Warman--GLT Reflection

The lessons that I have planned and implemented have gone in the direction that I wanted them to. After being able to implement my own lessons, I have found a few areas that I would like to work on. The first lesson that I taught was the introduction piece to the hero cycle or home-away-home structure. I used "Where the Wild Things Are" for this introduction. As a class we first went over the hero cycle chart which included the main character, the main character going into the wild, facing some type of challenge, solving that challenge, and then coming home changed. I read through the book pretty quickly at first because most of the students have read this book. I told them to pay close attention to who the main character was and what his events in the story were so that we could fill out the chart after doing an activity. I talked with four students on the Friday before the lesson about performing a short skit as I read the story for a second time. All four of these students were excited and enthusiastic about doing this. After quickly reading the book to the class, I asked these students to come help me perform the events to the class. As I read the book again and the four students acted it out, every other student was attentive. I think that the use of the other students in this book worked really well, especially because this is a book that most of them know. Because this was new, something that the students have never done in this class, it brought in the whole class' attention which allowed for a great following discussion. This is something that I would definitely incorporate again if there was the opportunity. For the next few days I had the students asking me if we were going to act it out and if they could be a part of it. Another component of my lesson that was new to my students is the fact that I used pictures to go with each heading of our chart. This drew in a lot of the students' attention. Because of this I made pictures for the next day as well. I like the idea of incorporating text and illustration when possible because some students learn better when they see pictures.

My second lesson went well, except for some classroom behaviors. I opened my second lesson by having the students look at the previous day's chart. We talked about how we knew that Max was the main character. I'm glad that I asked this question because many of the students applied the idea that we saw him in almost all of the pages to the book we read this day ("Two Bad Ants"). Chris Van Allsburg shows instead of tells in his writing. Because of this I wanted to make sure that my students understood that when he said the ants were climbing a mountain he really meant they were really climbing the wall as well as all of the other places that the ants go. Because of this we stopped often to make sure that everyone understood because there are many students who would take what I read literally. My MT allows the students to have a stuffed animal on their lap during reading. However, they are always playing with them, playing with each other's, fighting with them, etc. This happened during my lesson this day. It was a complete distraction to some students including me. There were several times where I had to stop and tell students to put away the stuffed animal or to just hold it on their lap. I decided that the next day I was going to just take the stuffed animals away because not only is it a distraction to some students, but also to me. I realized this day that I need to figure out when I can tolerate certain behavior, and when I need to put an end to it. I decided that for now, stuffed animals were just going to be eliminated so I could focus on teaching the students since they don't even get used properly when my MT is teaching.

My third day of GLT went very well. I passed out a paper to the students. I explained that they were going to have two minutes to write down as many patterns as they possibly could about the two charts or the two books that we had read the day before. They were also to say what structure these two authors used while writing their stories. I gave the students two minutes. This was enough for some, but for others this was not enough to start actually writing. If I were to do this over again, I would give the students one minute to think and then give them two minutes to write about what they were thinking. We quickly went over the two charts that we had completed. I told the students that they all had a very important job--they were all going to make their own chart about the book we were about to read. The students were quite attentive at this point. I stopped at a few vocabulary words in this book just as I had the two days before. I found it easier to stop during the book so that they had the word in context at that moment. I made sure to use different voices for each of the snakes in order to keep the students' attention. After reading the book, I asked the students who the main character was. They could all agree on Verdi. I gave the students their own chart laid out in the way that our past two were laid out. The students were told to put the headings on the left side, and fill in what goes with each heading on the right side. Most all of the students were able to do this. I left the two charts up in the back of the room. There were a few students who used this as a guideline which was great. Some of them had trouble with identifying how the main character solved the problem that they had stated. They would write a challenge and then write how they solved a different challenge. I decided that i would go over this at the start of the next lesson.

Hamelink GLT Reflection

Overall, my lessons went well. In the first lesson I talked to the kids about how good readers think while they read and introduced connections. We talked about text to self connections and how they help us to comprehend what is going on in the text. I shared a text to self connection I made with a book that we had read as a class before. I then told them that their job was to make a text to self with one of the characters in the book I was going to read to them. As I read, we stopped to talk about the 4 different characters and their personalities and how they could maybe connect with them. At the end, I talked again about the 4 different characters and their personalities and asked if everyone had a connection in thier mind with one of them. a couple students raised their hand that they did not make a connection. One of them had shared with me a connection at one of the points that we stopped at so I reminded her that she had already made a text to self connection and told her what it was. I sent the other children back with sticky notes to write their connections and sat with the other boy who did not make a connection. We looked back through the book and then he came up with one. All students were able to make a connection and relate to a character in the book. The biggest limitation of this lesson was that I did not stress enough why it was important for us to make connections and how it helps us to comprehend better. But, I did think it was a good starter lesson.

The second lesson went even better than the first. We talked about text to text connections and read the Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. Right away, students had connections because they were all familiar with the original story. This gave me more room to explain to them how it helped them to understand this story. From what I could gain from their reactions and shares, they really began to understand it. Students then lined up to share their connections with a partner and moved so they shared with a total of 3 people. We then came back together and talked about it some more. A huge part of what made that lesson a success was that I chose a book that even from just reading the title. Students could make connections with. These obvious connections helped the students to see how they can easily connect books and I hope it helps them to get in the practice of automatically making connections in their other readings.

The third lesson we talked about text to world and I was a little more nervous about this because they are typically harder to make. I used Tree of Cranes by Allen Say and was surprised that students right way raised their hand to share (when we got to the tree page) that they were talking about Christmas. That opened up for a nice conversation about how if we didn’t know about Christmas then they would not have understood or comprehended what the characters in the book were talking about. Students were also talking about the other types of connections they were making with the book. It turned out to be a really nice lesson!

Not all students have been making connections in their journal writing like they are supposed to. I write back to all journal entries and reminded them that they need to be practicing making connections. They are going to be doing it again this week so I will be more of a stickler about it and give them back if they are not doing it now. I am also finding that going around and conferencing with students is easier said than done. I also have a guided reading group that I lead during this time and we are typically short on time anyway because my lessons are taking longer than planned.

Things I will work on this week are conferencing more, especially with students who seem to be struggling with connections. I will also try to watch the clock closer to make sure that we are not taking forever. While the lessons are taking up time because we have been having good conversation, I also need to leave time for silent reading and guided reading. This week is also group work and project time so that should really be interesting as students start to apply the concepts we have been talking about!

Big Ideas of the Readings

I chose to read chapter ten from Strategies that Work as my first chapter. The big idea of this chapter was about using nonfiction in the classroom. In the first page of this chapter there was a sentence that I thought was great to know for using nonfiction: "We remember facts and details better when we link them to larger concepts" (page 155). I think that this method was not used a lot when I was in elementary school because I remember having to read chapters out of a text book and then we would go over what we read. It was very boring and I usually would not remember it. Nowadays we know about such methods as connecting text to self or text to text and text to the world. When reading nonfiction it is important to let students what to look for in the article/text book. Instead of just giving them a book to read for facts they need to have a purpose for reading that text. Having the students focus on a particular aspect of the nonfiction text will help them get more information and retain it. When my students do their weekly reader (with a Scholastic magazine or something like that) we always focus on one part of the magazine. They have looked at the titles, bolded words, and this week we are focusing on why authors may change the color of the text to catch the readers attention. In third grade it is important to teach the students on how to read nonfiction text rather than have them read it, that way when they continue their education and get more into reading nonfiction than fiction they will have a better idea on how to study for exams and how to gain as much information as they can out of what they are reading.

The other chapter that I chose to read was chapter 14 of Strategies that Work. I thought that it would go along well with chapter 10, which was all about nonfiction. Almost every student that I knew in high school hated reading out of a textbook. When I got into college nothing changed. I still did not like it and I think it is because no one ever taught me how to read from a text book. I am a visual learner and so when I would read a text book I felt like I was not learning anything unless there was a picture by it. I tend to zone out when I read textbooks and often have had to go back and reread whole chapters because I had no idea what I had just read. When teaching a student how to read a textbook we are using their comprehension skills, so we do not want to overwhelm them with information otherwise they will become frustrated and not learn anything. Instead of trying to cover whole chapters it is important to just go through the chapters and pick out the information you want them to learn (page 236). This is a good time to teach students how to take notes and paraphrase information so it is easier to understand. It is also important to make sure that before the students go through the textbook that they know the special vocabulary that will take place in the chapter. Not only will that clear up confusion for them when they get to those words in the text but it may give them a heads up on what the lesson will be about, based on the vocabulary words. Learning how to read a textbook will be challenging for students, but it helps them with their fluency and comprehension skills that they can take with them all the way to college.

Sarah-Authentic Questioning

Question: In Strategies that Work, Harvey & Goudvis list several characteristics of ‘authentic questions’ (p. 124) that are typically open-ended and encourage divergent thinking. Pose one or more of your own authentic questions about ideas in today’s readings (sample units, or reading strategies) and share your initial thinking about how you would respond to them.

In Chapter nine of "Book Club Plus" there is a sample lesson demonstrated. They are introducing the book Roxaboxen. The suggest to preview the book by showing the cover and asking questions. I think that this would be a good place to have a discussion to help the students predict what will happen in the story. Looking at this cover and not really knowing what this book is about myself I would ask the students:

1. What do you think that these people are doing in this picture?
2. Why do you think that the main idea of the story is going to be?

Both of these questions "may require further research, have many answers, cause us to ponder or wonder, lead us to seek out further information, and are subject to discussion, debate, and conversation" (Harvey and Goudvis, p. 124).

Personally if I was asked these questions I would respond with the following. I think that this book is about a group of children who pretend to play a type of fighting game. It looks as if there are two different teams. There are possibly "good guys vs. bad guys." I think that the main idea about this book is going to be about children creating a game where there is good vs. evil, and good wins. This makes me think about when I would play kick the can or hide and seek in my backyard when I was little.

I think that while predicting a book by its cover it would allow the students to practice their questioning skills as well. This may be a good place to have the students come up with their own questions based on the cover. I think that it might also be interesting to see if the students can use their visualizing skills to figure out what the story is saying before reading the words. I have never seen a lesson done i this way; have you? In my experience predicting and asking questions from a book's cover has worked well; can you think of any disadvantages it may have?

Kelli- Assessment Sites

Suggested Topic for Book Club Blog: In Book Club Plus!, the authors talk about “possible assessment sites” (p. 92) where teachers can gather formative and summative information about their students’ learning. Describe at least three assessment sites available in your classroom for learning about your students as literacy learners. What are the advantages and limitations of each site for providing information that is useful for deciding what the students need to learn next?

Because we have not been doing much literacy instruction in class, I have not been able to experience a lot of the examples that Book Club Plus describes. One thing we have been doing a lot of (I know everyone is…) is DRA assessments on students to see where they fall for guided reading groups. This would be considered a standardized test which we know there are many limitations too. For one thing, my MT always tells the students to read as quickly but as accurately as they can. This creates a high anxiety situation for a lot of our students because they struggle to read to begin with. We also have to time them for this assessment so the timer is sitting out and is a constant reminder that they are on the clock. The second limitation is see in this is that the students are limited to a couple books at their reading level and may not be interested in either. As we learned in 301, when students are not interested in what they are reading they are more likely to not comprehend. I see this a lot, especially with our lower level readers. When they are done reading the book they cannot answer the comprehension questions accurately at the end. One strength I see in this is the pre-reading strategy section that starts the assessment. I like that they students have time to look through the book to make predictions before they start reading. While this assessment tells us what level reader the student is and how well they can make meaning from a story, I don’t know how we are going to determine what we work on with each guided reading group.

The only other assessment site that is currently (sort of) functioning in our classroom is reading logs. The students have to fill out their reading log each week which is basically just a list of the books they read, one thing about each book, and a rating scale where they rate their silent reading effort for the week. We collect them on Fridays and then go through and give them a rating from us and send them home. One strength in this is reading through them and seeing who is putting in the effort to write something about each book they read. While most students basically write one or two words, some go beyond that and dig deeper. The downfall of that is these are the few students who are already functioning at a higher level than the rest of the students. I feel that this log isn’t used to its fully potential because we have students who write the bare minimum and then you cant even tell if they are reading the books. This assessment site only gives me information on the higher level students but still doesn’t really tell me what we could work on with them.

I am so anxious to get all of these other assessment sites running in our classroom. I want to see students reading and writing all throughout the day and then I feel I would be able to get a better idea of who needs to work on what. For example, a huge struggle in my class is writing. Every time we do MEAP practice, it is like pulling teeth to get the students to explain their ideas in writing. This usually ends with one of our two Asperger’s boys in tears and multiple other students staying in for recess because they cannot get it done. To me, this leaves students feeling terrible about their writing abilities. I want to tailor our literacy classroom around being supportive and working on students individual needs… Not what the state thinks our students need. It is all very frustrating to me!

I am interested to read about what types of assessment sites your classrooms are using and how they are working out so I can get a better idea of what I want to do and what I don’t want to do with my unit plan!