Haley's Part A Target Area

Your Name: Haley Brewster

Inquiry Two, Part A:

Discuss Your Target Area and ‘Core Practice’ for Guided Lead Teaching

NOTE: YOU MAY INSERT YOUR ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS POSED BELOW IN A DIFFERENT COLOR FONT.  Please name your file with your last name and email as an attachment to your instructor (example: SmithPartATargetArea.docx)

Talk with your MT about your idea, and use the information you gained from Inquiry One to respond to the following guiding questions listed below.  Email your responses to your instructor before our Week 4 class (October 1) AND post them on your book club blog:

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

I will be focusing on informational reading. The main concepts from the unit are:

1.     Informational readers learn the skills and habits essential for informational reading.

2.     Informational readers respond to texts and share the topics they are studying with others.

3.     Informational readers pursue collaborative inquires critically and analytically.

With these concepts in mind my target area is reading comprehension and strategy instruction.

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

Most of the morning is spent with literacy. The time between specials and lunch, which is an hour and 15 minutes will always be dedicated to this instruction. I am lucky in that my mentor teacher is launching her Project Based Learning unit in science around the same time I am. Her unit is focused on the students creating a habitat at the Detroit Zoo. According to my mentor teacher, there will be a large coloration between informational reading in science and what is being studied in literacy. Science is about 50 minutes in the afternoon.

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

CCSS.ELA-Literacy

Reading: Informational Text

Key Ideas and Details:

R1. 4.1Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

R1. 4.2 Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.

R1. 4.3 Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

Craft and Structure:

R1. 4.4 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.

R1. 4.5 Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.

R1. 4.6 Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand account of the same event or topic; describe the differences in focus and the information provided.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

R1 4.7 Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively (e.g., in charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, animations, or interactive elements on Web pages) and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in which it appears.

R1 4.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text.

R1 4.9 Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.

Speaking and Listening:

Comprehension and Collaboration:

SL. 4.1a Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.

SL. 4.1b Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles.

SL 4.1c Pose and respond to specific questions to clarify or follow up on information, and make comments that contribute to the discussion and link to the remarks of others.

SL 4.1d Review the key ideas expressed and explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion.

SL 4.2 Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

SL 4.3 Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points.

SL 4.4 Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

SL 4.6 Differentiate between contexts that call for formal English (e.g., presenting ideas) and situations where informal discourse is appropriate (e.g., small-group discussion); use formal English when appropriate to task and situation.

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?

Informational text is a huge part of the real world, and is all around students in their community. Students will be able to engage in different informational texts, and understand the importance. They are learning literacy by literally reading informational texts and working on their comprehension of these texts. They are learning about different types of text, and text structure. There will be opportunities for the students to have explicit instruction on informational text, but also a great amount of time for them to workshop and work with other students on comprehension, understanding, and discussion. We will wrap-up lessons in whole-group, so students will have opportunities to see how their classmates digested the lesson. They will be learning, learning about, and learning through literacy through hearing explicit instruction, reading information text, monitoring their own processing of the text and their comprehension, and sharing and participating in group discussions about the informational text. Hopefully through these experiences, students will connect informational text to places outside of school, and see literacy through a bigger scope.

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)?

My students engage in lots of discussions in terms of literacy. They are beginning to prepare for book clubs, as well as constantly have large discussion and partner discussion. Most of my literacy instruction will be workshop based, with a mini-lesson about 15 minutes, and then 30 minutes of the students working and reading (sometimes together, sometimes individually), and then coming together as a whole-group for the wrap up. There are multiple times for students to engage in conversations. My teacher has introduced “Turn and talk” recently. She partners students for this, for a whole unit. They get comfortable and establish communication with their partner about literacy. The whole group is initially teacher-led; however, today my teacher introduced how students can feed off each other to make the discussion. For example, they were practicing saying, “In addition to student A’s thoughts, I felt…” There is a lot of student-led during work shop and turn and talk. Many of the questions that student are asked are higher-level thinking because they are not focused on simple answer questions. They require students to infer, predict, and look back for evidence in the text. I will be continuing these types of questions for my own unit.

I would like to continue these norms of turn and talk, because students have been practicing how you interact in discussion and what the norms are for having discussion and creating community during literacy. Strategies that Work has a number of suggestions for discussions and monitoring discussion. I liked the “Knowing When You Know and Knowing When You Don’t Know” (p. 81), to help monitor comprehension with sticky notes. This highlights positives (things that clicked), as well as areas readers need to re-read. I also liked the “Noticing When We Stray from the Inner Conversation” (p. 79), because it helps think about our thinking, and realize when we have gotten off track.

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?

I want to focus on responding to reading, with a specific focus in developing structures that promote purposeful talk (turn and talk, paired reading, jigsaw discussions, book club, study groups, mall-group shares). As a professional I will learn how to explicitly demonstrate these techniques to students so they are meaningful. One technique my teacher uses a lot is turn and talk. I will learn how to communicate and show students how to participate in purposeful talk, as well as learn about the best ways students to have these talks support students learning.

I also want to work on monitoring comprehension. As teachers we talk about how important and critical it is for students to comprehend text. As 4^th graders though, students need to start taking responsibility for monitoring their own comprehension; however, we need to model and explicitly show them how you can monitor comprehension. For my own learning, I will find ways to most efficiently monitor my students monitoring of comprehension.

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

As I mentioned earlier within the classroom, my mentor teacher will be teaching a science unit that integrates comprehension and informational text into the curriculum. Also in the classroom my mentor teachers have multiple resources of books. They have the National Geographic Theme Sets which include books on Rain Forest Animals, Desert Animals, Ocean Animals, Forest Animals. Our classroom and school also has technology such as an Elmo, Smartboard, ipads, and computers. I have access to our book room, which has 1,000’s of books, as well as a very nice library. The district has their curriculum on their website under Atlas Rubicon, and I also have access to that.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

Many of the lessons require resources such as pencils, pens, paper, different types of paper such as charts ect.

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

Students will complete a “My Self-Evaluation Checklist: Information Reading”, that is 22 statements long. They will complete the check-list before the unit, as well as after. I can also keep notes through observation of how my students currently participate in comprehension checks and discussions.

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?

It will be helpful to find out more about what my students are interested in outside of school, to continue to try and make connections between literacy at school and literacy at home. I also am curious to see how my students feel about “informational text”, because some children have negative feelings towards informational text or nonfiction genres. It is important to find out where my students stand with their feelings towards informational text. I can check their reading levels as well, so they are reading at the appropriate level.

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

I want to learn more about purposeful talk, and ways different teachers have had it work successfully, and also ways it has not worked. My mentor teacher estimates my instruction will usually be about 10-15 minutes, and then students will begin reading and work shopping. I want to learn how I can explicitly instruct on purposeful talk and model it.

In terms of monitoring comprehension, I want to learn about some of the quick ways I can assess to see if students are monitoring their comprehension, as well as work on how I will explicitly show students how to monitor their comprehension. While I want to explicitly show all of this, I want to make sure students feel like there is a flow to the lesson, and my core practices are integrated in.

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

As of now I do not have any specific concerns, my mentor teacher has given me lots of resources and we have engaged in frequent conversations. I feel a bit overwhelmed with seeing the given curriculum, and how I will create lessons that are unique and meaningful to my students.