Emily Baker-Inquiry Two: Part A

Emily Baker

TE 802-004-Literacy

Inquiry Two: Part A

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area for guided lead teaching is vocabulary acquisition, use and assessment. I want to work on word studies. Within word-study I want to develop activities, learning strategies, concepts, and consciousness.

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

Vocabulary acquisition, use and assessment is done almost everyday in my classroom but does not have a specific time amount because it a part of Reading Street thus it depends on how much time reading street is allowed and how much of it is done in reading street that day.

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

L.1.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 1 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies.

o   Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

o   Use frequently occurring affixes as a clue to the meaning of a word.

o   Identify frequently occurring root words (e.g., look) and their inflectional forms (e.g., looks, looked, looking).

L.1.5. With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

o   Sort words into categories (e.g., colors, clothing) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

o   Define words by category and by one or more key attributes (e.g., a duck is a bird that swims; a tiger is a large cat with stripes).

o   Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., note places at home that are cozy).

o   Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs differing in manner (e.g., look, peek, glance, stare, glare, scowl) and adjectives differing in intensity (e.g., large, gigantic) by defining or choosing them or by acting out the meanings.

L.1.6. Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using frequently occurring conjunctions to signal simple relationships (e.g., because).

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?

This will help my students learn explicitly learn new vocabulary, which will help them to enrich their writing, increase the amount of words they are able to easily recognize along with understand while reading (learning literacy), and their oral speaking to explain the world around them. This will help them to be able to read and comprehend more difficult texts, which will let them read about more topics and learn new things overall (learning through literacy). They will also learn the meaning(s) of new words and what type of speech the words they are (verb, noun, adjective), which will help them to learn about literacy.

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)?

The classroom talk that will take place will be a mixture of teacher-led because my students are so young. After the initial lesson about a word the talk will switch to student led to see if they understand and can explain the word(s) we are studying. The norms that I would like to see during these lessons are that all students are trying and participating and that I can clearly see that they are trying. Also if students have a misconception about the word that they are able to overcome that misconception and change it to the correct concept.

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 want to work on vocabulary acquisition, use and assessment. Throughout my placements I have had through Michigan State University I have worked with upper-lower elementary grades so I have never had the chance to work on the ground work of vocabulary acquisition, use and assessment so this will allow me to grow.

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

The resources for working in this target area I have are: Reading Street, my mentor teacher, the three other first grade teachers in my building, and literacy specialists in my building.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

The list of amazing and high frequency words from Reading Street from that time period.

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

I will look into the San Diego Quick Assessment my students completed earlier this school year.

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 will need to find out my student interests within literacy to make my lessons meaningful for them.

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

I want to learn a lot of different activities and strategies to effectively teach and support vocabulary acquisition, use and assessment to make it as meaningful as possible for each student.

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

I’m just worried about fitting this into the time constrictions of Reading Street.