Kaitlin's Mini-Lesson Plan and Reflection

Vocabulary Mini-Lesson

Name: Kaitlin Helstrom

Grade: 1^st

Date: April 11, 2011

Mini-Lesson Topic: Vocabulary

GLCE: R.WS.01.10 In context, determine the meaning of words and phrases including objects, actions, concepts, content vocabulary, and literary terms, using strategies and resources including context clues, mental pictures, and questioning.

Instructional Objective (performance, criteria, conditions): Students will be able to identify 3-5 new words using context clues in the book

Materials needed: Corduroy by Don Freeman

Vocabulary words:

• carefully – preventing mistakes or accidents
• toppled – to fall over
• dashing – to move suddenly or speedily
• enormous – huge, extraordinarily large
• fastened – to attach or join

Connection	“Has anyone ever been reading a story and not known what a word means?” “Today, I’m going to teach you how to use context clues, or words in the same sentence around the unknown word, to figure out the meaning of that word.”
Teach Mentor Text: Corduroy by Don Freeman Anchor chart: (Poster with steps for how to use context clues to find the meaning of an unknown word posted on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom) Step 1: Read the whole sentence. Step 2: Re-read the sentence and skip over the word. Step 3: Look at the words around the word. Step 4: Put different words in the place of the word to help find its meaning.	“Today, I’m going to show you how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of a word using the book Corduroy by Don Freeman.” “The first vocabulary word is ‘carefully.’  The sentence the word is in is: ‘Late that evening, when all the shoppers had gone and the doors were shut and locked, Corduroy climbed carefully down from his shelf and began searching everywhere on the floor for his lost button’ (Freeman, 10-11).  Using the chart on the whiteboard at the front of the room, we just did step 1: read the whole sentence.  Step 2 says to re-read the sentence, but this time, skip over the word and read the rest of the sentence: ‘Late that evening, when all the shoppers had gone and the doors were shut and locked, Corduroy climbed down from his shelf and began searching everywhere on the floor for his lost button.’  The sentence still makes sense without the word ‘carefully,’ so we know that it is describing how Corduroy climbed down from his shelf, which is step 3 on our chart.  Let’s try to substitute the word cautiously, which is step 4, or substituting words for the word we are unsure of to see if the new words makes sense in the sentence.  Corduroy should be cautious when climbing down from his shelf because he is a little, fragile bear and doesn’t want to get hurt.  Let’s see if that substitution makes sense: ‘Late that evening, when all the shoppers had gone and the doors were shut and locked, Corduroy climbed cautiously down from his shelf and began searching everywhere on the floor for his lost button. ‘ Does that sentence make sense?  When we inserted the word ‘cautiously’ into the sentence where the word ‘carefully’ was, it still made sense, so it is the meaning of the word ‘carefully’ must be similar to the meaning of the word ‘cautious.’  The meaning of the word ‘carefully’ is ‘preventing mistakes or accidents,’ which is the same meaning as the word ‘cautiously’ as well.”
Active Engagement Pair and share	“Now it’s your turn to try using context clues within the story to find a new word’s meaning.  We have four vocabulary words left in the story: toppled, dashing, enormous, and fastened.  I am going to give you a worksheet with both the word and the sentence within the story that the word was in, and I want you to turn to a partner and try to figure the meaning using both context clues and the chart on the whiteboard at the front of the room with the steps for how to use context clues to find the meaning of an unknown word.” Worksheet with words and the sentence that they are in within Corduroy: toppled (p. 18-19) – “He yanked and pulled with both paws until POP!  Off came the button—and off the mattress Corduroy toppled, bang into a tall floor lamp.” dashing (p. 20) – “When he heard the crash he came dashing down the escalator.” enormous (p. 30) – “The room was small, nothing like that enormous palace in the department store.” fastened (p. 31) – “’I like you the way you are,’ she said, ‘but you’ll be more comfortable with your shoulder strap fastened.’” Next to the words and the definitions on the worksheet, there will be a blank for students to write the definition of the word.
Link	“Today, I taught you how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of a word you are unsure of while reading a book on your own.” “When you go off to read today and every time you read, if you have difficulty with a word and are unsure of its meaning, try to use context clues first and refer to the context clues chart if you forget the steps before asking an adult what the word means or looking it up in a dictionary.”
Independent reading time Individual conferences with students who struggle to read	Students to conference with: Craig, Charleston, Nevaeh, Niveah, and Jayden (These students have reading levels lower than grade level, and some cannot read at all.) Vinnie, Erika, Diana, Zoe, and Quincy (These students have reading levels higher than grade level.) Possible future teaching points: Each of the students have their own individual reading bins with around ten books at their reading level.  Each month, when the students’ reading level is evaluated, the books in their bins either change or stay the same depending on if their reading level has changed.  For those students who struggle with reading or those students who have reading levels higher than grade level, I will emphasize vocabulary words at their grade level of reading in order to provide examples that they can relate to by utilizing the books within their book bins in their individual conferences.
Sharing Whole class discussion	All the students in the classroom will participate in a whole class discussion regarding their pair and share.  The pairs will share on a volunteer basis, and the rest of the class will state if they had the same answers or different answers.  If their answers are different, they will share their answers.

Mini-Lesson Reflection

 Teaching a vocabulary mini-lesson showed me how much my students truly don't understand the concept of vocabulary.  My CT focuses on vocabulary solely through spelling tests, which are administered once a week.  They have 8 words and 2 bonus words, and when administering the tests, she states the word, says the word in a sentence, and repeats the word again.  Therefore, I thought that my students would somewhat understand context clues, specifically because giving the word in a sentence to help students understand its meaning is what context clues are.

I took the students out into the hallway, and chose to work with 6 students.  I chose 2 students that are considered to be strong readers, or those that read above grade level, 2 students that are at grade level, and 2 students that are considered to be struggling readers, or those that read below grade level.  When I read the story and re-read it a second time stopping at the first vocabulary word in order to provide them with an example of using context clues to help find the meaning of the word, the students were responsive and seemed to understand the concept.  However, when I asked students to do the same thing by themselves with the second word, they all stared at me with blank stares.  I modeled the second word, and ended up having to continue throughout the mini-lesson by providing feedback for each word individually.  Therefore, the pair and share activity didn't end up working out either.

I think that as students move forward in their learning, they will learn more about finding the meaning of words by using context clues when they are unsure of its definition.  Now, when a student is unsure of a word's meaning, they ask my CT, who simply responds with the word's definition.  Most of my students are most likely unsure of how to use a dictionary, mostly because of their age and reading levels, however, using context clues shouldn't have been as difficult of a task as it was for them.  I am glad that using context clues are exemplified in spelling tests by reading a sentence to the students with the spelling word in it, but I don't think that this benefits my students in the way that it should.  I assumed that because students were being read sentences in this way during spelling tests, they already understood how to use context clues within a story to determine the meaning of a word.  I think that more mini-lessons should be delivered concerning this topic, therefore, constantly asking my CT the meaning of words during Read-to-Self time would decrease, and students would utilize the given sentence during their spelling tests to help determine the words' meanings if they are unsure of the word.  I think that this topic is crucial to both fluency and reading comprehension, and should be something that students start to learn at a young age.

All in all, my lesson went as planned with additional help that I wasn't expecting, and the elimination of the pair-and-share activity, which was simply done as a whole group.  I think that the students responded well to the idea of the lesson when they were provided with additional scaffolding, but it was hard to teach a topic that the students were unsure about and not as confident in their abilities to complete the given task.  I think that without the additional scaffolding, the students would have been frustrated and unable to complete the lesson.  In addition, because of this reaction to my mini-lesson, I need to think of more ways in which to deliver a mini-lesson on finding the meaning of unknown words using context clues within stories in order to help my students fully grasp the concept both now and if future students I may have are struggling with the concept as well.

Jenn's Mini-Lesson Plan and Reflection

Reading/Writing Mini-Lesson Plan

Mini-Lesson Topic: Finding the Problem and Solution in a text

Instructional Objective (performance, criteria, conditions): Students will demonstrate their understanding of how to find the problem and solution in a text by finding and recording at least two problems and solutions from their assigned portion of James and the Giant Peach during the time in which they are reading independently.

Materials needed: Class set of James in the Giant Peach, sheet of paper to create anchor chart, worksheet to record problem and solutions

Connection	In the past several weeks… you have spent some time working on finding and recording the problems and solutions you come across while you are reading a text. Today, I’m going to teach you… some specific strategies that will help you to know that you have found a problem or a solution while you are reading a text.
Teach Mentor Text: James and the Giant Peach Anchor chart: Student generated list of the different ways that a reader could know that a problem has been stated, or that a solution has been described in the text that they are reading.	Today, I’m going to show you how…you will know that you have found a problem or a solution while reading. Using…James and the Giant Peach, a text that the majority of you are familiar with, I am going to read a few paragraphs out loud and I want you to listen quietly for a problem or solution. If you hear a problem or a solution I want you to remain quiet and simply give me a thumbs up. We are going to record all of the problems and solutions that we find, and then create a chart that will help us to know whether or not we have found a problem and solution in our future reading.
Active Engagement (Turn and talk to partner, then share with the group)	Now it’s your turn to try…I am going to give each one of you a different portion of James and the Giant Peach to read. I want you each to record all of the problems and solutions that you encounter while reading. After 5 minutes, everyone is going to share the problems and solutions that they found while reading with their elbow buddy, and then share what they found with the group as a whole.
Link	Today, I taught you how to…know that you have found a problem or a solution in a text that you are reading. When you read independently today and every time that you read in the future, you’re going to…stop and think about what you have read and determine whether you found any problems or solutions. You can either think about the problems and solutions in your head, or record the problems and solutions you come across on a sheet of paper.
Independent reading time -Book Box time	Students to Conference with: During the time in which students are reading from their book box, I will ask any student who didn’t contribute much during the mini lesson to read to me and share any problems or solutions that they encountered. Possible future teaching points: One possible teaching point for the future may include discussing what to do when more than one solution is discussed in a text. Students may know that they have read several solutions, but they may need help determining what the actual solution is in some cases. Another possible teaching point may include working on helping students to include problems and solutions in their own writing. Adding problems and solutions to their own writing will help to make their writing more exciting.
Sharing	Students to share: Each student will share the problems and solutions that they found while reading their assigned portion of James and the Giant Peach with the whole group following their sharing with their elbow buddy. During independent reading time, or book box time students can share the problems and solutions that they found when I ask them to read to me. They can also share the problems and solutions they found by recording them on a piece of paper and letting me see their piece of paper. Focus: The focus of the sharing is for me to see that the students know when they have found a problem or a solution in a text. I can also see whether the students found the chart we created helpful in finding the problems and solutions in a text or not. (If the chart was helpful, I may ask my CT to post a copy on a wall in the classroom). The student’s sharing will help me to determine what I should focus on in teaching them about finding the problems and solutions in a text in the future.

Reflection:

Teaching my mini-lesson showed me that teaching students how to find the problem and solution in a text is an extremely difficult task. My CT has been working on helping her student’s master this skill for the majority of the time since the students have returned from Christmas break, as this skill is something that the students will need to do on a certain assessment they have in 4^th grade. I just didn’t realize how difficult it is to teach, nor how difficult it is for students to understand how to find the problems and solutions in a text until carrying out my mini lesson. Teaching my lesson was very frustrating because it was obvious to me that the students did not learn anything from the ‘teach’ part of my lesson.

My CT set up three different stations during the time that I taught my lesson, at one station my CT did grammar with the students, at another the students did a visualization mini-lesson with Miss Kusler, and then students worked on finding the problems and solutions in ‘James and the Giant Peach’ with me. Therefore, I taught my mini-lesson three different times to three different groups of students. I used ‘James and the Giant Peach’ for my mini-lesson because the students were familiar with this text from having read it last semester. I felt confident in the beginning of the first time around of teaching my mini-lesson, because when I asked the students what problems and solutions were they provided good answers that showed me that they understood the terms. I then began reading a few pages of ‘James and the Giant Peach’ out loud and asking the students to raise their hand if they heard a problem or a solution. I think that one, maybe two people from each group of 6-8 students that I taught my mini lesson to actually raised their hand and recognized a correct problem or solution while I was reading. Then, I asked the students to read a select number of pages of the book on their own and record the problems and solutions they found. After the first group went through this step I knew it was not a good lesson. The students either didn’t find any problems or solutions at all, or they wrote down things that were not problems or solutions. I tried to change what I did for the second group and spend more time reading and finding problems and solutions together, but that didn’t really seem to help either.

I think that it is very difficult to teach students to really know what things are considered problems and solutions in a text and also to teach them to find them on their own. However, it is an important thing for students to be able to do. I know from the student work that I have that the students didn’t gain anything from my lesson, but I can think of several ways that I could improve my lesson. I think that one of the things that could have improved the lesson was not using a chapter book like ‘James and the Giant Peach,’ rather using a picture book instead because the large amount of text made it boring for the students and a book with less texts wouldn’t be so unbearable to read and search for problems and solutions. Another thing I could have done was spent more time with instruction on what exactly a problem or solution is and different strategies for finding a problem or solution. The students let me know that they understand the terms problem and solution from when I asked them at the beginning of the mini lesson, they just proved that they didn’t really understand what things were considered a problem or solution in the text. I will continue to think and search for other ideas on how to teach this concept to students, so I can have more successful lessons on finding the problems and solutions in a text in the future.

Heather's Mini Lesson Plan and Reflection

Lesson Plan

Reading/Writing Mini-Lesson Template

Mini-Lesson Topic: Fluency: Reading with Prosody

Instructional Objective: Students will be able to read a passage from Charlotte’s Web, and will show understanding and correct reading of frequency words and prosody, by reading the passage out loud. 

Materials needed: Copy of Charlotte’s Web, copies of various passages from the book

Connection	Yesterday we learned about… Quotation marks and their meaning. When an author uses quotation marks in their writing, it means that a person is speaking. Today, I’m going to teach you about/how to… Read out loud, using vocal cues for different speakers and how to use punctuation marks to read sentences differently. I am also going to teach you that the word dialogue means when people speak, which is shown with a sentence surrounded by quotation marks.
Teach Mentor Text: Charlotte’s Web Anchor Chart: Show an example of a dialogue sentence, such as: The boy said, “I want some ice cream.”	Today, I’m going to show you how… To read out loud and be able to show, with your voice, how to read dialogue, dialogue between two characters, and narration in a book. Using… Quotation marks and punctuation as your cues.
Active Engagement Turn and talk to partner	Now it’s your turn to try… Reading with correct prosody. I will have students work with a partner, and they will practice reading passages from Charlotte’s Web, using the techniques that we discussed together. I will expect to hear students speaking with various intonation and pitch to their voice, to model different character’s voices.
Link	Today, I taught you how to… Read using prosody and intonation while reading dialogue in a book. I also taught you that dialogue is when a character speaks in a book, and how you can find that during your reading. When you go off to read today and every time you read, you’re going to… Read using different voices for each character, and the narration in the book. You will also know when each character stops talking and when the narration takes over.
Independent reading time (Individual Assessment)	Students to conference with: Craig, Anthony, Domingo, Charleston, Vinnie, Da’Chi, Zoe, Quincy, Neveah, Erika Possible future teaching points: Students will be given time to read to themselves out loud and I will be sitting by each student, listening to them read out loud. I will try to read a sentence or two while the students are reading to me so that they can be reminded what correct prosody should sound like.
Sharing (Individual)	Students to share: I will ask all 10 students that I am working with to read a few sentences out loud to the group. When a student is sharing, I will ask the rest of the group to  listen and give them their full attention while they are reading. Focus: My focus here will be to have each student listen to each other’s reading and practice correct reading techniques themselves.

Reflection:

When I taught my mini lesson, my CT wanted me to take a group of students out into the hallway, instead of teaching to the whole class. When I picked my students, I selected a few low, middle and high reading level students so that I could get a diverse group of learners. The reason I chose fluency and prosody as my focus was because I found that when I read with my students independently, many of them did not recognize speaking and quotations while they read out loud to me.

When I began the lesson, I had the students sit in a circle, on the floor, so that everyone could see and hear each other. I began by telling them that we were going to practice reading with quotations, since they had been learning about quotation marks the past few days. I asked the group if anyone could tell me what quotation marks meant, and two students explained to me that they show you when people talk, which was a good start to my lesson. From there, I read a few sentences of Charlotte's Web out loud, but I asked my students to pay close attention to my reading because they were going to tell me which group of sentences sounded better. I read the first group of sentences with incorrect or no prosody and read the second group of sentences with prosody. When I was finished reading, the students told me that the second group of sentences sounded better, and I asked them why it sounded better. One student told me that when I was "using voices, you could tell when people were talking," and another student told me that it "made him listen to me more."

From there, I passed out copies of pages from Charlotte's Web and we practiced, as a group, reading out loud with prosody. During this time, I noticed that a few of my lower level readers had a hard time concentrating on prosody because they were unfamiliar with most of the words that we were reading, so they were reading behind the rest of the group. I decided that we would read the same two sentences a couple of times so that everyone was able to become familiar with the words. I found that the rest of my students caught on to reading with correct prosody after the second or third time that we read the sentence.

After we read these a few times, I allowed my students to partner up or read independently so that they could practice reading with prosody themselves. I found that my lower level readers chose to partner up and my higher level readers chose to read independently. I thought that this was great because my lower level readers were able to help each other with sounding out unfamiliar words and read together. As I listened to each group, I found that they were doing pretty well. At first it took some students a few tries before they were reading correctly, but I did not really have to help anyone during this independent reading time.

I gave the students 7 minutes to read to themselves, and then stopped them so that they could share what they had learned. I asked the group if they wanted to read out loud by themselves to the rest of the group (to see if everyone was comfortable with it) and all of the students said that they would feel comfortable reading out loud. I began by reading few sentences, and we went around the circle and I asked each student to read three or four sentences, whichever they were comfortable with. It was great to see the students reading, and reading with correct prosody! I think that all of the students enjoyed listening to each other read, which was great because they normally do not get the chance to read to each other. Overall, I think that my mini lesson went very well, but if I could change one major thing, I would have liked to teach this to the entire class, instead of a group, so that all of the students could benefit from this lesson. If I had more time, I probably could have taken other groups of students out into the classroom and taught the same lesson, to accomodate my CT.

Vocabulary

In my placement, vocabulary isn't really directly used.  In previous placements, I've seen some of the Dolch sight words posted throughout the classroom, and the majority of students in that classroom know most of the words.  In my placement for TE 301, my CT had the Dolch words posted throughout the classroom, and each week, she focused on a specific 6 words that the students learned and identified with through writing them down, learning their meaning, and learning how to use them in a sentence.  In my placement now, the only words posted throughout the room are a few words on the chalkboard on the back of the room, and they're referenced when students ask how to spell words during writing time.  Another time when students use words is when they are learning their spelling words each week, however, my CT simply posts the words on the whiteboard until the test the following week.

I think that vocabulary is essential to students' learning, and posting the Dolch words throughout the classroom in my previous placement was definitely beneficial to the students.  Many students struggle with reading and reading comprehension in my placement classroom now, and being able to identify with sight words and their meaning may help their reading and reading comprehension abilities.  Throughout reading time, students in my placement consistently point to words in their books and ask my CT what they are.  Instead of asking them to sound it out, or providing them with a meaning, she simply tells them the word.  I think that providing students with a meaning or helping them to sound it out would help them retain the word for whenever they see it again, which is why I disagree with simply telling the students the word when they point to it in their book.

Vocabulary needs to be better integrated into my CT's curriculum, especially because I don't think students in my placement classroom would know how to respond to "What does _______ mean?" or "What is the definition of _______?"  Even if it's something as simple as posting Dolch words throughout the classroom, implementing a few words a week into the students' vocabulary, or telling the students the meaning of the words when they ask what a word is while reading a book, expanding students' vocabulary would be possible with a few easy changes throughout spelling, reading, and writing time.

Implementing vocabulary throughout subjects that aren't related to literacy is also beneficial.  Even in math class, where vocabulary doesn't seem relevant, defining words that students may not know in the directions at the top of the worksheet or a word that is within a story problem that may be unfamiliar builds vocabulary as well.   I think that small implementations of vocabulary into my CT's curriculum will be extremely beneficial to the students throughout all subjects.

Fluency and Mini Lesson

When thinking about fluency, I think the approach that is most effective for assessing accuracy, reading speed and prosody is a running record. A running record is when teachers calculate the percentage of words the student reads correctly and then analyzes the errors (Thompson, page 86). I think that this method is most effective because you can assess students on multiple components of literacy, with just one reading. I have seen and administered DIBELS testing in my current placement classroom and past placement classrooms, and I think that they are a very quick and accurate way to assess them in fluency.

In my current field placement, I have only seen my CT administer this test a few times, but it was helpful to see what the students were struggling with during their reading. DIBELS testing allows you to get very clear and accurate results, so you know immediately after the test how many words the student got right or wrong, if they corrected themselves, and if they did correct themselves, how they corrected their error. The test is also timed, so it also allows you to see how many words per minute the student is capable of reading.

When I read independently with my students, I have definitely seen a large improvement in all of their fluency since the beginning of the year. Since they are becoming more advanced readers, most of my students have moved on to reading chapter books, which is difficult for some of them. Most students are also able to read first grade high frequency words without any struggle, but some students still lack the skills and confidence of sounding out words that are unfamiliar to them. This has a strong impact on their fluency because when they come to an unknown word, it takes some students almost a minute or two to figure out the word. I think that if my students had more practice with sounding out words and putting the sounds together, they would be able to improve on their word recognition, which in turn, would improve their fluency.

For my mini lesson, I will use passages on pages 14-17 of Bud Not Buddy. I chose a small passage in this book because this passage contains a lot of dialogue, which first graders should be able to recognize and read correctly, when read out loud. I think that most of the content is way too advanced for first graders, but with help, they should be able to sound out any words that they are unfamiliar with.

Objective: Students will be able to read pages 14-17 of the book, Bud Not Buddy, and will show understanding and correct reading of frequency words and prosody, by reading the passage out loud.

Procedures:

Connect: Remind students of quotation marks and their meaning. Practice reading quoted phrases out loud as a class, to model correct inflection in the voice. I will also remind students that they can tell how to read the sentence by looking at the punctuation that comes at the end of the sentence.

Teach: Read the passage of Bud Not Buddy out loud to the class. As I read, I will remind students that when they read out loud, they can use different pitches of their voice to model the different characters in the book. I will remind students of the punctuation cues, and model correct and incorrect ways of saying a sentence and have students decide which one is correct.

Active Engagement: Students will model correct prosody with a partner by reading chunks of texts out loud to each other. I will assign certain passages to different groups so that each group is working on a different part of the text. Students will talk in pairs for two or three minutes and then I will ask the class to share what they have read.

Link: Have students return to their seats and write a few sentences of their own that can be read with emotion. I will ask the students to write three sentences, one that ends with a period, one that ends with an exclamation point, and one that ends with a question mark.

During Conferences: I will walk around the room and look for students who are writing sentences with the correct punctuation.

Share: I will have students volunteer to share their sentences and read them out loud to the class. Students will be expected to read with correct prosody and show understanding of different inflections for the three sentence types.

New Literacies Noteblog

Conceptual Understanding

My conceptual understanding of literacy has definitely changed a lot since the beginning of class. In the beginning of class, I did not really know what the definition of literacy was, or if it even differed from the meaning of language arts. I also didn’t know that there are several different kinds of literacies. I think that by diving into a specific literacy, of which I chose social literacy, allowed me to explore options and ideas that I could use in my classroom. I really learned a lot about social literacy because for one, I didn’t even know that it existed, and I could never image how I could use tools such as Facebook or Twitter in my classroom. Through my research, I found that I could use all social media tools that I use now for personal use, as powerful tools that myself, my students, and parents could use to be interactive in the classroom.

I also think that by selecting a new technology gave me the chance to explore tools that I haven’t ever used before. For example, I chose to use iMovie and Snapz, which I think worked very well for my project. I am familiar with iMovie, but I was not familiar with Snapz before I began working on this project. However, I think that trying a new technology and working with it is something that I will have to teach my students, so it is important for me to work with it and know how to use it first. You never know what could come up in your classroom, so this is another tool that I can keep in mind when planning technology rich lessons for my classroom.

Furthermore, I think that by looking and critiquing another student’s project was very helpful because not only did I learn about a different type of literacy, but I got to see and experience another new technology. I think that through this project, I have really expanded my ideas on both literacy and technology and how they can be easily intertwined to be used in my classroom.

Effective Literacy Instruction

I think that providing effective literacy instruction means to teach to all learners. Every person has a different learning style, so everyone learns things in a different way, whether it be visually, hands on, through listening, or even through speaking. As a teacher, I think that it is very important to recognize these different learning styles and to be aware of it in your classroom. If you figure out early in the year how each of your students learns, you will be able to plan lessons around those different learning styles, which will provide a successful lesson for everyone. I think that the different types of literacies can also tie into this because some students could benefit more from certain types of literacy, than other types. For example, a visual learner would benefit mostly from visual literacy because visual literacy is about what we see and how we process what we see. I think that as a teacher, the most beneficial thing to do in your classroom is incorporate all types of literacy, so each student will be able to find their own type of literacy useful in accordance with their learning style.

With regards to students in my placement classroom learning social literacy, I would think that many of them would struggle with it. There are only three computers in my placement classroom and many of my students have trouble with turning the computers on and off, or even getting to the Internet, so I do not think my students would benefit through using most of the actual tools of social literacy. Since social literacy is all about using tools on the Internet to connect to your students with, I think that I would have to implement a lot of scaffolding in order to get my students to understand the tools of social literacy. However, social literacy also encompasses building and maintaining relationships with other people in your life, which is something that I think my students would benefit greatly from. Since I am in a first grade classroom, I often find that my students tattle and fight with each other, which is not an attribute of a successful relationship.

I think that if I were to introduce social literacy in my classroom, I could show them my project, since it is a video, and my students would learn from it. Some of my students are already familiar with Facebook, and I am sure that they have heard of Twitter, and possibly Blogger, but I am sure that most of them have not had experience with these tools. However, I think that a website or a wiki would be very beneficial to my students and their parents. I think that my students would be able to navigate through a classroom website and use the website to find links to reading games, math games, or any other resources that I would post. I also think that the parents of my students would find a website to be a great resource for a class calendar with upcoming events, class information and other educational links.

As far as using an integrated approach to teaching social literacy to my placement students, I think that I could use a wiki or a website that my students would have access to. I think that my students could write a story on a specific topic, such as a field trip, a writing theme, or a particular writing style, and each student’s story could be posted onto the website. Each student could have their own page to the website, which would allow all of the other students to view each other’s work. The great thing about using a website or a wiki is that students would have access from home and parents would also be able to have access to the site, so they could see their child’s work and other classmate’s work. I think that this would be the best tool to use at a first grade level because I could create the template for the website or wiki, and I could show students how to post their work onto the site. This lesson would be addressing reading, writing, and social literacy.

Lesson Plan

Target Area and Rationale:
I think that by using a classroom website, my students would learn how a website works and operates, and would be able to view and read their own work, along with classmate’s work. Students would be responsible for writing and posting their own story, and then commenting on another student’s story that is posted on the website.

Objectives:
Students will show their understanding of social literacy by posting a story that they have written on a website, and comment on another student’s story.

Materials and Supplies:
Student stories (which will be written in class), a computer lab with computers for every student, Weebly website design, projector.

Outline of Key Events:
-Students will write a story during their writing time, on a specific theme demonstrated in a read aloud book. (Groups of three, rhyming, repetition, etc.)
-I will show students how to locate the class webpage on the Internet.
-I will then show students how to navigate through the class webpage and how to post their story to their specific page, which will be titled by their name.
-Students will then type out their stories, and post them on their specific page.
-Students will be given the chance to explore the website and look at their classmate’s work.
-After exploring the site, students will be instructed to find one story that they found to be interesting and write two things that they really enjoyed about the story and one thing that could be improved on the story.
-Student will then be given the chance to edit their stories, if needed/wanted.
-The web address will be sent home with students so parents will have access to the site.

Closing Summary:
I will close the lesson with reminding students what social literacy means and why it is important to their learning. I will encourage students to post more of their work to the website and look at the website at home with their parents, so that they can teach their parents about social literacy.

Ongoing Assessment:
I will observe my students to see if they improve on aspects of social literacy in their own behavior. I will remind students that by becoming a responsible second grader that they need to build successful relationships with their classmates, so that they can have a classroom environment that is filled with learning.

New Literacies Project -- Noteblog

My Conceptual Understanding

            Since the beginning of this class, my conceptual understanding of literacy has changed drastically.  I originally thought that literacy was solely the ability to read and write, and didn’t extend the definition much further.  Furthermore, I wasn’t aware that you could utilize technology when teaching literacy.  Within my understanding of literacy, the only resource available to help teach literacy was any type of printed text.

            Through glancing at my peers’ projects, I immediately learned that there are many types of literacies, and many different technologies can be utilized to teach the many types of literacies.  I definitely didn’t understand that there were categories of literacy, specifically emotional, cultural, environmental, visiual, numeracy, political, and social literacy.  Once I researched them, I realized that while I have recognized the different types of literacies in the past, I wasn’t aware that they were categorized and there has been so much research conducted on each.

            Researching a type of literacy in addition to a technology that I’ve never used before to help present the literacy was both challenging but incredibly informative.  I would definitely utilize MixBook again to create a presentation to show to my class, and would also ask students to create a presentation with MixBook on their own as well.  Utilizing MixBook to present visual literacy helpful because the two were related to each other in that MixBook utilizes a lot of images (stickers, pictures, backgrounds, layouts, etc.) throughout its presentation, which is exactly what visual literacy incorporates.

Effective Literacy Instruction

            Providing “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners means to meet the needs of all types of learners within the classroom.  For example, a first grader who can’t yet read words might benefit from labels throughout the classroom on things such as the bathroom door, chalkboard, overhead projector, computer, etc., which is also known as visual literacy.  Although the student cannot read the words, seeing the picture and knowing that the picture means the same thing as the word they cannot yet read makes them visually literate, even though they aren’t yet what is traditionally considered to be “literate,” or the ability to read and write.

            Prior to completing this project, I would have never thought about teaching literacy by utilizing different types of technologies.  In addition, I would have never extended my definition of literacy beyond the traditional definition of literacy, which is incredibly disappointing to me.  It was so interesting to learn about the different types of literacy while exploring this project in the beginning of the semester, and even more interesting to dig deeper into my chosen literacy.  Additionally, it was interesting to explore different types of technology to utilize to help me present my chosen literacy, and fun to implement my chosen type of literacy into my chosen type of technology.

            Therefore, through this research, I think that incorporating learning about a type of literacy with a technology that students can explore would be extremely beneficial within both my placement classroom and future classrooms that I will teach in.  Knowing how much my students enjoy their computer time throughout the day and how interested in technology they are in general further validates my desire to fully implement technology into my classroom as much as possible.  Most of the students within my placement classroom have no additional access to technology outside of the three computers within their classroom, which would make completing this project even more beneficial, helpful, and important to their learning.

            In addition to my placement students’ interest in technology, not many students in my classroom fulfill the traditional definition of literacy.  Therefore, they are oftentimes discouraged with reading and writing time, specifically because they can’t do it.  Therefore, learning about visual literacy and implementing it into a type of technology that interests them would be incredibly beneficial, specifically because they can express their thoughts and feelings concerning what they learned into different types of images.  This would also help teach them that literacy is not only about being able to read and write, but being able to express their thoughts and feelings through images.  Furthermore, knowing this is not the only type of literacy would possibly further motivate them to learn about all the different types.

Lesson Plan

Target area: Visual literacy

Rationale: Because students are oftentimes unable to comprehend text because of their inability to read the words on the page, reading books to students that can be comprehended by using picture-based evidence is oftentimes a beneficial way to relate to students and encourage them to become more literate.  In my opinion, visual literacy (in this case, depicting meaning from the images throughout the text) helps students further comprehend text whether or not they can read the words on each page, as the pictures sometimes deliver an additional message beyond what can simply be read within the text.

Objective: Students will use a graphic organizer to sequence the main events throughout The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle by using picture-based evidence from the book.

GLCE: R.MT.01.04 Students will self-monitor comprehension by using a graphic organizer to sequence events, sort and order information, or identify author’s perspective.

Materials and supplies needed: large graphic organizer (to be posted on the whiteboard at the front of the room), whiteboard, permanent marker (to write on the graphic organizer), The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Outline of key events:

·      I will read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to the class

·      Students will be informed to not ask questions or talk while the story is being read, and to simply focus on what is happening throughout the story and in what order the events occur

·      After I’ve finished reading the book, I will allow the students to raise their hands and ask questions they might have

·      I will read the book again, allowing students stop me while reading and asking questions they might have at specific parts throughout the story by raising their hand

·      After reading the story, the class will fill out the graphic organizer by raising their hand and saying what they think should be on the graphic organizer

·      I will write students’ responses on the graphic organizer after consulting the class as to if they agree or disagree with their peers’ ideas

·      After the graphic organizer is completed, I will move ideas around based on what students think needs to be changed

·      I will re-read the book a third time in order to help students check their graphic organizer with what actually happened within the text

Closing summary: I will explain to students that a graphic organizer is an example of a type of visual literacy, and we utilized what we saw within the story to re-create it in a different way.

Ongoing assessment: During writing time, students may choose to utilize a graphic organizer to help tell a story they want to tell instead of simply writing it in paragraph or sentence form.  In addition, after reading stories to the students, I can ask the class to create more graphic organizers, and slow reducing the amount of help I give them to complete it.