Kim's LA Lesson 2 Reflection

·         What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

o   Students worked within their book club groups to fill out a three circle Venn diagram illustrating aspects of Winnie’s, the Tuck Family’s, and the Stranger’s worlds. Since students struggled with developing a definition of suspense during the previous lesson, I developed a mini lesson that would ensure their success on finding aspects of suspense in the prologue. We worked through this as a class, each student had a copy of the prologue and they were able to highlight aspects of suspense when they found them. Then they proceeded to writing based on the prompt of finding examples of suspense in the prologue.

·         What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

o   Students written responses were substantially lacking at first but after discussing it again with them in class, as a whole group, they provided well thought out answers.

·         What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

o   It was refreshing to hear other students reading aloud within their book club groups rather than the handful who volunteers to read during whole class discussions. The students seem to be able to comprehend what they are reading but they are still struggling with taking notes that will help them later, for writing prompts, while they are reading.

·         When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

o   One of my students, AM, was in the Resource Room during the period in which we had Language Arts due to a schedule change. He and I sat down individually to discuss suspense. He was able to develop a wonderful definition without prompting from me; however, this was done verbally. His writing skills are still developing so he is not always able to express his thoughts through written words.

·         If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

o   If I was teaching this lesson again, I would try to develop more examples that they could relate to. I started with movies, like Jaws, where the music leads you to feel suspense on what will happen next. The example that caught their attention and they were able to connect to was about Spartan football. I provided them with a hypothetical game against U of M where we were down by 7 in the last couple of minutes in the fourth quarter and we made the touchdown. The suspense portion would be whether or not Coach sends the kicker on to tie the game sending it into overtime or if they choose to run a two point conversion play with the possibility of losing the ball to U of M.

·         What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

o   My class is deeply struggling with developing well thought out written responses. They are able to generate meaningful discussion but they do not see the connection between the concepts that they discuss with their groups directly relate to the prompts that they are writing about in their journals. I will need to find a way to help them bridge this gap of disconnect between discussion and writing.