My goodness there isn't a whole lot of time to do much of anything. I finally found some time when I got to this Asperger's Workshop that my field instructor recommended that I go to. It's been a very interesting workshop and a very interesting two weeks in teaching Language Arts.
I do say that going into the actual lessons knowing that they can be changed made so much more sense. I was less nervous about teaching because I knew the students and I knew that I could go back into a similar lesson the next day if they didn't really understand it. One things for sure, if I could reteach this entire unit of Text Structure, I would NOT teach the Hero Cycle before the other structures like the Bell Curve (Students look at how the author makes things exciting).
The Hero Cycle is a very abstract concept and it was very hard for students to pick out certain aspects of it. I felt that had they had more practice actually retelling the story in the Timeline or the Bell Curve structures, they would have an easier time picking out things for the Hero Cycle.
The students really seem to understand what to do when we would put the Hero Cycle together in the We Do, but then when they had to put it together themselves they simply retold the story in the different boxes for the Hero Cycle.
It was very interesting to see that the students are very talented in putting together a retell of the story. One of the issues that I encountered was not looking at some of the different vocabulary in the stories and putting those on the board. One prime example of this was the book Two Bad Ants. In this very descriptive book the author creates a spectacular story that is wonderful to visualize, but not for some of the students. I realized this as I was reading and stopped to talk about some of the vocabulary with the students so they could better understand what was going on. This is something that I would really like to work on in the future especially with three Speakers of Other Languages in the class.
My core practice that I was trying to focus on was an interactive Guided Discussion. Even with the students setting the expectations on the first day, they really struggled to keep a discussion up. After talking more about the core practice with the other Intern in my school, Sarah, we decided that we could have tried to model a discussion with another adult or a couple of other children. It is my hope that sometime soon my mentor teacher and I can plan this so that I can get more practice with my core practice.
It sounds like you have some good ideas to implement in the future, such as introducing vocabulary before reading and modeling discussions. What do you think made the hero cycle complex? I would like you to think deeper about whether it was the plot-type that gave the students trouble, or did they need additional/different supports, different texts, etc? Do you think it would have been the same had you taught a "rags to riches/cinderella' cycle?
ReplyDeleteI do believe that the idea of pulling specific ideas out of the story that fit into a Cycle, like the hero cycle, is what gave most of the students troubles. I think that with more practice of putting the events into a timeline, the students could pull out the idea of a character "leaving home" even if they aren't necessarily going far.
ReplyDeleteAnother trouble was that the students had was trying to articulate how the characters changed throughout the story. After more talk about it, they were able to kind of explain it but not on their own. My thought was that many students might not have the vocabulary to actually express how they know that the character changed.
If we had used the rags to riches cycle, I feel the students might have some of the same troubles like being able to express a characters emotions or feelings.
I think that there needs to be more of a unit where students look at the character traits in a book and the story plot, like a timeline. With more practice like that, I feel that they would be very successful at looking at a Hero Cycle. They would be able to provide more of a discussion about what the hero cycle is instead of struggling to find ways to explain the book.
Hey Danielle! I hear you on time. Any time I do have is spent grading, eating, or sleeping! Here's my first reflection:
ReplyDelete• Students learned about Character traits. That is, what a character trait is and how we identify one. Most students were able to understand that a character trait is identified but what a narrator says about a character, what the character says, and what actions the character take. However, although most students were able to complete activities identifying character traits that were direct and blatant, students had a hard time inferring character traits.
•I learned that students are actually very aware of what character traits they have in common with characters in the story. Students made connections on their own without any probing to actions and words that they could connect with.
•The character trait focus is now an on going through the book. We will focus on different areas each day, but the character traits will be discussed in each chapter as we learn more about each character.
• I would do it differently. I think that I have trouble making sure I say everything that I want to in a clear manner, and now knowing what I want to say and portray to the students. I would choose to do it differently. The worksheet that I had for the students I thought worked well, but I could have been clearer on what I expected.
• I thought that linguistically, I was able to extend the lesson, but as far as gender, or ethnic biases, I do not think I was helpful in extending the idea and looking past a bias. Ethnically, I do not think that anything came up with out reading, but gender bias did and I do not thing I touched on it enough.
I was expecting being able to implement the practice right off the bat, but I learned it takes time and it can be incredibly hard to implement that core practice. Some students may grasp concepts faster while others struggle a lot more.
and my second:
• Most students could understand what sequencing was and could give a correct definition. They did very well with putting sequencing events in the correct order when the events were given to them. What students struggled substantially, was when there were a lot of events given and students needed to use the text to find the order, students were struggling to look back and put the events in order.
•Instead of saying the students were struggling, students could just have had a hard time focusing on the task or struggling to comprehend what was being asked of them.
• I learned that students are orally very capable of expressing a series of events, but when they are required to write the events down or order them from a book, it is very complicated and needs a lot of practice to master it.
• I will continue to re-teach the sequencing strategy to all students in the lessons following and to continue working on what sequencing is and how we do it.
• I actually do not think I would re-teach this again. Today was a challenging day in which students were very chatty. I think students who were focusing and listening were able to understand the task. Other students were struggling to focus and listen. I would supplement the lesson, but I don’t think I would re-teach the lesson itself.
• I don’t really think I did limit these. However, I don’t think there were situations present that needed limiting. My class doesn’t have ELL students, we have one IEP student who I worked with and there was no situation where students of a specific gender should have felt bias.
Learning strategies for “core practices” takes time. Students need a lot of exposure and practice and a lot of repetition to grasp the concept clearly. It has come in stages and I do see students progressing nicely and improving, but it needs to be fluid through subject for students to succeed.
You have made some good points in your reflection. The one that stands out the most to me is your thinking about whether or not the students understood the task. I think all teachers are guilty of making assumptions about what students can and can't do. Sometimes we get so caught up in planning the actual lesson, that we don't take the time to think about the need to give explicit instructions or how the students could misinterpret the task. What adjustments could you have made during the lesson to ensrue all students understand the task?
DeleteHi Jessica, honestly, my MT and I are struggling to find the time to do small group and enrichment because it is a challenge for us to differentiate during the lesson. Right now, I am trying to focus on how to do it with such limited time (because almost all of our subject areas have been cut down to 30 minutes a day). I think it is something where in class lessons, it's harder for us to adjust what is needed and it is rare to get the freedom of doing a read aloud the way I have these days. As for Charlotte's Web, I thinking almost tiering questions so everyone starts out answering or reflecting, but the fast finishers can do almost "challenge" responses and go on to another response and so on, if that makes sense.
DeleteHello friends!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see your beautiful shining faces tomorrow! Below you will find some of reflective thinking on my "Introduction to Informational Text" and "Time for Kids Magazine" lessons. Enjoy!
Introduction to Informational Text:
• Students were able to attend to the meaning of author’s purpose and effectively submit examples for each category of our “Author’s Purpose” chart. Students even connected current events to the topic of author’s purpose by discussing the many occurrences of persuasive text relative to the up-and-coming presidential election. Students were excited to talk about the kinds of texts that they enjoy reading and interact with on a daily basis. Our discussion also shed light on some ways that they partake in reading informational text in their daily lives that they had perhaps been unaware of before, (back of cereal box etc).
• I think that this element of the lesson could have been more powerful if I had come prepared with physical examples of informational texts. Students would have enjoyed being able to touch, scan, and manipulate the texts. Students also would have been more successful in participating in a discussion about key features in an informational text. In the actual format of my lesson, students had to recall elements of informational text simply from memory from the start. They were not as successful with this task, and later lessons responded to this weakness by introducing more informational texts and making efforts to explicitly define key features.
• In order to further develop my core practice of guided discussions, I hope to decrease my role in the discussion and encourage students to spend more time listening and responding to each other. In future lessons, I attempted to select students to share in an order. This allowed students to think less about hoping to be called on, and more about what their classmate is saying in order to know when it is their turn to share.
Time for Kids Magazine
• This lesson was a great example of an informational text for students to interact with. Students participated in the search for key features of an informational text eagerly and even utilized the anchor chart as a reminder of what to look for. They did require a bit of prompting about what exactly to look for, rather than knowing immediately what sort of features are useful. I had to say, things like who can find words in bold? Rather than a student recognizing this element first.
• Being able to navigate all of the different elements was a bit of a challenge for students. I had a fairly large role in helping students to attend to the meaning in each element. For example, students became a bit confused when interpreting the bar graph that looked different than what they are used to seeing in Everyday Math. I was glad that students were still a bit challenged with this element; as it would come-up again later in my lessons.
• I plan to spend additional time with some of my needier students during read-to-self time, (15 mins daily). During this time, I will guide my students as they navigate the key features and hold a discussion about the important information that they can pull from these features.
I think the fact that students still needed your guidance on day 2 is understandable. When the concept is new, and as large as nonfiction text features, several lessons may be needed before you can expect them to do it independently. I'm glad you used an anchor chart- did the students use it throughout the unit as a resource? I'm also glad you view the difficulty they had of interpreting the bar graph as a great teaching moment, rather than skipping over it.
ReplyDeleteReflection on “A Walk in the Desert” – Lesson 1
ReplyDeleteThis lesson went relatively well, better than I would have thought. Students were engaged throughout the lesson and seemed genuinely interested in the theme of deserts, which bodes well for the future. Students learned that in each story, there is a who (is/are main character/s), what (is happening in the story), where & when (Story setting), why (why is it happening?) and how (is it happening). The majority of students struggled with finding the why & the how in this story. There were many animals mentioned in this informational text, but no clear main character. Whether the students struggled with the 5 Ws because it was an informational text or because it was the first lesson, only time will tell. Students who struggled with this will get much more practice over the course of the next nine lessons.
(In future lessons it became clear that it was informational texts that students were struggling with. I switched my plans up and when I had an informational book planned, we would work on the core practice of thinking aloud.)
Reflection on “One Good Turn Deserves Another” – Lesson 2
This lesson went better than the first. Students had a much easier time picking out the 5 W’s on day two. Today’s text was a Mexican folktale about a mouse who saves a snake, who in turn tries to eat the mouse. Because there was a clear main character, many were able to accurately determine the next W (what happens to the character). Again, they had some difficulty with the why and how. Looking at my worksheet, it seems illogical to have two questions separate the what, why, and how questions. If student difficulty persists, I will change the format so that they are all in order. When I demonstrated thinking aloud, many hands went up so that they could share a connection. I was genuinely surprised. We had worked on thinking aloud for about one day back in early September. I hope this trend of students wanting to think aloud by sharing their background knowledge, asking questions, making inferences and predictions keeps up. I would like students to be able to practice thinking aloud while reading on their own. However, since we do not have twenty-one copies of every book that we are reading, I must keep the format of reading aloud and calling on students to share their thinking after finishing a page.
(In future lessons I did change the format of the 5 Ws worksheet so that the What, Why, and How questions came in that order. I noticed an improvement in students recognizing what the question was asking. As for the work with my core practice, my students continue to rock my socks! As mentioned above, we are practicing thinking aloud with informational texts. During my last lesson with an informational text, every student shared their thinking at least once.)
You said the students had some trouble with the worksheet. Do you think the text you were using was appropriate for teaching the 5 W's? For example, not all informational texts have the 5 W's. Usually the 5 W's are characteristics of stories, not informational texts, so you have to choose the text very carefully to make sure it connects to your lesson's objectives. I'm glad you made adjustments throughout your unit to support student learning.
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