Hutchings-Inquiry2 Part A

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching. 
   Writing instruction in writer's workshop
   
   
2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?
   20-25 mins
   
   
3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?
   W.I.3. Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal 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?
   The students will learn sequencing and ordering of events and learn what details are and how to put them into their writing to enhance their writing. 
   They will learn literacy by becoming better writers. They will learn about literacy by learning writing terms, and new words that give their writing a genre and/or style. They will learn through literacy through the books that are used to model the aspects the curriculum wants the students to master. 
   
   
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)?
   In this target area, each session includes teacher to class talk while modeling the writing process or introducing a new concept, student to student talk while they're sharing what they want to write about for the day and teacher to student talk during writer's conferences. 
   
   
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?
   The 'core practice' that I want to work on in this target area is assessment that informs instruction. 
   I feel that this is very important in running a writer's workshop, now and in my future teaching. How will I know what needs to be taught, focused on and quickly reviewed if I can't effectively assess my students and the writing they produce?
   
   
   
7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area? 
   My school uses the Lucy Calkins writing process for writer's workshop and within our classroom we have all the supplies needed.
   
   
8. What additional resources do you need to obtain?
   I will need authentic texts to use during this unit plan that model the style of writing I want the students to master to use either during the introduction of the lesson or to keep in the classroom library as a reference option. 
   
   
9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?
   I will assess the students through initial writer's conferences and early writing samples to see what their strengths are and what their areas for improvement are.
   
   
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?
    There are still a few students in the class that have not been able to have a writer's conference yet
    
    
11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and
    teaching?
    What other ways are there to assess writing besides pulling writing samples and having writer's conferences with each student?
    
    
12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit? 
    None are coming to mind right now