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