Wednesday, September 26, 2012

12 questions


1.    Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.
Vocabulary Development, this will include expanding their vocabulary as well as give them the strategies needed for using context clues to determine the definition of an unknown word.
2.    Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?
40 minutes
3.    Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?
Reading Standards for Literature 4th grade – 4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean).
Reading Standards for Informational Text 4th grade – 4. Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.
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 expand the students vocabularies which will in turn allow them to more easily comprehend what they are reading when the focus words are used.
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)?
Teacher-led: English instruction - Using context clues to find the meaning of a word, Spelling lists, One on one interaction: when a student needs to know the meaning of a word
Student-led: Sharing new words while presenting to the class.
I would like students to regularly share new terms they learned with the class and have them think about and analyze the text before asking the meaning of a word.
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?
Vocabulary Acquisition, Use and Assessment
I hope this will help me understand more about literacy since I am lacking in that area.
7.    What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?
Words are everywhere so the students will be able to develop their skills in and outside of school and bring in subjects to discuss in class.
8.    What additional resources do you need to obtain?
A list of fourth grade level words, information about strategies to pick up on context clues.
9.    How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?
Have them identify meanings of certain words given a descriptive sentence containing the word.
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?
Their vocabulary levels and decoding skills.
11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?
I need to learn everything about the core practice.
12.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?
I will most likely be teaching this to a group of students who may not all be in my class regularly because reading groups are based on ability, so I will not know the students as well. 

3 comments:

  1. number four needs a little more explanation. is the purpose to know the vocab words for a future reading?
    what strategies will you use in the lessons when it is your time to teach? student led, teacher led, or one on one.
    so your just focusing on the vocabulary words. do you actually use them eventually in a story? are they connected to a larger theme?
    number 7 is a great opportunity to go outside and read in the community. A walk around the school to find words would be cool. you could even plant some of their vocab words in places.
    number 12 makes me feel like your students are in and out of the ability group. are they in concrete groups or do they bounce from low to high?

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  2. Alison, you have chosen a very important core practice that will help them in reading, writing and speaking. Determining their vocabulary skill levels may be difficult this early in the year, but using their reading levels and analyzing their writing will help. Check out the resources listed on the Core Practice page. If you still have questions or feel you need more ideas, I will be happy to help.

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  3. Hey Alison, Our reading this week from Strategies that Work could be helpful for planning your unit because it talks about background knowledge, Text-to-Self Connections, and Noticing and Thinking about New Learning. Text-to-Self Connections is relating characters to us, and this could help the students know what is expected of them while they are reading. Noticing and Thinking about New Learning is where the students write down something that they just learned/read, they will be more likely to remember it and make connections later. The Distracting Connections section could help as well, it is important for the students to know that anyone can be distracted by reading and when that happens they need to find ways to focus and read and re-read everything comprehensively.
    I like the fact that your lesson focuses on vocabulary in informational text is very interesting. The section from the reading about distracting connections. Informational texts can be hard for children to focus on so teaching strategies to re-focus and comprehend.

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