Blog for week of 9/24

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching. I plan on working on writing for my guided lead teaching.

 

2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area? We currently plan 40-45 minutes a day for writing.

 

3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward? I plan to use technology in some way to complete this project. Standard CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.6 States: With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others. I will add others when I know a little more about my subject.

 

4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content

and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy,

learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy? I am in the process of planning where we will be for these weeks with my MT. The actual focus of writing for that time frame will dictate to some extent what the final product will be. Right now the plan is to create a writing project for the students that relates to some aspect of the class right now. It will be narrative, persuasive, opinion, or informational writing.

 

5. What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk

teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would

you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter

6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done

in TE 402 on classroom talk)? We are currently in the process of getting the students started in the writing process. I am seeing most of the talk as teacher-led. Normally it starts with some sort of story that relates to what our writing goals of the day are. He then models exactly how he uses this information to write his story. The interactions from the students are usually in adding their background knowledge to explain the MT’s story. My mentor is constantly changing his pedagogy to reflect the need of the classroom though and I won’t be surprised to see the type of conversation change as the dynamic of the class changes.

 

6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning? I would like to work on creating authentic, meaningful writing tasks for a real audience. I am struggling with watching kids as they stare blankly at their papers during writing time. Even with encouragement they will come up with great ideas and then not put them on paper. I hope that creating a meaningful task will help with the motivation those students need to finish their projects.

 

7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area? The district has a writing program. This is available on the district shared drive. In most cases lesson plans for each day are available to present to the class. In addition, there is a person in charge of the district writing program that is available to help with ideas and direction if needed. I also have my MT, of course and he has a wide range of lessons that he has created. Over the years he has saved everything he has done and shared it with me on a flash drive. I hope to bring the community into the project in some way. My plan right now is by making this writing project authentic. We will write about something that might help the community, or might be something the community might like to read. Another option is just writing about the community.

 

8. What additional resources do you need to obtain? My mentor and I have to take a little more time to block out where we will be in the writing process. This will allow me to focus in a little more on exactly what it will be that I am doing This will allow me to access some of the resources listed above as starting points for designing my lesson.

 

9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area? I will have the writing samples that they have done to this point. I will be able to compare some of those samples to what they produce both at the beginning and end of my unit to see if progress was made toward the common core standard.

 

10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching? I need to find out a little bit more about what would interest them to write about. Right now we are writing about their lives and they are having a hard time putting pencil to paper. I need to find an issue in the community they feel strongly about in order to get them invested. This may actually be a pre lesson to help me begin my planning.

 

11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching? I want to learn what to do if I feel like the practice isn’t working. I have this feeling that even if I get the majority of the students invested in the project there will still be a few on the fringe who just don’t buy in.

 

12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit? I only worry about the fact that I’m working on a rough idea right now. I understand the dilemma of my mentor in having a new curriculum and not knowing exactly where he’ll be. It just makes it a little tough to jump into this project right now. However, I have no doubt that the way we work together will help us get this project done in the time frame.