Amanda Doran Inquiry 2 Part A

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

Writing – Personal Narratives with small moment focus

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

      Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1 hour    Tuesday and Thursday 15 minutes

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward? 1.W.3

Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal an event order, and provide some sense of closure. 

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?

Students will learn important skills that they can use to express themselves through writing, including how to narrate and sequence events.  Sequencing events is very important in literacy learning because it aids students in comprehension.  If they understand how to put events in order they will be able to look for key events in their reading.  In writing a narrative, they will also practice revision.  Looking at how to revise will be beneficial to their writing in the future so they can better develop and further enhance their works.  They will also be exposed to other types of small moment narratives through read alouds, which will help students practice sequencing and will model for the students how to write.   

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)?

Many different types of classroom talk can take place in this unit.  Teacher led talk will launch the concepts of narrative writing as well as model through thinking aloud.  Student-led talk will also occur in partner work when revising stories, helping to clarify authors meaning and audience.  I think I would really like to build partner work to a higher level of focused, beneficial interactions that use time wisely as well as build up class confidence. 

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 think that the core practice I want to work on will be minilessons focused on learning focused on leaning needs (content, conventions).   Focusing on this will help me as a professional learn more about how to monitor students needs and adjust lesson planning to what students may need specific help on to better their understanding of the unit. 

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area? What additional resources do you need to obtain?

My mentor went to a “Writer’s Workshop” by Bridget Smith which is part of our writing curriculum.  Looking at this is a very important because it lays out expectations of each unit, including many helpful ways in which to teach these units and introduce them to students.  I also can reach out to my field instructor because her emphasis of study has been on writing and she has lots of resources that may be useful as well.  I would need to obtain a few more resources such as read aloud texts that would really help to emphasize this type of writing and can be good jump starts and models for students. 

8.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I will look at their previous final work from the previous unit of concept books to see their stamina, independence, and volume.  By looking at this I will be able to see areas that need further practice and development to focus on. 

9.     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 think I should learn more about students’ interests so I can help them to launch their ideas when they are first starting out.  I also discussed with my field instructor to find or make a graphic organizer and try it out with a few students to see if anything needs to be tweaked to better fit my students.  This will make getting ideas to flow easier and help me to see student thinking. 

10.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I think for my core practice, I will need to become familiar with the types of issues students may come across when writing and have a source of information to reference during the unit.  By being aware of the challenges students may have I can prepare for beneficial minilessons. 

11.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

I am concerned about how much revising and perfection I should be trying to incorporate in their final projects.  Should every word be spelled correctly?  If so, how do I get the students who are still learning their letters, to correctly spell everything?