Meghan Rice TPA Reflection Professor Randall Hansen November 9, 2012

1. In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text. a. Cite examples of strategies aimed at engaging all your students and examples aimed at engaging specific individuals or subgroups. If you described any of these fully in the lesson plans or the planning commentary, just reference the relevant description.

During the learning segment, I directly taught for approximately the first three minutes of the lesson. I used a hook to engage the students in their learning prior to fully introducing the topic. I told them that great writers consult with other writers about their work. I shared with them how I collaborate with my mentor and my co-resident before I create my lesson plans. By having conversations with other people, I am able to see how I can add to my writings to make them better. For the past few lessons, the students watched me and Ms. Crosby (my coresident) model strategies on how to implement the writing strategies that we covered in our unit. Each day, I also used a personal piece and added details to my writings. The lesson that was planned for the 16th of October was designed to teach the students how to have conversations with their writing partners. An anchor chart was made and written in student friendly language to give the students a springboard of topic questions. Our writing units over the course of the year have been centered on learning to write and use the same strategies that authors use. One of those key strategies was to learn how to speak with other writers to improve their own writings. Before releasing the students into their respective groups, time was allotted for the students to ask questions/and or give a connection about the information that was just taught to them. Finally, at the end of the clip, the students were being

released into their Think, Pair, and Share (TPS) groups to ask and respond to at least one question from our anchor chart. b. How did these strategies reflect students academic or language development, social/emotional development, or cultural and lived experiences?

One of the things that helped to meet the varying needs of my students was to have consistency from day to day within the lessons that were being taught. I teach students in a self-contained classroom setting. Our students tend to have more permanence of knowledge and/or skills through repetition. Each day I added to my own personal writings and I modeled the specific strategy that the learners were being taught. By incorporating happenings from my childhood into my writings, creating anchor charts, discussing the content with the students, allowing them to work with peers, and finally, working independently was a way for me to make sure that I was providing concrete learning opportunities and the proper scaffolding that they needed to be successful as they were sent out on their own. When writing the questions onto the anchor chart, I was sure to use student friendly language. I also kept in mind the need to push their current language skills by providing some tier 2 vocabulary terms that were embedded within some of the questions that partners could ask one another. Two of the words that I wanted my students to focus on were the following: setting and characters. We have been building these into our vocabularies daily especially during Reading Workshop. I wanted the students to be able to transfer their knowledge of the term and use within the context of writing. Many of students based on their backgrounds, language needs, and lived experiences, need more support in the area of learning how to ask an actual question. Often times they confuse connections, comments, leading questions, or demonstrative statements as being questions. By showing and telling the students what a question sounds like and how it should be asked was in place to help support their understanding and use of how to effectively ask questions. 2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson. a. How did these strategies reflect students varying language proficiencies and promote their language development?

In relation to the format of the questions that were written on the board, they

were constructed in a way that was palatable to my students who have both expressive and receptive language disorders. Each question, based on their current levels, was developmentally appropriate for the learners. Some of the questions were in place to ask for those surface level inquiries so that my younger students could learn how to participate and ask questions that were clear and understandable, especially when they were partnered with an older learner. Depending on what the students observed from their partners writing pieces, the learners could also ask questions that required deeper levels of thought like, How were you feeling in your story? or What made you write your story? By allowing the students to ask questions prior to beginning our TPS activity they were able to have them reconstructed in a way that allowed them hear how to rephrase their suggestions and actually mold them into questions. If my emergent readers were not able to read the words that were on the chart, they could model how to properly ask a question to a peer based upon recall. 3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s). In my lesson plan, time was set aside for the students to work together as partners in place to allow them to formulate thoughts and ideas that could help push their writings. I referenced our anchor chart and questions that were asked during our mini discussion to help remind them of what the purpose of our TPS was. Alluding back to our making meaning discussion, I made sure to validate and address their statements/suggestions by telling them what kind of questions they were making an effort to present to me. 4. Reflection a. Reflect on students learning of concepts and academic language as featured in the video clip(s). Identify both successes and missed opportunities for monitoring all students learning and for building their own understanding of skills and strategies for comprehending and/or composing text. During the I Do portion of the lesson, I think that that after I read all of my questions, I missed the opportunity of going back and checking for understanding. I also could have had the students repeat the correct responses on how to ask a question to our writing partners. I think that incorporating a modeling session, prior to the teaching point was valuable to the students. It is important that they see and hear how to have a conversation that is productive, respectful, and on task. Though the clip did not show this piece, we also had a debriefing on what an appropriate conversation should look like. In doing so, we referenced our small group rules anchor chart.

b. If you could do it over, what might you have done to take advantage of missed opportunities or to improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs and characteristics? If I could do it all over again I would definitely have more checks for understanding. I would ask various students what the expectations of small group interactions looked like and for them to relay some ideas for questions that we could ask our peers, and if that child needed help, I could ask another student or provide options for the student, then have that child repeat the information aloud. Ultimately, I want to make sure that each student is supported to the best of their ability. Looking back to my videos, I feel as if I should have done a mini lesson on question words, this would have been done prior to this lesson and then reviewed during this lesson. If the children are able to have layers of skill sets and strategies to help them to navigate through conversations, then they will be more successful both in and out of the classroom. By having more of a formidable use of language and its varying structures, this will help to improve their reading, writing, and obviously their communicative skills.