Lesson #2 Reflection

1. What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson
1. The target of my second lesson was for students to paraphrase information by putting it into their own words. We began the lesson with a reflection on the target of our first lesson, which was to preview, predict, and use prior knowledge to deepen understanding of informational text. We reviewed the fact that we will be building to our list of strategies that we as informational readers can 'read with power' to deepen our understanding of informational texts. Then, we reviewed three important keys to paraphrasing: identify important words or phrases in the text that you are going to be paraphrasing, put the remaining information in your own words, and finally say or write your complete paraphrase. We analyzed an example sentence and paraphrase together as a class, having a discussion about which words could not be changed in the original sentence in order to keep the same meaning. Then, we read an example paragraph about Giant Pandas. Pinpointing the last two sentences, we worked together as a class to go through the three keys to help us paraphrase the text. After the mini-lesson, students were broken back up into their partner groups and provided with a paraphrase worksheet that pertained to the habitat that they read about yesterday. Their target was to work with a partner or partners to paraphrase each one of the six sentence on the page. While I did not notice students struggling during the mini lesson, because everyone was actively participating, I did notice during my conferencing with students that some struggled to paraphrase their sentences. Each of the worksheets featured sentences pulled from the National Geographic texts that students read yesterday, making the worksheets differentiated by content. So, because the higher level groups had sentences that featured more important words and complex sentence structure, I noticed some students had problems with determining importance of words when the original sentence had many words that could not be changed. Also, two partner groups did not finish their reading from the day before or their KWL/Prediction worksheet, so they struggled to finish that and then complete the task for today.
2. What are alternate reads of your students performance or products?
1. I plan on collecting my students' paraphrasing worksheets tomorrow after my lesson so I can get a sense of how everyone is doing so far with using these strategies to help their comprehension of an informational text. A little less than half of my class needed more time with their paraphrasing worksheets, so I am providing a brief work time tomorrow before the third lesson begins. We will also be meeting in our larger book club groups to discuss our paraphrases and share any helpful strategies/problems that we we each had. I also took the time to conference with my groups of students, listening to their conversations and asking questions to facilitate their discussion.
3. what did you learn about your students' literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?
1. Once our discussion of paraphrasing began during the mini-lesson, I learned that the majority of my students had some background knowledge about the strategy. Many students were unable to correctly paraphrase on the pre assessment and many asked me what the word meant, but once we began to discuss what paraphrasing is and what you do when you paraphrase, I felt as if much of the information came back to my students and was refreshed in their memories. Also, some students made connections to our social studies unit that we had just recently finished that required a lot of research- many mentioned how they were 'putting research into their own words' during social studies. 
4. When and how will you re-teach the material to students who needed additional support?
1. My unit is focused on comprehension strategies to help students better understand informational text, so we will continue to build upon our knowledge of strategies as the unit goes on. While we will be practicing a new strategy each lesson, I can easily go back and review the strategies taught in this lesson or future lessons to come. The majority of my lessons are structured similarly-mini lesson then group/independent work time, so I can always pull up a group or individual students to go back and reteach something that they are still struggling with. For my ELL students, I also have opportunities during group/independent work time to either sit with them in their groups or pull them to the side to check their status of comprehension or work with them more in depth. Also, as I mentioned, I plan on revisiting paraphrasing tomorrow before we move on. I felt like everyone for the most part was understanding the lesson, but I would like to give students the chance to discuss and fully comprehend paraphrasing.
5. If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students' learning?
1. I think that this time, while my students were active participants and demonstrating their understanding of paraphrasing during the mini lesson, I could have included another practice or two for us to paraphrase together as a class to ensure that students understand the strategy. 
6. What did you learn so far about implementing your core practice and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?
1. I have learned so far that it is very helpful for students to see and think about different ways we can use comprehension strategies to help us understand different types of text. As I mentioned before, students are already familiar with the idea of paraphrasing information or putting something in their own words. So, they are taking this familiar strategy and using it as a way to not only comprehend an informational text but to also help them be active readers before, during, and after their reading. To continue my professional learning, I think that I need to continue to discuss how this and future strategies are important in comprehending informational text and get students more comfortable with using the vocabulary.