Lesson Plan Analysis

Name: Margaret Lamb

Grade Level: 2nd Grade
Link to plan:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XwLTw_hOsr7C9E_9aRfsd4rjTpIMxZId8o
OpgI7wMBE/edit?usp=sharing

A single lesson plan template for my observation from 2020:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jHmi3903ZGCBuQ-Q-9aXYRsnURJIPPMw
bPbl-S4TguQ/edit?usp=sharing

Curriculum Cover Sheet for weekly skills:

Actual Teachers online guide:

https://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/content/hsp/reading/journeys2014/ga/gr2/ese_97
80544157361_/vol2/launch.html
Part 1:
Looking through your week of instruction, craft an analysis that answers the following questions
using weekly readings to support your analysis.

1. This weekly lesson plan from back in 2020 is a very basic weekly lesson plan that my
team and I have made. Now that I look back at it, it is not very specific and unfortunately,
I am unable to recover any other weekly plans from my last school as my drive account
was deactivated. This week introduces literacy skills of learning and retelling story
sequence, using an anchor text of Henry and Mudge. Students will also be working on
vocabulary with words that are connected to the text such as Collar and Straight. These
words help connect real life experiences and how they fit into the sentence structures. We
also practice writing these 10 vocabulary words into our own sentences. This fits into the
Writing domain as well as our grammar with forming sentences. We read decodable texts
along with our anchor text assignments to help reinforce our phonic skills and decoding.
Each weekly lesson consists of 20 spelling words with our specific phonics skills, in this
case they are the short vowels A and I. We also incorporate compound and simple
sentences into this week’s lessons. This fits in the foundational skills and grammar skills.

2. To help meet student’s needs, I know that I would write our sentences up on the
smartboard when we constructed them with our vocabulary words. I would also bring
students who struggle with encoding to the back table where we work on our spelling
words and practice our sounds and decoding our decodable a second time. Repetition
helps them with memorization as well. Students that are higher in academics can write
their own sentences instead of copying down the sentences we come up with as a class on
the smartboard.
3. The Cognitive Model is presented in the way where students are able to dive into their
past experiences with the anchor text and sentence dictation with the vocabulary words,
as well as engaging in activities of writing and sentence formation. We connect current
topics and relevant news and events to our learning, for instance, when we talked about
the anchor text, we discussed how we have pets and what it takes to take care of them.
This hits life science as well through the knowledge of basic needs for living animals.
Students use these past connections to self, to incorporate the lessons into today’s lives
and see in ways that we have changed or how the world has changed in how we treat
others and animals.
4. In my opinion, I believe that I could have added more ways to engage students with
activities, crafts, and games such as Scoot games. I know now that my students respond
better with their learning if they are actively participating, rather than just sitting and
listening to a lecture. I can also include a goal instead of just the objective. These lesson
plans that we did as a team were very vague, which works well when you know the
curriculum, but if someone else were to look at them, they may not be very familiar, and
even lost in most parts. I can make it more culturally relevant to students by bringing in
the beliefs and traditions of the surrounding areas and even other countries in their rules
 and stances on pets and how they are regarded in the world. For instance, when I was
teaching in Utah, we were surrounded by reservations, so I would have included the
common practices of letting certain animals run free instead of boarding them up or
leashing them. Dogs and cats were seen as free roaming and the city did not categorize
them as needing to be in pounds or residences.
5. I think that this lesson plan falls short in accommodations and enrichments. It is very
broad and does not include many ways to differentiate learning techniques for students
who are higher or lower in the academics of the classroom. It does include a lot of I DO ,
WE DO, and YOU DO, though that doesn't always work with every student. It does
provide illustrations throughout the lessons and books for students that may be
challenged language wise or reading wise, but I think it could be more enhanced with
flashcards that can be handed out.
6. Some questions that linger in my mind after examining these plans, is how can I be
more specific without writing out a whole three page lesson for each subject and each
day. If we add too much, then it gets crowded, but if we don’t add enough, then it isn’t as
efficient or effective in teaching and following, especially for those who are not familiar
with the curriculum or how things work.

Part 2:
1. The elements of automatic word recognition that is addressed is seen throughout
the week with daily instruction of vocabulary and spelling words. One thing that
is not included in the plans but we did was something called Templates that
followed the HMH Journeys curriculum. Each week we would get about 7 slides
of words that we would practice daily that ranged from “spell, say, spell” to
dictations of simple sentences that are seen throughout the anchor text for that
week. Students routinely go through these slides that ask them to decode and
encode words and sentences that are seen throughout the text. One example is
where students see all 8 vocabulary words on a slide and as I point, we spell it out
together and then we say the word. We repeat this for each word until we are done
and go onto the next slide. Another way that elements are seen is through constant
high frequency word review where I point to a word and when they hear the tap,
they all say their word in unison. This process is done every morning right before
we dig into our instruction for the day.

2. One element that I am missing in my weekly lesson plan is the procedure of

CWPM and graphing data through minute readings. This is important to be able to
measure and keep data of what students are accomplishing and at what time
interval. Just like in Rasinski’s article, it is one part of a whole when regarding
AWR and being able to accurately gauge it. This reminds me of the data sample
that my group is going over and how immediately I realized that our subject has a
very low CWPM score and that hints to us that she does not recognize many
words that she is reading, thus causing a delay. We do monitor these skills and
document on a graph for their fluency at times, but it is not mentioned in these
lesson plans for the week. I had 4 students that I would have to assess the CWPM
every week to monitor their progress or regression.
3. The place where I found that was very lacking when it came to foundational skills
learning, was the time allotment and progression throughout the days and months.
We would have to cram in 1 grammar, spelling, comprehension, and vocabulary
skill each week and have brand new skills the following week. This was very little
time to recount any past learning and to create activities that students can engage
critically in. This week those skills include alphabetical order, subjects and
predicates, short I and A sounds, and sequence of events. Along with the
templates that we do every morning, we find that we have about 20 minutes for
each section of our ELA time allotment, thus, not allowing students to fully
explore or sometimes even understand their learning. This was a big problem with
the curriculum guide and pacing style of the district. We only have 120 minutes a
day, and within that we also must have students on computer programs called
Lexia and Capit for about 15-20 minutes each. We took half our science and
social studies block to review any missed information or continue our teaching
from ELA.
4. Recommendations that I would encourage for the authors of the curriculum is to
have a better understanding of time management in both morning routines and the
main course outline. I would also say the same for our district and hope to extend
these skills to two weeks each instead of waiting months to review the same skills
with a different book. For these lesson plans, I would (as the author) make more
details for me and anyone that is looking at it for future reference. I would also
include sections for students that need accommodations or enrichment.
5. In order to execute these plans, teachers would need to know how to navigate the
Journeys curriculum guide book, as well as know how to skip around, as we do
not have time to hit every part or do small groups. Teachers would also needs to
know about templates (there is a long training) and how to teach them effectively
and within a time limit. When we first started templates, it took us about 20
minutes to complete, but now we can do it in 5-7 minutes, which is the allotted
time on the schedule. A new teacher would have to know the routines as well as
the students and how they react to different teaching methods. I would have to
include a section about enrichment and accommodations for the teacher, as it is
not included. Teachers would also need to know the previous knowledge that
students come into the classroom with, so they can build on them.
6. A question that I have when examining these plans, is how to make the
arrangement more efficient and effective on the document. This is a shared
document between 2-4 teachers and when we print it out for our principal and to
have in our lesson plans binder for walkthrough purposes, it gets very hard to
print it out when adding too much information and details. I wonder if there is a
better way to organize all the information so that I can put in more specific details
for other teachers to view or just for myself the next year on what went well and
what I need to change or improve on. I have seen plans that are 10 pages long just
for a week, and then I have seen only a single page of plans for the week among
other teachers that I have observed. This is something that is left to our discretion.
I would love to see a “perfect” planned template that all teachers can use that is
efficient and organized with all the is needed.
Part 3:
1. Looking at early elementary, there are enough strategic knowledge skills. I say
that because the Journey’s curriculum has extensive small and whole group
lessons and practice for the students. It has guided reading levels as well that you
can bring the reading skills in for. Here is an example of what the weekly lessons
look like. https://slideplayer.com/slide/12699845/ The curriculum includes time
allotment as well for each activity, though we don’t seem to be able to fit it into
our own daily schedule and have to supplement and get creative. A focus wall is
put up for all students to see and reflect back to during the week for their
knowledge and what they are to expect during the lessons. The lessons also
include a secondary text that is used to help with the idea and key points of the
weekly plans as well. These texts are revisited throughout the days and each time
students are asked to apply their learned skills.
2. An element of the plan that may not be represented in the cognitive model would
be the idea of choice. The lesson plans for the week include many different
activities that students are able to choose from in their small groups. This gives
the students freedom of their own learning and responsibility for their own
learning as well. Another element that is in the plans that may not be in the
cognitive model would be the element of reteaching. In some lessons, students are
encouraged to act out their learning in theater groups and other methods of study.
Students are encouraged to take the lead and to work with partners or even small
groups to extend their thinking while working collaboratively with others to do
the same.
3. In my opinion I do think that the writing instructional pieces are enough to
support the learners, as it is detailed and includes enough background knowledge
of previous skills that they should know before they start. There are KWL charts
that students first explore and fill out before they start their writing pieces, and
even in between the two, they fill out a flow chart to help them visualize their
writing and organize it in ways that they can easily connect it together. It also
brings in examples from other students of the same age level to support learning.
4. I do not believe that this program does enough to recognize and support students
from various cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. While there are level
readers and choices for students who are low in reading skills, there are no ELL
or other language diversity opportunities. The plans and curriculum may include
one or two books that are multicultural and explore different backgrounds and
cultures, but it is very little. There are also no real plans or accommodations for
students that are struggling with the English language.
5. I believe that scripted curriculum is helpful to new teachers, but as you plan and
teach these lessons, you will need to be able to make changes and learn what you
 can emit and what you can supplement depending on your time allotment in the
day and the kinds of students that you have. No lessons go according to plan
perfectly, and so each time you teach, you need to make adjustments and
remember those adjustments for next year. This is what my team and I have done
for 3 years and we have made it to nearly perfection for our classroom and our
school schedule. Each classroom and school is different, and while it has a
guideline for you to follow, it is not something you are expected to do verbatim.
6. The lingering question I have is, what does this look like for other teachers in
other schools. I only know how it is implemented for my school and grade level,
but I do not know how other places tweak their lessons to be more efficient and
successful. I would like to be able to see what their lesson plans are like and see
where I can change mine or where they might benefit from seeing mine.