Inquiry II: Part A

Inquiry II: Part A

1. Writing Instruction; ‘The 6 Traits of Writing’:

            - Ideas & Content

                        - Narrow your topic

                        - Write about what you observe

                        - Use details to support your point

                        - Use the five senses to describe

            - Organization

                        - Become an expert on your subject

                        - Hook your audience with a strong lead

                        - Link ideas together, and guide your audience with transitions

                        - Sum up all your ideas, and end with a bang!

            - Voice

                        - Be original with your ideas

                        - Connect with your audience

                        - Make your writing “come alive” with feeling and emotion

                        - Bring your personality out in your writing

            - Word Choice

                        - Write to your audience

                        - Be precise and select words that fit your purpose

                        - Use clear and colorful language to convey mood

                        - Use powerful verbs and strong adjectives

            - Sentence Fluency

                        - Vary sentence length and structure

                        - Start sentences with a variety of first words

                        - Make smooth transitions between sentences and paragraphs

                        - Read aloud for flow and rhythm

            - Conventions

                        - Follow grammar, spelling, and capitalization rules

                        - Use paragraph breaks and correct punctuation

                        - Hunt down errors

                        - Know and use correct editing symbols

2. I will have between 45 and 50 minutes a day to instruct my lesson.

3. Common Core Standards include 6^th grade writing standards 4 and 5.

4. In sixth grade, students use writing as a tool to learn, instead of focusing on learning to write. They use writing in a way that allows them to explore new content and create their own interpretations of concepts they encounter….

5. All types of classroom talk take place during this time, depending on what is taking place. There is initially teacher-led communication but eventually students will be expected to talk with their peers and also think for themselves during higher-level thinking activities. It will be understood that everyone is to contribute to the group conversations, each bringing their own opinion to the table. No one’s interpretation will be considered right or wrong, and everyone will have an opportunity to be heard.

6. The ‘Core Practice’ I hope to develop through teaching this target area of Writing Instruction is “fostering meaningful revision practices”. Writing is a life-long area where one can continue to learn, and focusing on this ‘core practice’ as a professional learner will hopefully both better my understanding of the six traits of writing, and also improve my writing overall. Revision is a crucial skill within the writing process, and I feel like the better I, and my students, are able to grasp this and master this process, the better their own writing, and mine, will become. If you, as an editor, know what to look for and what is needed in a given piece of writing, it makes it easier for you to produce writing that contains these things.

7. Ideas and inspiration for writing can be pulled from anywhere in the world around us, and students will be able to use their own funds of knowledge while mastering these six traits. The community and neighborhoods they live in and where they spend time outside of school, and the school and classrooms they visit every day. Each of these places provides me, as a teacher, with ideas to incorporate into relevant writing activities, and provides my students with experiences worthy of putting into a piece of writing. I can also use newspapers, letters, or local restaurant menus as examples of kinds of writing in everyday life.

8. Additional resources I might consider using throughout the unit are samples of my own sixth grade writing. I don’t know that it will necessarily aid in my teaching, but I think it might be fun to share that piece of my past with my students and show them that I was once in their shoes and understand that learning these writing traits takes time. Also, as a learner, I appreciate seeing samples and know my options before constructing my own work, so perhaps seeing some of my writing could inspire my students.

9. Pre-assessments for teaching the six traits of writing will include obtaining several samples of writing; letters, poems, etc. Also, in the beginning of the year my students filled out both reading and writing surveys that addressed thoughts about writing including:

            > Are you a writer?

            > Why do people write? List as many reasons as you can think of.

            > What does someone have to do or know in order to write well?

> How do you decide what you’ll write about? Where do your ideas come from?

> In general, how do you feel about what you write?

Starting by reading through these surveys, I hope to gain a better understanding of how my class thinks and feels about writing. From this stage I hope to administer a fairly general writing prompt of my own, asking what they feel the six most important traits of writing are, or if they are already known, which of them do they find most helpful in their own writing.

10. The more I am able to find out about my students hobbies and interests, the better I will be able to shape and develop my lesson plans for this unit. Getting to know their daily schedules and where and how they spend their time outside of school allows me to get to know them as individuals, and therefore better plan how I construct classroom activities. Its also helpful to take the time to get to know my students because when the time comes that I am the lead teacher, I will hopefully have gained some respect from them. They will see that I am interested in what they have to say and care about them and their learning, hopefully translating into them actively participating in my lessons.

11. I hope to obtain different samples of writing and then practice revising them considering each writing assignment will require unique revisions. There is not one single rubric to follow that will say that is or is not “good” writing, so learning how to revise different styles of writing is an important skill to work on. Also, as part of my lesson, I plan on my students being able to revise different styles of writing, hopefully improving their editing skills overall.

12. So far, I don’t have many concerns about planning and teaching this unit, but I’m sure that as time goes on and I begin to plan more in-depth, questions and concerns will arise. 

Joey's Inquiry 2

Your Name: Joey Schneider

 

Inquiry Two, Part A:

 

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

·         My target area is the 6 traits of writing

1.       Ideas and Content

-Narrow Topic

-Write about what you observe

- Use details to support your point

- Use five senses to describe

            2.  Organization

                  - Become an expert on your subject

                  - Hook your audience with a strong lead

-  Link ideas and guide audience with transitions

- Sum up all your ideas and end with a bang

 

3.   Voice

-  Be original

- Connect with the audience

-  Make your writing “come alive” with feeling and emotion

-  Bring your personality out in your writing

 

4.  Word Choice

-  Write to your audience

-  Be precise and pick words for a purpose

-  Use clear and colorful language

-  Use powerful verbs and strong adjectives

 

5.  Sentence Fluency

-  Vary sentence length and structure

-  Start sentences with a variety of first words

-  Smooth transitions

-  Read aloud for flow

 

6.  Conventions

-  Follow grammar, spelling, and capitalization rules

-  Use paragraph breaks and correct punctuation

-  Hunt down errors

-  Know and use correct editing symbols

 

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

·         48 minutes

 

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

·         6^th Grade Writing Standards 4 and 5

 

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 continue to write for the rest of their lives.  They will need to communicate through writing, whether it is a letter/email or a research paper they are writing for a high school/college course.  Writing is a lifelong skill that students will carry with them well after they are done with their academic careers. 

 

 

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)?

 

·         Instruction for this unit will vary depending on the lesson.  For the most part class will begin with teacher led instruction and through a gradual release of responsibility, will transition in to large and/or small group discussion.  Students will also be given independent work time to draft or brainstorm when given writing assignments.

 

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 plan to focus on is “Writing Instruction”.  I feel that becoming a quality writer is imperative to a student’s success throughout their academic career, as well as later in life.  It is because of this that I would like to greatly improve on my teaching abilities in this area.  Focusing on this area will be very beneficial for me, as I have not had much instruction on this in my MSU courses.  This will allow me the opportunity to grow as a writing instructor by developing lessons first hand.

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

·         I plan to use several different writing instruction books available to me in the classroom.  My MT uses a variety of texts when implementing her writing lessons. I plan to look through these resources and take the positives out of each when creating my unit plan.

 

8. What additional resources do you need to obtain?

·         I may want to find a variety of assessments to track the students’ progress form the beginning of the unit of the end.  This will allow me to see what went well throughout the unit and what needs to be tweaked to better suit the student’s needs. 

 

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

·         To pre-assess I was thinking or having the students write a short letter to me, talking about themselves and anything they want to tell me about their lives.  This will give me a writing sample from each student, so that I can have a very basic idea of where they are at in their writing levels.

 

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?

·         One major thing I would want to know is what students are ELL’s.  I already know this, but before crafting a unit, if a teacher didn’t have this information; it would be good to find it out.

 

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

teaching?

·         In general I would like to become a more competent writing instructor.  As I mentioned above, I have not had much experience in this area throughout my undergrad at MSU. 

 

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

·         NA

Kim's Inquiry 2

**All things are subject to change based upon planning with my co-intern and our Language Arts teacher**

1.    Describe your target area for guided lead teaching. I will be teaching a fantasy unit on Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.

2.    Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area? We are only allotted 50 minutes per day for Language Arts.

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

1. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for     research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

2. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1b Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry                 out assigned roles.

3. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g.,              mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics

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 be placed into book club groups and within the groups they will have to delegate which roles will fit each individual member of the group. Throughout the unit, students will be required to write journals in response to various aspects of the book. At the end of the reading, students will watch the movie Tuck Everlasting and write a few paragraph compare/contrast paper. To go along with the fantasy theme, students will be reading a different fantasy book for their next book report.

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)? I really want to promote cooperation/working together and responsibility within the book club groups. Students will be gradually given more and more responsibility of their book clubs throughout the unit. They will need to be able to work independently and be able to support each other’s opinions and still maintain a civil debate about their ideas.

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 I plan to implement in the unit is Practices to Facilitate Comprehension Instruction – Responding to Reading. By focusing in on book clubs, students will be able to work together to maximize their comprehension skills by seeing other points of view and hearing their peer’s opinions. Teaching comprehension is one of the most important things literacy teachers teach because it has an impact on all of the other subject areas.

7.    What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area? We have enough copies of the book for each student to have their own, we have an audio recording of the story being read – this can be used during the class periods that students are in the resource room, they can put the recording into a computer’s cd reader and listen quietly and follow along, and we have a movie version of the story that we will show at the end of the unit and have the students compare and contrast the two. Also, I have developed a relationship with one of our resource room teachers; she works with a few of my students that need some extra support across the curriculum. She will be a valuable resource in helping me adapt my lessons to support these students. I also have Abby who is teaching the same content to her homeroom students; we will be able to bounce ideas off of each other and discuss what is working and what isn't working within our units. 

8.    What additional resources do you need to obtain? It would be helpful to know roughly the students reading levels so I can develop reading groups that support each of my students’ diverse needs.

9.    How will you pre-assess your students in your target area? To assess my students on fantasy, we can develop a class list of things that we think are aspects of the fantasy genre.

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 a few students that I know already are reading below grade level, who have class periods in the resource room, who would greatly benefit by having the story read aloud via the CD while following along with the text.

11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching? I am really excited to be teaching a book club unit; in TE 402 with Chad we did book club units at the end of the semester and it was great to work through it as if you were a student. The book club concept seems to go along nicely with the core practice that we chose as a team.

12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?  I am concerned about making sure all of my students receive the amount of support that each of them needs to support their learning.

Abby's Inquiry 2

Inquiry 2-Abby Vermeulen

*As I plan my lesson, some things may alter.

1.    Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

I will be leading a fantasy unit based around the book Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit. 

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

I will have about 50 minutes to teach per day.

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

There are 3 goals that I would like to work towards in my unit. **These may change as

1.      CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

2.      CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1b Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles.

3.      CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.

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?

One of the ways that I will be teaching within this target area is through book clubs, paired reading, and jigsaw discussions.  This will approach will cause students to come up with and agree-upon rules for discussion.  The students will also have to come up with assigned roles for each member in their book club/discussion group.  Learning to function appropriately in a discussion setting is key because students will continue to have to participate and interact with others (who may agree or disagree with them) in multiple settings.  Also at the end of the unit the students will have to do a fantasy book report, in which they compare and contrast their book report book and Tuck Everlasting based on themes and topics.  Students are going to be writing compare and contrast essays through both high school and college, therefore learning techniques to write these types of essays now, will allow them a better chance of success in the future.  Throughout the whole unit (2-3 weeks), my students will have to respond to journal entries related to the book. This means that they will have to write routinely this period of time for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences).

 

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)?

Some norms I would like to build within my classroom is cooperation and working together in book clubs.  I want my students to come away from this unit being able to work more independently in book clubs, so that we can create groups that meet the needs and interests of my students as best as possible.  Throughout this unit I will be using gradual release, giving my students more of the responsibility of book club.  I would like my students to be able to learn to appropriately agree/disagree with each other and be able to support their opinions, using information from the book.

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?

My “core practice” will be Practices to Facilitate Comprehension Instruction, Responding to Reading.  I think learning how to run a book club and learning how to teach comprehension will be good experience for when I have my own classroom.  I think I also want to try some of the explicit instructions because I think my students can still benefit from this, even though they are in 5^th grade.

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

I have some great book club resources created by my MT  over the years, for this book.  I also have access to 3 or 4 copies of the book on CD, for students, who struggle reading this book.  I also have access to Kim, my MT’s team teacher’s intern.  Kim will be a great person to discuss and bounce off ideas.  The reading consultant is right next door and I know she works with many of my students, so any advice from her on how to reach my students is greatly appreciated. 

8.      What additional resources do you need to obtain?

As of right now, the only resource that I need to obtain is the movie, to use at the end of the unit, so the students can compare and contrast the book and movie for a writing assessment.  I also need to obtain the CD versions of the books, for my students who are not reading at grade level, so they can still participate in the class discussions.

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

I think what I want to do is assess how much they know about the parts of fantasy, to do this I think I will ask them to help me create a list of what types of things we find in fantasy.  This is also something I can do at the end of the unit and then we can look at the two lists and see what they have learned about fantasy. 

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 specifically where some of my students are reading level wise, so I can make sure they get to use the audio CD when we want them focusing on comprehension.  I also need to make sure that they get a chance to read for learning decoding too.

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

I am excited to see how my unit works towards the core practices.  I think doing this book club unit, is something that goes right along with core practices.

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

I am concerned about making sure all the students get the help and support they need.  I have 29 students, some who require a lot of one-on-one support.  I know I have the support of my MT during this time and that helps, but I still want each of my students to learn at least one thing and improve their reading skills. 

Joey's Week 2 Initial Post

     As stated in the reading about anecdotal assessments, I believe my observational skills will be very important when planning and implementing literacy instruction.  Recording what I see throughout a day in my classroom will give me an idea of what the students need more work with and what they are excelling at.  Detailed observational notes will allow me to look back on students reactions, so as to cater my lesson to their needs.  Quality lesson ideas and effective implementation of teaching strategies is obviously important for the students' literacy development.  However, if the teacher is unaware of how the students experience these lessons and what they may have taken away from them; even a well thought out lesson plan becomes ineffective.  Therefore, observing and taking anecdotal records become very important, so as to continue to evolve and grow as an instructor and be willing to tweak lessons as needed based of your observations.

Kim's Week 1 Initial Post

I think that I am the most confident in generating creative ideas for projects and activities for the students to do in and out of class. The only dilemma I see is that I’m not sure how much of that I will be able to do with them while covering all of the necessary standards for fifth grade language arts.  Also, we are only allotted a fifty minute period of time per day for language arts to cover reading, writing and spelling, and if we want time for recess, that comes out of the language arts block, so I’m not sure how much time there will be in the schedule for any large creative projects. The only way that I can even imagine asking students to do any large creative project would be to ask them to do them outside of school. Also that places the assumption that every student can afford the materials needed for the projects and I know based on what I’ve seen during the past week, that some of our students are less fortunate than others and we might need to take that into consideration when assigning creative projects. How do we as teachers add in creative projects (not just in language arts) into our curricula without making those less fortunate students feel bad that they aren't able to create as extravagant of projects as some of the other students? 

Quick Reminders for Our Busy Lives

Initial Posts need to be posted by midnight on Mondays

Our responses to the initial post need to be posted before class on Thursdays 

Cheers! :)