section of the reading that we script out for them. Then a few groups could share with the class. We also could do it where a few students in the class get a role and they share with the rest of the class following along. I think I like the idea of the groups better so that everyone gets a chance to have a part and also students who are more shy wouldn’t feel scared of acting in front of the whole class; however, it would take more time to do this. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Or any other ideas to incorporate speaking while still following the genre unit? We also are hoping to try a fishbowl. We think this could really help our students to interact with each other and push them to have a class discussion. We are a little unsure of how we should scaffold this though because neither of our classes have experience with discussions even in small groups. We’re hoping to start with small group discussions about the books that we’re reading out or even having the students read the book in their groups and then discuss it. We were thinking at first we could give them a few target questions to discuss based on the reading since they’re not used to starting a discussion on their own. What do you think about this? Would it be better to allow them to start the discussion on their own? We don’t want to limit their discussion but we also don’t’ want them to sit there confused staring at their group members or getting off topic because they don’t know what to say. Once they’ve worked with discussion in smaller groups we thought we could then move toward the fishbowl leading to a whole class discussion. We thought we could open the wall that connects our two classrooms and have Lauren and I and our two CTS as the first group in the middle of the fishbowl having a short discussion about what we read aloud to them that day. Once we have our discussion in the fishbowl then the outside of the bowl would be open for free discussion of what they heard and saw and anything else they want to add about the group. Do you think this would be affective? Or should we start right away with a small group from our classes in the middle of the fishbowl? We were thinking once we do this then the following day we would allow the students time to discuss in their small groups and then take turns with a few groups in the fishbowl and others watching and listening and then commenting through whole group discussion after. This would also focus on their listening skills. More than one group would hopefully have a chance to be in the fishbowl each day and then the next time we fish bowl it would be different groups. We are hoping that by allowing them to have a short discussion with their groups before the fishbowl would give them a chance to practice what they want to say and have ideas in their head before they are in front of the whole class. After the practice fishbowl with Lauren and I are our CTs we would do the rest of the fishbowls with just our own classes otherwise it would be too many people on the outside for the whole group discussion. Does anyone have any good ideas of how else we could scaffold the fishbowl and discussion in general keeping in mind that our students don’t have any experience with it? We also want to incorporate peer editing in our unit. There are parts of the genre unit that have this so we could easily follow our genre plan and incorporate this, but our CTs have not yet done this and we’re unsure of how it would work. We were talking yesterday trying to decide if we should partner the students up beforehand. Should we partner low level writers with other low level writers and the same for middle and high? We were thinking this would work because then they would be at the same level as each other or close to it and be able to help each other with where they’re at. We figured if we had a high with a low then the low level student would greatly benefit from the peer editing session, but we’d feel bad for the high level student who would probably get nothing out of it and we also don’t’ want to make the low level student feel bad if they aren’t able to edit anything on the high level writer’s paper. Do you think it makes sense to partner them based on level like this? Or do you have any other suggestions? We think that peer editing is an important part of editing and also speaking skills, but aren’t quite sure how to start it. Now that I think about it though, peer editing could be a good way to scaffold the small group discussion as well because the students would be talking with their partners and discussing their writing. Discussions as partners could then lead to the small group discussion. This has just led me to another idea. Could we do peer editing in small groups? Then we could have mixed levels in the group, all helping each other so that all levels of students would benefit. Also, the more ideas the better so the more people the better! In general our unit planning is going well and it is helpful that the genre unit is so planned out for us since it’s our first big unit that we’re teaching, but at the same time it’s difficult because we feel restrained and are trying to get around that. Does anyone have any other ideas for our historical fiction genre unit? I look forward to reading about your lesson planning and how your units are going and getting ideas from all of you as well!

Sharon Ruth Gill

This article was about how children’s poetry is being lost. There are not very many children’s poetry books. Most of the ones that are being sold are not ideal for children. The books include many classic poems and some that are more for adults. This article gives a list of some poetry books that are good for children. Apparently many of the books of poems are now out of print. Many of these can still be found and purchased on the internet. The author feels strongly about having a good classroom library of poetry for students that is not only Shel Silverstein.
This article talks about how the author thinks that poetry is being taught in the wrong way for the most part. Students are learning a few types of poems and writing them. The author wants poetry to mean more to children. That poems are not just to fit some sort of pattern, but to mean something. Poems should be show emotion and paint a picture in the readers mind. Children should be writing and reading poetry and not just following the curriculum that is not up to the authors standards.

I would use this approach at my grade level, but I would not limit my students to only using poetry. I would like my students to experience many different genres and poetry should not be left out. I feel that poetry was not precieved well when I was in school and I would like to see if that could be changed in my classroom. I would have poetry become part of the reading and writer’s workshop. Give students the choice to read and write poetry and not force them to write a poetry book like I had to do. The only problem is like the article says, Our class and school library has a limited selection of children’s poetry.

To use this approach I would need to know more about children’s poetry. What exactly makes a piece of poetry good for children? Being limited in my own knowledge of poetry would not bode well if I was to jump into a poetry lesson. I would also probably need to know if whatever my students write is ok, or if there is a way to grade poetry.

This module has lead me to think about how writing is a process and ideas can build on one another. Every student might struggle at different points in the process. Assessment needs to be made during all the steps of writing to see where a student is struggling. There are many informal assessments during workshop. I feel that most finished products turn out well, but there are points in the process that may be more difficult than others for different students.

Beth Kovalcik and Janine L. Certo

The Poetry Café is Open: Teaching Literary Devices of Sound in Poetry Writing

Authors: Beth Kovalcik, Janine L. Certo

This article was about mini poetry lessons done in a series of writers’ workshops where students were given poetry journals to keep the poems they wrote during the lessons. Teachers team taught the mini-lessons, wrote for 5 minutes with the students, then split up and conferenced with the students for the next 15 minutes. They always ended with a 10-minute sharing session for the students to read their poems and share writing strategies.

Mini-lesson 1 coached the use of rhyme in poetry by using the poem “Red, Where did you get that red?” and asking students to also create a color poem. They did this because the words, green, blue, red, and yellow all have a lot of words that rhyme with them so they set it up for students to be successful.

Mini-lesson 2 introduced repetition and alliteration. The teachers began by reading poems to the students that had repetition and alliteration and asked them to identify what they heard and then explained that alliteration means two or more words of syllables near each other with the same beginning consonants.

Mini-lesson 3 introduced onomatopoeia. They had students perform actions such as stomping their feet, slamming their books, etc. and then asked other students to identify the sounds they heard- stomp, slam, etc. Then they explained that ontomatopoeia describes a word that sounds like the action. Students were given the challenge to go back to their poetry journals and find a place where it would be appropriate to use ontomatopoeia or they could draft a new poem.

Mini-lesson 4 was collaborative poetry. A web was drawn on the board with the words “Our class is like…” written in the middle. Students were asked to contribute their ideas to this web and the teachers recorded them. Then students were then given the suggestion to group together the like ideas and make each idea a different stanza of their poem. As a class they wrote a poem using the ideas on the board and the poem was used as an informal assessment of what the students had learned throughout the mini-lessons.

To assist students who need extra help this aritcle talked about an example that they did with one student where one of the teachers would ask him questions about his topic and write a line for each of his answers and these lines would form his poem. He was then given time to read through the poem with the teacher and change anything that he wanted and then copy it to a final draft to give him a sense of ownership.

After all of the mini-lessons the students invited family and friends to come to their poetry café that was set up just like a real café.

Since this was done with a 2^nd grade classroom and I have 5^th grade I would have to adapt this approach for my students, but I think it would be possible. My students recently wrote personification poems and they really enjoyed sharing them so I think they would enjoy the café sharing idea. I think in 5^th grade I would extend it to more than just poetry readings. I would love to have a café where the students can share any of their writing pieces from the year. I think it would be a great end of the year activity for my students rather than after four mini lessons. However, I think the café idea is wonderful because it gives students a chance to practice reading in front of other people and gain confidence in their writing. It also is great for the parents to see their students growing as learnings. I think the café can be done for any grade level, the material that they share would just be different. I would like to try to follow the format that the 2^nd grade teachers used of teaching a writing topic, modeling it with the students, allowing them to write a sample using the writing element they were just taught while conferencing, and then allowing the students to share their writing with the class. I think this could certainly fit in during my writing time of the day. It wouldn’t have to be something I do daily, but everytime I introduce a new writing element/concentration I could set the lesson up like these teachers did. I think by having the students share their work at the end of the first day they worked on a new element will help them to learn from each other and also give them confidence in what they learned that day. The article also said that sometimes when the students share their poetry, students in the class would be asked to give the reader two positive comments and one suggestion for improvement. Once again this is a great confidence builder and a wonderful way to learn from their peers as well. I also like the conferencing because I think it really helps the teacher to see where the studnets are at in their work, informally assessing right when they begin the new writing element. It also makes the students realize that the teacher cares about their writing and wants to help them succeed. I would definitely love to try this approach and see how it goes in my classroom. I think the students would like to try something new and exciting!

As a professional, in order to implement this approach with my students, I would certainly have to work on time management. Since my students are older and it wouldn’t always be poetry the time that I allow for students to write and share would differ from the second grade class, but I also would need to be sure that I allow the appropriate amount of time for my students to complete a writing so that they feel comfortable sharing it. I may have to allow two days of writing sometimes before we do the sharing. I also think that as a professional I need to learn how to effectively conference with students about their writing so that I am helping them to further their learning process and improve their writing. At the same time I want to also build their confidence and not scare them away from writing. Also, each student is different so I would need to learn how to change my conference style based on the student. I think learning how to effectively conference will be very important for me this year. My CT has told me that she would like to start conferencing with our students on some of their writings soon so I’m exciting to observe her and begin to take part in it myself as well!

Watching the 5^th grade video on writer’s workshop made me realize that informal assessment really can happen all the time during writing. I’ve always thought of writing as being assessed based on the final product. I now realize that assessing writing goes way beyond assessing the final product. If we don’t’ assess the students throughout their writing process we wont’ know where they are confused and where they need the help. I loved that the teacher (Mr. White) in the video carried around a binder where he could jot down quick notes while talking to his students. He could then go back to these later and see where all of his students need to improve and also the strengths that they have. From both the readings and watching the video I realized how important it is to not only understand the students’ weaknesses, but also their strengths. By knowing their strengths, as a teacher I can have a better understanding of where they can grow in their writing process and how to challenge them. As teachers we never want to overlook the good in our students! Since I am doing a genre unit for my guided lead teach I think there will be many ways for me to incorporate writers workshop (it has not been done in my class yet). I also plan to make some sort of binder or list of the students so that I can make notes of what I observe as I walk around and as I talk with the students just like Mr. White did in the video. I think taking quick notes while talking with the students is helpful because then you are able to write down exactly what is happening verses trying to remember late. The main thing I would like to focus on for my unit is looking at all steps of the students writing process and finding goals for individual students through student-teacher conferences. I think really digging into the students writing both with them and on my own is the best way to assess their writing skills and I look forward to trying it!

The Forgotten Genre of Poetry

•  The Forgotten Genre of Poetry- Gill

• Write a short summary of your piece, featuring the 'big idea' or 'take-home message' you gained from reading it (about 100-200 words)

            The main point of the article was saying that children in schools are taught that poetry is written by, “great poets” and that the meaning can really only be understood by those who are trained to pick poetry apart and divulge meaning from its intricate words. Therefore, poetry is indeed seen as something negative. Students are not always excited to delve into poetry thinking it is, “hard” and saying comments such as, “I don’t understand what it means,” when in actuality poetry can mean different things to different readers. Various poets understood this and wrote poems for this reason. The author had lots of interesting thoughts on the topic of poetry and teaching poetry that I found very insightful, “I am more concerned that students understand what poetry is, enjoy reading it, feel the desire and ability to participate in writing it, and appreciate what makes one poem better than another” (p 267) Gill focused a lot of her commentary on stressing the importance of helping children understand what poetry is and that it is written by poets, who are everyday people like you and I, to share their experiences.

• Discuss whether and how you would .use this approach at your grade level, where it could fit within the language arts curriculum in your classroom, and what it offers for enriching writing instruction beyond what you thought about as you completed Task 1 of this module.

     I think poetry is such an amazing way to help children express how they feel, however, I do feel that it is something that many children are afraid to attempt. I would love to try to insert different types of poetry links into my unit. I feel that this could be done within my Genre Unit lesson very easily. The students will be reading historical fiction and therefore they could:

a.) take on the viewpoint of one character and write a poem about how a character might feel at one point in the story perhaps doing this as an “I Am Poem,” 

b.) how a certain setting might look using sensory images this could even be extended by having the students then trade poems with another student and see how detailed of a painting/drawing they could make of the setting based on the poem, etc.

All of these different ideas will allow students to explore the ways that they respond to literature and express their thoughts in a different manner,  “helps children develop new ways of sensing the world” ( 452).

• Also identify what you think you need to learn to do as a professional in order to use this approach well with your students.

       I think as a teacher and a profession I will nee to explore poetry and become a poet myself in order to implement this technique effectively in my classroom. The reason for this is that I think some people, as the article discussed, feel that poetry has to be written a certain way, be hard to understand, have only one meaning, and only be written by certain individuals that are gifted. When in actuality, everyone is a poet. We cannot let our fear of doing what is “right” stop us from using poetry as a means to express ourselves. The influences and pressures of the outside world definitely  stop us from doing so and therefore, by taking time to write poetry on my own as an individual I will better understand the thought process of a new poet; the position I am putting my students in. I think by doing this and seeing the thought process I can better plan my poetry lessons and  relate to the way my students will be feeling and thinking.

Another idea I have of how to implement poetry is as hip-hop. I have a wonderful book of poetry that are poems by famous poets such as Maya Angelou, and famous hip hop artists such as Queen Latifah, and they are all considered poetry. I think by showing students that rap is nothing more than oral poetry I will be able to dispel many negative connotations and feelings that students may initially associate with the topic. This makes poetry more approachable and as the article states, more about expression than anything else.

• Lastly, how have any of the ideas in this module (writer's workshop, assessment, analysis of student work, jigsaw articles) helped you to think about the types of assessment necessary for informing your unit development?  Even if your unit is not focused squarely on writing, what might you need to consider about your students as WRITERS, as you plan for instruction?    I feel that collecting writing samples and looking closely at these samples has allowed me to think about how to assess my students in my upcoming unit. I think it is easy for teachers to judge students writing immediately based on their writing skills, or the student writing the piece and what we know about them. I found myself unknowingly doing this as I looked at their writing samples and was very upset at myself for doing so. Also, I think although we are assessing their writing I found that my students, like all students, express themselves very differently therefore, by giving them various ways to express themselves artistically: through poetry, drawing, dance, etc. I will be better preparing them for expression when it comes to writing by allowing them the chance to explore doing so in other ways.

Gill 2007

This jigsaw what about the importance of poetry. It described how students and teachers sometimes view poetry, and different ways to build up the importance of poetry. It talked about some many people have the wrong idea about what poetry is. Something really unique that this article had was a list of good children's poetry. I thought this was a good idea for students, teachers, and even as a resource for parents. The article also had great ideas on how to build up your poetry collection for your classroom or personal collection. The big idea that I took out of this article was the importance of poetry in children's lives. It is important to introduce the genre of poetry to students.

I agree with this article. I think that some of my students have heard the term poetry, but don't really know what it is. I think it would be important to do a unit on different types of poetry. I can introduce poetry to my students and have them try and write their own poetry pieces. This could be a nice unit. I could also introduce books that have poetry in them, for students to read.

As a professional, I think it is important that I read up on my poetry and get more familiar with different types of poetry. I think I would need time to plan this unit until I felt more comfortable with it. Poetry can be a hard and confusion topic to teach and understand. I think this would have to be spread out over a few weeks in order for me to assess students on their thinking and ability to understand poetry. I think that many of my 5th graders would like the concept of poetry. I think that many of them would enjoy writing their own poetry piece or even reading a book on poetry.

I really like the idea of writers workshop. I think that while students are working on personal narratives, a writers workshop style would be very beneficial to them. Students would be able to hear examples of personal narratives, and then have a chance to work on their own. Another day, they could work in small groups to read and discuss their writing. Lastly, even though we share in our classroom already, I know how much my students benefit from sharing their stories. They benefit from hearing their own story out loud as well as hearing what other people have to say and write about.

Book Club Plus Chap. 6-8 and 10

Consider the ideas discussed in Book Club Plus! about talk in the classroom and managing book club. How do these ideas compare with what you are seeing in your own classroom regarding classroom talk and managing your literacy program? If you were going to try out some aspects of book club, what types of support would you need to provide?

Book Club Plus talked about discussion/talk as a way of evaluating/assessing our students. I found this interesting because often times teachers get stuck on the mentality of giving tests that involve students responding to questions by writing the answers. However, listening to discussions of our students can be just as informative of what they’ve learned and where they are at, if not more informative. Discussions allow for them to openly discuss something rather than being limited by a specific question the teacher asks them to respond to in writing. This is not something I have seen done in my classroom, but is something I would like to bring into assessments for my literacy unit. I think other types of assessments may need to go along with discussions, but discussions can certainly be a great way to learn about the students and where they are at in terms of literacy.

Since discussion has not been something that has occurred yet in my classroom, the management of it when I begin will be very important. I think setting norms for discussions of what is expected is very important. Book Club Plus says “Teachers have found it helpful to engage students in the process of developing rubrics to guide their reading, writing, and talk” (96). I think this is a wonderful idea. If the students are engaged in developing the rubrics they will truly understand what is being asked of them. A few things that I would be sure are stated in my classroom norms for discussions are “ask questions, share your ideas, stay on topic, listen, and don’t be afraid to disagree with something as long as you don’t do so in a negative way.” Setting up these norms would be a very important support as I begin discussion with my students since they don’t have any previous experience with discussions, at least this year.

I also think the fishbowl would be a great idea to lead my students into the idea of working with small groups and discussing books within their groups. Since my students are in 5^th grade it would be difficult to have an older students model a book club in the fishbowl, but I think the idea of having me and/or my CT in the fishbowl with 2 or 3 other students as a book club model would work group. My CT and I could choose a couple of the higher achieving literacy students to have a discussion in the fish bowl with us based on the book we are currently reading aloud. This would allow the students outside the fishbowl to see a model of a good discussion because my CT and I could lead the discussion with the other students in group and also the students watching would be familiar with the book we’re discussing. I think it would then be good to have a whole class discussion about the pros and cons of the discussion that they just viewed. This would be a great way to support my students and lead them into understanding how to successfully talk about a book with their groups and also the class as a whole. Then we could eventually fishbowl with different groups taking turns inside of the fishbowl.

An aspect of book club that I would like to try out is the integration of literacy with other content areas, such as social studies. My CT is currently reading The Sign of the Beaver to my students, which is a historical fiction book. She has been teaching the students about historical facts while reading the book and relating it to what they’re learning in social studies. I would like to be able to relate books to not just Social Studies, but also science and math. In order to integrate the subjects I would need to be sure that the students understand the relation and it’s not a far stretched idea because that could cause more confusion.

Read alouds are the main thing from book club that I HAVE seen in my class. My students seem to really enjoy listening to my CT read. I often hear them asking her to read more when she’s finished for the day. The read alouds lend so well to think alouds which I think are a great way of modeling the thought process that students should be having when they read their own books. It also gives many ideas as to what students could be discussing about books in their book clubs. I would like to continue with read alouds when I start teaching literacy. Book Club Plus says “The benefits of a read-aloud unit range from developing students’ language literacy, and literature appreciation to broadening their cultural perspectives and building a classroom community” (201). I think that this perfectly states why read-alouds are important and useful in classrooms and why I want to incorporate them in my classroom.

Guided reading groups are also something that I would like to try in my classroom. I have not seen them in my classroom yet but I know that my CT plans to set them up once the MEAP is over. I think this would be helpful because I have a lot of low-level students in my classroom and they could greatly benefit from smaller groups and also meeting with me and my CT in their groups. This would also allow us to have the students reading at their level so that they are learning something from their reading rather than reading something that is too difficult for them.

Overall I have not seen much discussion or management of book club in my class. The only talk that occurs in my classroom in terms of literacy is when my students respond to comprehension questions that my CT asks. However, there are no group discussions yet. The only management that I see of book club is the read-alouds. Since I haven’t seen many of the Book Club Plus ideas in action I am a little nervous to try implementing parts of it, but I am ready to try. I think the parts of book club plus that I have discussed above will be beneficial to my students and a great challenge to me. I look forward to implementing these new ideas. I would like to implement one at a time so that my students do not have a lot of different things thrown at them at once and also so that I can manage one at a time to see what works and doesn’t work before I move on to something else. I think that continuing with read-alouds will be a perfect segway into other book club plus ideas because I can then use my read-aloud to start the fishbowl which will then start discussion and lead into reading groups where the students can discuss books that they’re groups are reading.