PART 4
Reflecting on the Fieldwork Experience
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Differentiating Instruction
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Coursework Reflection
Differentiating Instruction
The process of designing lesson plans to engage and support all students in learning is at the core of studying methods of teaching reading and writing. Gaining sufficient knowledge about the students which includes their life outside of school, the school community, and their personal interests, together with the analysis of writing samples, other class work, listening to students read, observing students interact and discuss course content in class and out of class, all of this feeds into the knowledge base required for responsive instruction. For example, talking to the student face to face about what they are reading or thinking about is vital to creating an approach in class which will be meaningful to the student as a whole person and where they are in their learning journey.
To activate engagement, I have learned to recruit interest in individual students by providing choice through giving students access to options to choose from. I try to curate a short list of options which are relevant and timely that will allow the student an authentic reading , media, or interactive experience. For the case study lesson, I opted for an online experience which could be made into a vehicle for play to invite the student build skills through persistence. In the middle of the lesson, following some direct instruction, we pause for a deep breath and acknowledge the effort the students have already exerted by paying attention and internalizing concepts. The goal of engagement is to support students as they find purpose in the learning experience and tap internal motivation to participate.
When I decided that the case study student knew how to write complete sentences that included text evidence and that they were ready to take the risk of being more expressive, I considered options for representing the skill of elaboration. By providing varied representations of elaboration the students will have options for perceiving what it means. I explored different phrases to say the same thing such as "elaboration", "enrich and expand", "description", "details", and "close the distance between the writer and reader." Additionally, I utilized academic language to point at adjectives, modifying nouns, adverbials, and prepositional phrases. My objective was to clarify expectations, decode unfamiliar vocabulary in context, and promote understanding by addressing the concept of elaboration in addition to how to practice the skill. Through multi-modal representation in visuals using the analogy of the telescope and the ship captain searching the horizon for land to the auditory repetition of the words "enrich" and "expand," the lesson activates background knowledge to maximize transfer through generalization. The students will have a sense of being knowledgeable because they already understand the analogy and they can be resourceful in terms of applying their knowledge to a new big idea.
The case study lesson provides an interactive writing experience online which is an alternative means of expression from writing in a word processor, on paper in class, or even in the student's journal. The occasion to utilize a new or different tool for writing provides an immersion in media to increase fluency with technology, writing, and self-expression. Since the lesson acknowledges that the student already knows how to compose sentences and suggests that they are ready to learn the skill of elaboration by utilizing the revision strategy of expanding and enriching their writing by showing more than telling, providing appropriate details, and clarifying their voice, the student can be strategic and goal-oriented in their approach to participating in the interactive media experience.
The sequence of the short lesson provides many layers of support in the form of direct instruction, analogy, mentor text as an example, demonstration, and guided practice supported by a graphic organizer. The content of the lesson can address the more advanced students to consider the elements of speech more closely as adjectives and adverbials in phrases. Simultaneously, the lesson allows room for a more basic approach to description by demonstrating how to use the senses to provide description. Whether beginning or advanced, students are supported by built in scaffolds. Additionally, students are invited to reach out to the teacher with any questions because as hard as I try, there are blind spots and I want to be available to support students in their inquiry.
The case study lesson is presented in video form during the era of COVID-19 driven remote instruction. The look and feel of the video is intended to be fun and inviting with relaxing images of nature including trees and picnic scenes. My face is visible during the demonstration of the mentor text and modeling of how to use the interactive writing tool. My voice is meant to be friendly and enthusiastic to create and maintain an effective environment for student learning even at a distance. The pace of the lesson does maintain high expectations but also provides appropriate support. A great thing about video is that students can always hit pause and restart when they are ready to continue. There is a break in the middle to remind us to breathe and at the end there is a reflection where students can write a sentence about how the class was for them and post it for the teacher to read.
In terms of assessment, a rubric is provided on the assignment sheet and graphic organizer. For me, if the student participates we have success. I received feedback that a student self-assessment might be better for this lesson and I can also see how this approach could work. The reflection sentence describing the beginning, middle and end may be a viable method of conducting a self-assessment. Once I have students do the lesson and I read their reflections, I anticipate reworking the lesson to be more responsive to the students. Currently, I am investigation ways to realize a grading system that will do no harm while placing emphasis on process rather than product but I have not fully figured it out yet. I do know that ongoing feedback throughout the writing process is where the learning takes place and that the student should not focus on the product as a way to get points or a grade. It is the process of writing that is most valuable and the students needs to be aware of this as fact. That said, I am confident in the possibility of moving away from deficit thinking at the site of assessment and reinventing in terms of success criteria based on what is needed.
By including text visually, images of a picnic without details and with details, offering the analogy of a ship captain using a telescope with images, repeating key phrases, the mentor text "I made tea" example, active demonstration of the writing tool to write my own sentence "I went on a picnic," while maintaining a playful spirit, my lesson design is inclusive of all learners and supportive of a success orientation. To avoid too much teacher talk, I also show by silently typing a demonstration using the tool, utilize visuals such as the captain with a telescope, and use consistent terminology which I repeat through out the lesson. I support independent writing by including a mentor text which we look at together online in the interactive and the students have printed on their graphic organizer for their own reference. I also included my sample which the students observed me write in real time.
The lesson looks forward to sharing student work in the following lesson. Challenges in both collaboration and sharing are foreseeable and need to have a balanced approach. If we were in a classroom, I would prefer to have the students work in teams on the computer. This allows for a discussion during the creative process of writing and encourages a greater sense of play with the interactive writing tool. At a minimum, students would be allowed time to share in teams or small groups before there would be any expectation of sharing with the whole class. The graphic organizer serves as a numbered step by step approach to the assignment which the students have in hand.
The next step would be to use the interactive writing tool to revise a sentence from a piece of writing to carry forward the learning and to maintain a multi-modal approach to writing. I look forward to sharing my case study lesson with the ELD class including my case study student. Most of the work we are focused on now is more about practicing what we already know how to do by reading and listening with responses in writing or spoken words in discussions on Schoology. My case study lesson is more about learning something new and the students are somewhat traumatized at the moment so a more gentle approach is necessary to this unique time of remote learning.
Coursework Reflection
The big idea that I am taking away from studying methods of teaching English is the relationship between reading and writing. Of course, I am aware of how important reading is to gaining a sense of self and awareness of the world through the experience of others. Also, I grasp that writing is essential to externalizing self expression as well as maintaining orderly structures of thought in the mind. The new big thing is that the space between reading and writing is quite dynamic. I had not previously really considered that reading as a writer was a thing, that I could read through the lens of writing and glean techniques and strategies from mentor texts. The notion of what a mentor text is and how to utilize it in class has exploded my approach to English Language Arts and English Language Development instruction.
Utilizing text passages for sentence chunking to name the actor and the action and any other parts of speech that may be present is one thing. Utilizing a text passage to unpack point of view or character development is entirely another gift that literary and informational texts offer the student of writing. We can look at the craft of how it is done and adopt some of those practices for our own personal way of expression in written words. For example, in my narrative writing project I looked to the young adult genre books I have been reading for techniques to make ideas more digestible. I learned from Anderson's Speak that short paragraphs with empty lines spaces can provide clarity, focus, and timing to writing and I tried to use this technique in my own work.
For students, they can be inspired by writers and find tools or strategies to deploy in their own work. The process of keeping a readers journal helps the tracking of these ideas. I enjoyed keeping a readers and writers journal for class and will definitely require this element in classes I teach in the future. It helped me to step into the flow of both reading and writing. It is a way to begin without too much risk and a way to interact with text in unlimited ways. The journal is a personal archive, a road map, or a treasure map that tracks one's journey with something more substantial than breadcrumbs.
Another important aspect of teaching English is to encourage student choice regarding what they read. I think a curated list is best so I have been reading young adult genre books as fast as possible. The open library is a huge universe and there is no reason to assume that a student will choose a book that is good for them. By culling a library of award winning young adult genre books for students to choose from, the student will get the best of both worlds. Librarians are wonderful resources for helping the student align with a good book. It is really an individual thing. Perhaps we read a core text as a group but predominately students should self select. In order to fall in love with reading students must be empowered by it.
The more I write the better I will be at teaching writers. Working with high school students this year has revealed that many students enjoy writing on their own. Writing as a means to freedom is something to cultivate. I am encouraged by the accessibility of writers online and through social media. The authors of the young adult genre books are very real and present and this is important for students to realize. Writing has many voices and each one is valued and important.
Many students I work with come to English as a second language and I believe it is important to cultivate literacy in both languages. Some learners of English do not develop their home language and this creates a chasm. Rather than replace the first language with a second language, I advocate for dual language development. I aim to foster a comparative teaching style where languages can exist in parallel. To this end, for example, I enjoy Neruda as a mentor text because we can map the writer's poetic use of language in both Spanish and English at the same time. Although I do not speak Spanish, I am open to learning languages and many students are happy to share their expertise as we learn, comparatively, together. Through experience working with students whose first language is Mandarin, Korean, or Farsi, I have learned to remain open to the exchange of learning as a vital aspect of the process. It is almost as if when I allow myself as the teacher to be vulnerable, that the students are better poised to be brave.
The most important courses in the credential program for me have been this class with Dr. Jamie Marsh, in Instructional Methods for English Language Arts, with Dr. Anna Chee, in Supporting Academic Language Development for English Language Learners, and with Dr. Erica Hamilton, in Understanding of Academic Language Development. This course with Dr. Marsh has left the most indelible imprint on me as a teacher, writer, and reader. Literacy does not live in siloed subjects but rather reaches across all content areas. We learn to write in art class as much as we do in English class. With single subject secondary teaching credentials in English and Art, I am prepared to support students in their exploration of the humanities as well as the arts. My learning of instructional methods has prepared me to facilitate students in their educational journey toward self-actualization and expression of their experience of the world. As an educator, I am working on curriculum design where writing comes first to reveal gaps and inspire motivation, followed up by feedback from an interested reader who provides a path forward, and where reflection is integrated into the process rather than just at the end looking backward. The emphasis in class on revision has informed my thinking and idealized approach to facilitating students. I love that Jason Reynolds quote where he said "write it, then right it" and believe students will buy in to this work flow.