Inquiry 2 Part A Hammer

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

o   My target area is writing. I will be mainly focusing on strengthening my students as writers by having them create a lot of their own compositions.

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

o   About 15-20 minutes is allotted per day for a mini-lesson of writing and then the students are set off to write for about 30-40 minutes. However, there may be some days that the lesson will range from 20-40 minutes and then another 30-40 minutes allowed for individual writing.

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

o   The standards I will work towards are writing standards that have to do with the different pieces of writing that my students will be working on.

•  CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

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?

o   Teaching in this area will provide so many opportunities for student learning. They will strengthen themselves as writers, they will begin the brainstorming/planning process, they will be exploring different styles of writing such as narrative, informational, opinion, and ‘how to’ pieces. In relation to their lives, they will be able to tell stories and write about prompts that relate to their life. For example, a writing prompt could be “Think of a time when you were happy. Tell us this story in words.” This is a very general prompt- thinking of a time when they are happy could be as simple as when it was their birthday or when they won a football game, or it could be along the lines of when my mom had a new baby sister or when I get to see my dad. The prompts and topics that they will be writing about will be planned ahead of time. This learning includes learning literacy because they might be asked to tell me their idea before writing it and then they have to be able to read their writing. We might also do a lesson where they will have partners and switch their work with their partner so that they can read each others work and/or read their work out loud to each other. This will get them to see all the areas of literacy.

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)?

o   The type of classroom talk that will take place are students sharing their work and sharing their ideas. They can talk about spelling, big words to use, and they can work together as a class to come up with topics. The higher-level thinking that will occur will be the vocabulary used, the editing, the meaningful stories written, etc. The norms I expecte to see for interaction within my target area are when they are working individually, I expect it to be quiet except for students asking the teachers questions. Students are to be in their own bubble space and they are to be thinking and working on writing. During lesson time, they are to be focused on the teacher, keeping their hands free unless they are told to do something, and keep their listening ears on. During group discussions, they are expected to listen to each others ideas, each others stories, and respect what the people are saying.

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?

o   The core practice I want to work on developing/improving as I teach in this target is having conferences with my studnets about their writing to really help them grow and mature as writers. A lot of the time they can tell me story after story and are so detailed, but their great story-telling abilities isn’t necessarily translating to paper. I would also like to foster meaningful revision strategies because I feel as if this is important to become a better writer. Focusing on these things will help me contribute to my own professional learning because I will be able to see what goes well and if these are important things that I should be focusing on and how I can improve or change it for the next time I teach a similar lesson.

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

o   The resources I have within the school and the classroom are everything that my teacher has to offer me. She has already given me lots of books that have sample worksheets, sample writing topics, some good writing skills that they can use, etc. I can also ask any other teachers in the school if they have anything to help me with. As far as the community and the neighborhood go, I can ask my students what they are interested in so that I can come up with some topics for them to write about.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

o   I need to obtain some good writing prompts/topics to write about and some brainstorming graphic organizers to use for them to start brainstorming/planning before their writing.

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

o   I will pre-assess them by looking at their DWA samples that they did for our class and also have them try one of the writing samples I am going to have them do without teaching them a lesson about it first.

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?

o   I will need to find out about what their prior knowledge is with brainstorming and what they have done with this in the past. I will also need to find out some of their interests so that I can chose topics that they will be interested in writing about. I also want to find out how they feel about their writing. I want to do a sort of “self evaluation” of some sort to understand how they feel about writing and how they feel about their own writing.

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

o   I want to read more about some of the standards from the previous grade that they are expected to know about already so that I know what they should already know and I also want to learn about what they will be doing in 3^rd grade so that I can start to challenge some of the students who have shown me are high in writing.

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

o   I am only concerned with making sense to the students and being able to teach them enough information so that they can meet their goals and that they can accomplish what they need to accomplish and are learning what they are expected to learn. I know this may not happen for every single student, but for the most part I want to be able to teach them as much as I can!