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.