Reading Lesson Reflection 2 (Fluency)

• What did you notice about your students' participation and learning in relation to your objectives?
• I believe that the students did an excellent job participating today. Telling them that they were going to be assessing themselves on the amount of expression that they used was a very effective way of keeping them on task and motivated throughout the lesson. They were very excited to continue working on the script, and were also glad to have the different parts assigned so that they could focus on only one set of lines. I timed how long it took them to complete each reading, and their times continued to drop from the last time that I worked with them. Last time, their first reading took 6 minutes and 16 seconds and they were able to get their time down to only 5 minutes and 20 seconds. Today, their first reading took 4 minutes and 45 seconds and the second time through they finished in 4 minutes and 29 seconds. The continually dropping times means that they are becoming more comfortable with the words on the page and also developing their fluency as readers.
• All three students gave themselves a two when I asked them to rate their own expression at the end of the lesson. An example of a completed rating is given below: 

• This indicates that they all believe that they are making progress with respect to their fluency and expression, but they still think that they can work at it more. I think that this is a very promising place to be with these students. It indicates that they still believe that they can get better at reading with expression and are willing to keep trying to improve
• What were the strengths and limitations of your lesson for supporting your students' learning?
• I think one of the major strengths of this lesson was encouraging the students to relate the emotions that the characters in the story were feeling to emotions that they had experienced before in their lives. This allowed them to have a deeper connection to the characters in the story while also making it easier for them to use expression because they were making their reading more authentic. Also, mentioning that they could write on their scripts but not forcing them to do so allowed them the opportunity to give themselves any extra support that they thought they needed without making this fact obvious to the others in the group.
• One of the limitations of this lesson was the fact that there were not many varied emotions that the characters in the story express. Brer Rabbit was either happy or sad, and Brer Bear was either greedy or angry. The students were not able to move past these emotions to expand their ability to read with expression. Similar to this, one of the three parts in the script is the narrator. It was difficult for the group to imagine what kinds of emotions the narrator would use for his lines. In the end, I was able to have the students connect what the narrator was saying to the different things that were happening during the story. This seemed to solve the problem that the narrator was facing, but I still believe that there was more potential for the student who was reading the narrator lines to read with more expression.
• What did you notice about yourself as a teacher? What questions do you have?
• Although I am glad that I wrote a lesson plan, I wish that I did not have to depend on in so much while I was actually leading the lesson. I found myself looking away from the students in my group and at my paper more often than I wished. This almost gave me a disconnect from my students. I felt like I was hiding behind the words that I had previously written instead of allowing the lesson to flow in a more natural fashion.
• I thought that I did a better job today of allowing the students to speak more often throughout the lesson. Instead of answering my own questions or questions that students posed, I was able to let them think through the questions and come to conclusions by themselves. I know that I still have a long way to go, but I am glad that I am aware of the length of some of the statements that I make during the lessons that I teach.
• I am very thankful for the opportunity to work with the same group of students on the same script, but still have questions about how to get them to relate the things that they are reading now to the content that they will be reading the future. How do we, as teachers, make sure that students apply the things that they learn in school to other areas of their life?

Reading Lesson Plan 2 (Fluency)

• Rationale: The students in this group are quiet readers, and the repeated readings that are associated with Reader's Theater will help them become faster, more accurate, and more expressive readers.
• Objective: These students will engage with the script and read their lines with expression and excitement. I will have them evaluate themselves on their own improvement as the lesson develops.
• Materials and Supplies Needed:
• A script for each student
• A pencil for each student
• A rating sheet for each student
• Procedures and Approximate Time:
• Introduction (3 min):
• Good morning! Today we are going to keep working on reading "Brer Rabbit Shares His Crops". Who can tell me what we were working on when we read this script on Monday?
• I thought that you showed a lot of improvement when we were working together on Monday. I can't wait to see how your reading is today.
• Who can say a sentence with no emotion or expression? Now how about a sentence with lots of emotion and expression?
• Now I'm going to ask you another question and I want you to think about your answer for about 30 seconds, and then we'll share. Why is it important to read with expression every time we read aloud?
• Key Events During the Lesson (30-35 min):
• [Pass out the scripts, along with pencils]
• I know that when we read the script on Monday I assigned each of you a different part each time we read. Today, I want us to each take a part and stick with it for the rest of the time that we work on this script together. If you have a preference on the part you want to play, please raise your hand and share that with the group. If more than one of you wants to have the same part, I will assign parts to you randomly. I know that however these parts are split up, the play is going to be great! [Allow the students to share which parts they would prefer. If there is any disagreement, assign the parts randomly].
• Now that we have our parts, I want us to go through the script page by page and talk about the kinds of emotions that the characters in the play are feeling. Then we'll use the emotions that we talk about to help us read our lines with as much expression as we can. Remember, we want to keep our audience interested in what we are saying!
• Also, while we are going through these lines, I want you to think about different times in your lives where maybe you felt the same way as Brer Rabbit or Brer Bear. Please share those experiences with us, because it could help us read with more emotion and make the lines seem more interesting!
• Next to some lines, I want you to write which emotion the character is most likely feeling. This will remind you to read with that emotion when you are going through the script to practice.
• [Go through the script, page by page, discussing how the characters are feeling. For example, in Brer Rabbit's first line, he is thinking through a dilemma and doesn't know what to do. We can talk about how people sound when they are contemplating a choice that they are going to have to make.]
• Now I am going to let you read through the script twice as a group. After the second time through, I am going to ask you to evaluate how you think that you are doing at reading with expression. You will write down a rating for me on a piece of paper so that no one else has to see what you wrote. I just want to see how you think that you are doing so that I know if my teaching is effective. Also, I want to time you again. Don't read so fast that the audience won't understand, but be sure to read smoothly and pay attention to when your lines come up.
• [Let the students read through the scripts twice, timing each reading, then have them fill out the self-evaluation form, which reads:]
• I give myself a ____ on how well I am reading with expression.
• 1: I still need to work on my expression.
• 2: I think I am making improvement.
• 3: I am reading with as much expression as I can!
• Closing Summary (5 min):
• You all continue to amaze me with how well you read with expression. I think that all three of you made a lot of progress today, and I am very excited that I have had the chance to work with you.
• I want to remind you to be sure to try and read with expression no matter what text you are reading. It is easy to be reminded to read with expression when you have a Reader's Theater text in front of you, but you can use what you have learned the past few days to help you read with expression whenever you read.
• I know that you want to perform this play in front of the class, and I am very excited to let you do that. So, keep practicing your lines, and we'll try to perform sometime next week.
• Thank you for letting me work with you today! I hope that the rest of your day goes really well.
• On-Going Assessment:
• I plan on working with these students at least once more to get them prepared for performing in front of the entire class. I will pay attention to how much expression they use during these practice times, and also time them occasionally to see how those times compare to the ones that I have taken in this lesson and the previous one.
• Again, I work with Adam frequently, so I will be able to informally assess the way that he reads. Hopefully I will notice a difference in the way that he phrases the text of the stories that he reads.
• Adaptations:
• Having students write in the margins of their scripts to identify what kinds of emotions they are supposed to be enunciating will give them extra support as they read through the script together.
• Since the students will be evaluating themselves privately, there will be no social stigma from the others based on what rating is given. This will help them pay attention to the way that they are expressing themselves while also helping me evaluate their progress through their own self-evaluation.

Reading Lesson Reflection 1 (Fluency)

• What did you notice about your students’ participation and learning in relation to your objectives?
• I was absolutely thrilled by the level of participation that the students in my group showed. I could tell that they were very excited to work with me, and were very eager to answer my questions and do what I asked of them to the best of their ability. The objective of my first lesson was that the students would read with accuracy and expression, and I believe that they did this very well. I timed each of the three readings that they completed for the lesson, and each rendition took less time. The first reading took 6 minutes and 16 seconds, the second 5:38, and the third 5:20. I told them that I was going to time them, and they were very excited to hear that their times improved so drastically during each reading.
• Reading the same script but assigning each student a different role for each rendition was a very effective way of helping these students read with more expression. I was very explicit about the goal of the lesson, and asked the students how they thought they were doing with regards to reading with expression and keeping their audience interested after their second reading. Eli answered, almost immediately, "I think that Adam is sounding a lot more expressive now than he was at the beginning". It is remarkable that even in so short of time there can be a noticeable difference in fluency for these three students.
• What were the strengths and limitations of your lesson for supporting your students’ learning?
• I thought that one of the major strengths of this lesson was choosing a text that was at a lower level than what these three students are capable of reading. This allowed them to focus more on how they were reading instead of what they were reading. Although I provided them with a highlighter to mark any words that they were unsure of pronouncing, accuracy was not a problem for these students. They were able to pronounce every line without any trouble; the biggest problem that they had was losing their place and not knowing which lines were theirs since their role changed before every reading.
• Along with the major strength of this lesson came a limitation. Because these students had already mastered the vocabulary used in this script, I was not able to teach them any additional information about the background of the story. I know that the focus of this lesson was fluency, and I wanted them to learn how to be more expressive readers, but I wish that I would have been able to help them make connections between reading with fluency and knowing the content of what they are reading. I believe that if the reading would have been a little more challenging, more learning could have potentially occurred, and there also would have been more opportunities for the students to learn from each other.
• What did you notice about yourself as a teacher? What questions do you have?
• One of the main things that I have noticed about myself throughout this course and 401 is that I tend to talk too much. The lesson that I taught today was no exception. I found myself talking for long periods of time and telling the students information that they would have been able to figure out themselves if I had chosen to pose a few questions to them instead of simply presenting them with the information. I do not believe that I give students enough credit for the knowledge that they already possess before I teach them. I would like to challenge myself to become a teacher who is more aware of what my students already know and build off of their interests in order to teach them the most effectively.
• I suppose the main question I have right now is about where I should go from here. I know that these students still have a long way to go when it comes to fluency, and I would like to know some ways that I can use the same play to allow the students to express themselves more completely through reading. What other strategies exist to teach students fluency, and more specifically, how to read with expression no matter what text they are reading?

Guikema Lesson Plan 1 (Fluency)

• Rationale: These three students are all very quiet readers, and one of them has been evaluated by a reading specialist and is thought to have a stutter. They will benefit from this lesson on fluency because it will help them become more confident readers and learners in the classroom.
• Objective: These three students will read their parts in the Reader's Theater script "Brer Rabbit Shares His Crops" with accuracy and expression. This will be evaluated by timing their first and last renditions of the play, and by listening to their expression throughout the lesson.
• Materials and Supplies Needed:
• A script for each student
• A highlighter for each student
• A pencil for each student
• Procedures and Approximate Times:
• Introduction (5 min):
• Good morning! Today we get to be actors and actresses. What is your favorite TV show to watch? Why do you like that show so much? How do the actors and actresses keep you interested in what is happening in each episode?
• Grace was in the group before Christmas break that did a play about Thanksgiving. We are going to do something similar to that today, but the things that we are going to do are also going to be very different.
• My goal for working with you today is to get you to become expressive readers. Who knows what expressive means?
• Am I talking with expression now? How about now? Good. Now that we all know what I mean when I say expression, we can get started on the play.
• Key Events During the Lesson (30-35 min):
• The play that I picked out for us to work on today is called "Brer Rabbit Shares His Crops". Have any of you heard of a story that has Brer Rabbit in it? Do you think that this story happened in real life? How do you know?
• There are four parts in this play, the Narrator, Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, and Chorus. I am not going to assign anyone a specific part in the play. Instead, we will rotate who says which lines each time we read. The first time, I am going to read through all of the parts in this play. I am going to read with a lot of expression, so I want you to pay attention to the way that I say certain lines and the extra things that I add to the play to make it more interesting. I have given each of you a highlighter along with your copy of the play. Listen to me while I read, and highlight any words that you don't know the meaning of or would not know how to pronounce. After I finish reading, we will go through any words that you do not understand.
• [Read through the play one time]
• What kinds of things did you notice while I was reading? [If no one has an answer, point out the words that are italicized and in parentheses in the play]. We need to pay special attention to the clues that the script gives us. This will make it easier for us to become the best, most expressive readers that we can be.
• [Next, go through any words that they have highlighted. Be sure that everyone understands what these words mean and how to say them. If they are not sure of how to pronounce a word, have them write it out phonetically above where the word is written.]
• Okay, now it's your turn to have a chance to read this play. What I am going to do is assign each of you a part, and then have all three of you read the chorus lines together. Let's practice that with the first chorus line. I'll help, "Think, Brer Rabbit, think..."
• [Assign roles for first reading, be sure to time it]
• Narrator: Grace
• Brer Rabbit: Adam
• Brer Bear: Eli
• [Have the students read through their lines. Before they start, say:] When you read this through the first time, I want you to use that highlighter again, and mark any words that you have trouble pronouncing. Then we will practice them as a group, and it will be easier for you to read your lines the next time we read the script.
• [Assign roles for the second reading]
• Narrator: Eli
• Brer Rabbit: Grace
• Brer Bear: Adam
• You are all doing an excellent job reading with expression! Keep focusing on reading in a way that will be interesting for us to listen to.
• Assign roles for the third reading, time this one as well]
• Narrator: Adam
• Brer Rabbit: Eli
• Brer Bear: Grace
• Closing Summary (5 min):
• I really enjoyed listening to your expressive, actor voices today. I think that you have learned a lot about how to read aloud in an interesting way. One thing that is nice about reader's theater is that there is prompts for you that give you hints on how to read certain lines. These prompts are not present when you are reading through other things like your SRAs or series reading. However, there are other clues in those texts. Be sure to look for punctuation; that's a good clue for what kind of expression to use. Whenever you are reading something out loud, it is always a good idea to read with expression so that the people who are listening to you stay interested in what you are reading. Try to practice reading with expression whenever you can.
• I think that you all made a lot of progress today, and I look forward to working with you again on your expression while you read. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for letting me work with you!
• On-Going Assessment:
• Adam reads aloud to me often, almost every time I spend time in the classroom. In the future, I will pay attention to his expression as he reads to see if he has made the connection between what we worked on during this lesson and his everyday reading.
• Also, in the next fluency lesson, I will pay attention to the speed with which Grace, Adam, and Eli get through the script. I will use the same play, and by timing it I will know exactly how much they retained from this lesson.
• Adaptations:
• The main adaptation I have made to this lesson is having students use a highlighter to mark words that they have trouble reading. This draws their attention to these words while they are going through their lines, and helps them read with more accuracy.
• Also, drawing their attention to the notes in the script will help ease them into reading with expression without having to put too much thought into the ways that they are going to achieve fluency.
• Repeated readings and chorus reading is a way to support all three of these learners as the progress toward fluency in the classroom and beyond.

Reading Lesson Overview

I have chosen to work with a group of three fourth grade students in my classroom on their fluency. One of the students, Adam, has worked with a reading specialist in the school because he is significantly below grade level in reading. She has determined that he has a stutter, which inhibits his ability to read with adequate speed and inflection. After discussing this situation with my MT, she revealed to me that she does not think that Adam's problem is a stutter. Instead, she thinks that he may not take a deep enough breath before reading, which makes it difficult to get through phrases of text naturally. In my work with Adam, it does sound as though his voice is not as strong as others' voices in the classroom. He has the most trouble reading aloud when he appears tired, and, along with struggling to read fluently, gets many comprehension and vocabulary review questions wrong after he completes a text.

The other two students in the group, Grace and Eli, are very quiet. They rarely contribute in a large group setting, and when they read aloud, have very little prosody. I have included them in the group with Adam because I think that they could benefit greatly from developing their fluency. It will help them become more confident readers, and working on reading text naturally will help them comprehend the texts that they read more naturally. Adam, Grace, and Eli all have similar reading levels and were all a part of the group of students that I taught my Language Arts lesson to earlier this semester.

In order to develop the fluency (accuracy, automaticity, and prosody) of these three students, I have chosen to center my mini-lessons around Reader's Theater. I think that this is an activity that will engage the students and make reading with inflection more natural. My MT has provided me with a Reader's Theater book that contains scripts appropriate for the third grade reading level. Having scripts at a lower level means that most of the vocabulary will be known to the students (increasing the likelihood of automaticity and accuracy), so they should be able to focus on the emotion and expression of reading the text. Also, having the text split into parts will help the students focus on phrasing their lines and read smoothly. I am really looking forward to working with this group of students on developing their fluency. I think that they will learn a lot and enjoy themselves in the process.

Writing

It was very interesting to read the chapters that I did this week for class. I have not had the opportunity to see much writing instruction or students going through the writing process in my placement classroom, although I know that they do complete at least one writing task per week. Most of their instruction focuses on the reading portion of the reading and writing connection with regards to language arts. In the Gibbons chapter, the author discusses the importance of explicit writing instruction. There are four steps that the teacher should go through with all students, but especially ELLs, who do not have as much experience with the English language.


The first step is educating them about the content that they are going to write about. I see this done in my placement classroom when students are assigned a writing topic, then told to research it on the internet when they go to the computer lab. Although this is one way for students to find out more information on a topic, there are many other rich ways that students can explore new information. Some of the suggestions in the Gibbons chapter include building a semantic web, list student questions, use pictures to enhance and teach vocabulary, and compile a word wall.


The next step that Gibbons suggests is modeling the text. This gives students an opportunity to understand the purpose behind writing with a particular genre or using a specific structure. I have never seen the students in my placement go through this process, although they are expected to write for different purposes. At one point, one group of students was expected to describe what happened on a field trip to a student who was not able to go along. One of the pieces of writing I collected to bring to class earlier this semester was an informative piece that a student wrote about conducting a science experiment. One of the suggestions that Gibbons gave for giving students practice organizing different text structures was text reconstruction. Students are provided with jumbled sentences that they are to reorganize in a way that makes sense with the genre of text.


The next step to explicit writing instruction is called "joint construction". During this phase, teachers and students write together. It is important to understand that this does not consist of the teacher "thinking" their writing aloud and writing it down as an example for the students. It is intended to be a collaborative time, where the teacher guides a group of students in the compilation of an interesting piece of writing. I have never seen anything resembling this practice in my placement classroom.


After the previous three steps are completed, students are able to progress to the independent writing stage. This step could initially be completed in pairs so that students receive additional support, but eventually students should be expected to compose their thoughts individually. This is where a lot of the information from the Tompkins chapter would be helpful. Now students would go through the pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing stages. It is important to note that students will still need to be helped through these processes, especially ELLs and students with disabilities. However, helping students master their writing skills is an essential step in their journey to become literate, educated citizens.


I wish that I could have had more opportunities to be involved in the writing development of my students this year, but I have really only been able to be a part of it a few times. I was able to help one of the students with her report on volcanoes, but only took the editing role during the writing process. One thing that all of the students in my class participated in was the Calbery Writing Contest, a writing competition open to Lansing students in fourth and fifth grade. Students were expected to complete a fiction, poetry, or non-fiction book to give to judges who scored their books based on their text, form, and presentation. The week that these books were due was crazy in my placement classroom. I know that most of the students did not go through a pre-writing stage, and very few of them made it past the first draft of their book before it was due. If my MT had taken more time to go through the writing process with these students, it would have been a much more valuable experience for everyone involved. I was also able to participate in the editing stage for the students who had completed enough of their book for proof-reading. It was interesting to read the varied and interesting ideas of the students; I wish that they were given more time to engage in the writing process to maximize their learning.

An example of student writing:

Fluency

I found the reading that we did this week very interesting. When I related it to the kinds of fluency instruction that I have seen in my placement classroom this year, I found it difficult to see connections at first. Then I thought back to some of the lessons that I overheard my MT teaching small groups of students. Whenever she pulls individual grades to give them their homework for the week and new spelling words, they always review word patterns (such as CVC) and the definitions of words like syllable, root, base, prefix, and suffix. The older the students, the more advanced fluency concepts they cover. One thing that was mentioned often in the fluency chapter but is absent from the classroom where I am currently placed is a word wall. At first I thought that this was only a staple in younger grades, where students are learning how to read and spell an abundance of words throughout the year. However, after reading the Tompkins chapter, I believe that they can also be used effectively in the upper elementary classrooms.

I believe that the most effective way to enhance accuracy in the upper elementary grades is to be sure that students have resources to figure out how to read unfamiliar words. If students simply skip over words that they do not know or understand, they are not going to develop into more fluent readers because their accuracy will be stagnant. One of the ways to be sure that students know how to read unfamiliar words is to teach them how to segment words into roots, suffixes, and prefixes. If students understand and can identify what the root of a word means, they have a much better chance of identifying what the word as a whole means. One way to enhance a student's reading speed is to engage them in repeated reading. I found this to be a very effective way to help the second grade student that I worked with last year become a more confident and knowledgeable reader. It was amazing how much her comprehension improved by simply reading through information more than once. If students know that they are allowed and encouraged to read through information more than once, their experience as readers and their reading speed will improve. The aspect of fluency that the students in my placement classroom need the most work on is prosody. Many of them read either with no expression or take a short break after each word that they read. I think that chunking certain passages of text together could be a very effective way to help students develop their prosody. Also, educating students on what to do when they are reading and reach different punctuation marks can be an effective way to teach prosody.

Mini-Lesson (book club novel: The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis)

• Objective
• Students will develop their prosody through phrasing and chunking.
• Rationale
• I chose to focus on prosody in this lesson because that is the aspect of fluency that I have noticed a majority of my students struggle with.
  
• Materials
•  Copy of book for each student
• White board/dry erase markers
• Lesson (brief overview)
• Today we are going to work on being more expressive readers. It is important to read with expression, especially when we are reading out loud, to keep both ourselves and our listeners interested in what is happening in the book. Right now I'm going to take you through a passage in the book that we have already read together and we are going to work on reading it more expressively. Please turn to page 34.
• I am going to "chunk" one of the paragraphs on this page to make it easier for everyone to see where they should take a breath or a short pause. One thing to look for when you think about pausing is punctuation. Commas and periods give us a natural place to stop and take a breath while we are reading.
• [Write on board]
• His mother didn't answer.
• But Michael heard her sigh.
• "You don't even care about Aunt Dew's stuff,"
• Michael yelled a little.
• He even pulled away from his mother.
• He didn't care at all about her hugging him.
• Sometimes it seemed to him that grown-ups never cared about anything
• unless it was theirs and nobody else's.
• He wasn't going to be like that when he grew up
• and could work and could do anything he wanted to do.
• Now I am going to read through this paragraph taking pauses at the end of each line. [do so].
• Now I want you, as a group [which is also mentioned in Tompkins ch.6] to read this paragraph to me, making a pause at the end of each line.
• Now we are going to alternate sentences. I will start, and when I get to a period, I want you, as a group, to read the next sentence. When you reach a period, I will take over again.
• [If students are still not understanding this concept, continue to have small groups of them read this passage together--split them in half, all the girls, all the boys, etc. If they are behaving and can handle it without hurting feelings, have the students critique each other on how they are reading. This will help them notice what expressive readers sound like].
• Conclusion
• You all did a great job reading today. Now, every time that you see a long paragraph with a lot of information in it, remember that you can split it up into different parts. Try to get through each sentence without pausing, and use your best expression if you are reading out loud. That will make it much more interesting for the person or people who are listening to you.
• Assessment
• I will continue to read with this group of students, and will pay attention to their expression and prosody as they read aloud. If they are still struggling with their phrasing, a similar lesson may be necessary.

Literacy Thoughts and Lesson Plan

In our Tompkins book, literacy is defined as “the ability to use reading and writing for a variety of tasks at school and outside of school”. That is basically the definition of literacy that I carried with me into this class. If nothing else, the New Literacies project has taught me that literacy encompasses much more than simply reading and writing, although those are the topics that are emphasized the most in regular school instruction. Through my research of emotional literacy, I have realized the grave importance of educating students to be literate in more than reading and writing. If students are not emotionally literate, they are at risk of bullying and being bullied, which has many awful consequences. Looking at my other classmates' projects has opened my eyes to just how many forms of literacy there are in the world, and has given me the information that I need to become the best teacher that I can be. The different lesson planning skills that I have learned throughout my time in teaching classes at MSU can all be applied to the lessons that should be focused on developing political, social, visual, emotional, and other types of literacy. I believe that though these literacies are different than the traditional forms of literacy, both the traditional and new forms depend on each other for successful implementation. Many of these new literacies (perhaps with the exception of visual literacy) depend on a person having a certain level of reading and writing literacy in order to be considered fully literate.

I think that the basis of providing effective literacy instruction is being sure that all students understand the purpose behind learning about different and expanded forms of literacy. If students have had experience with a certain form of new literacy (for example, if a student watches the news and then realizes that they are not politically literate enough) they will be more motivated to learn more about it. In this way, students will take more control of their learning and it will be more meaningful to them. It will also make our job as teachers easier, because students will be more independent if they have invested their own time and effort into researching a new form of literacy. I was under the impression with this project that we were learning about these new forms of literacy in order to become more well-rounded teachers, leading us to include ideas about new literacies in our future lessons. However, this prompt leads me to believe that students should be researching these topics themselves and coming up with their own conclusions based on what information they find. Unless the students are in the upper elementary grade level, the sources that I used to research my project would be much to advanced for them. In order to read some of the information that was given on the websites, students would have to have an advanced reading level and be able to understand basic mathematics (to understand the statistics). I do believe that this would be an effective project for older students to undertake, especially if they used a prezi to present their findings. PowerPoint is quickly becoming outdated as more people are looking for ways to stand out during presentations. I also think that prezi would be more effectively used if it was supplemental to a prepared speech about the presented topic. I found it difficult to include all of the information that I wanted to when I knew that they people viewing it were not going to be receiving any additional information, as they would if I were doing a formal presentation on emotional literacy.

Brief Lesson Plan (centered around Emotional Literacy and prezi):

• Objective:
  • Students will be able to relate to different characters in the book "Nothing but the Truth" by Avi by presenting different viewpoints using a prezi.
• Materials/Supplies Needed:
  • A copy of "Nothing but the Truth" by Avi for each student
  • Pencil/paper for each student (for their personal use to write notes)
  • One computer with prezi for each student
• Outline of Key Events:
  • [Students will already have the background knowledge that they need to successfully navigate prezi.com.]
  • [Students will already have read through the book "Nothing but the Truth" by Avi, and we will have had various small-group and whole-class discussions centered on the different things that happen as the plot progresses.]
  • Students will be assigned two characters to analyze using prezi to illustrate their findings. Students will be asked to related to the characters in the book on an emotional level. Guiding questions will be given:
    • What do you think he/she is feeling (at this point in the book)?
    • Why do you think that he/she feels that way? Is there anything from the book that you can use to prove that this is how they are thinking or feeling? If there is, please include this information on your prezi, along with a pager number.
    • Have you ever felt the way that this character does (at this point in the book)? Think about including this in your prezi, or tell a general story like what you went through.
    • Can you relate what is happening to this character (at this point in the story) to another character in a different book you have read? Please include this information on your prezi.
    • How did you feel about this character at the beginning of the book? The middle of the book? The end of the book?
  • At the end of their prezi, I will ask students to include what their individual feelings were (in general, not just about their two characters) at the beginning, middle, and end of the book. How did their own emotions change as the book progressed?
  • [This is a good book to do this type of activity with because there are so many different viewpoints already included in the book. Students will not have to stretch their imaginations too much to find the information that they will need to compile an interesting, encompassing project.]
  • All students will present their findings to the class through their prezi (this will probably be done a different day), and we will have another class discussion based solely on the emotions and feelings of the characters throughout the entirety of the book.
• Closing Summary:
  • You all did a fabulous job on your projects! I can tell that you all learned a lot about different viewpoints through what different characters were thinking and feeling. I also think you all have a good idea of how to use prezi to communicate your thoughts with others. I am very impressed with your dedication to this book and to this project.
• Ongoing Assessment:
  • This would be a very informal assessment, but I would start to try and recognize when students are noticing the emotions and feelings of the characters in other books that they are reading (either individually or as a class). I would continue to focus on being educated about the thoughts and feelings of others, and present the students with books that have varying viewpoints or ideas that would be different from their own. I would use various journal entries or discussion inputs to guide my assessment, and if I determine that the students have not really grasped the emotional literacy information that I wanted them to, I would design another lesson that applied directly to more "real-life" situations.

Here is an image from my placement classroom, where bullying is defined and posted for students to see!

Emotional Literacy/Intelligence

For my new literacies project this semester, chose to research emotional literacy. I have found this topic to be interesting and engaging. Even though I have never heard of this area of literacy before, I am very interested to complete my research on the topic. I remember having weekly social and emotional lessons when I was in elementary school. Although I did not find much use in them because I never had any emotional or social difficulties until middle school, I can see through my research that these lessons benefited me and my entire class during that time and also into the future. Daniel Goleman has done a lot of research on emotional intelligence and authored several books on the topic. A lot of the information that I have included in my project so far has come from his website. He considers five domains when defining emotional intelligence:

• Knowing your emotions.
• Managing your own emotions.
• Motivating yourself.
• Recognizing and understanding other people's emotions.
• Managing relationships, ie., managing the emotions of others.

From this list, it seems obvious why having emotional literacy is important in school and everyday life. The recent emphasis on emotional intelligence has led schools to implement Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs. These programs, which emphasize self-awareness and making sound social decisions, have been proven to increase pro-social behavior by nine or ten percentile points, while negative social behaviors decrease by about the same amount. Most importantly, especially for administrators who decide how much time should be spent on each subject, SEL increases academic achievement by 11 percentile points. It also works better for students who need it most, effectively closing the seemingly ever-present achievement gap. I found the above information in a short video of Goleman talking about and advocating for SEL (view it here). These types of lessons can support students who experience depression or struggle with bullies, and also have long-term benefits. A lot of the more recent information I have found about emotional intelligence relates to controlling emotions in the workplace and establishing rapport with coworkers and clients. It is obvious that there are many positive long-term ramifications of SEL. I am very excited to find out more about emotional literacy and the SEL program, hopefully applying what I have learned to my teaching in the future.

Most of my time spent on this project has been dedicated to researching emotional literacy, but I have spent some time compiling the information on my first prezi. It has proven much more difficult than I thought. I still have not gotten used to the different editing tools, and find myself zooming in and out of the presentation unintentionally, along with changing the size of the titles and text when I am trying to just move around the presentation. However, I believe that as I spend more time with the program I will be able to master all of the different tools that are available. Another thing that I am having difficulty with is condensing the information that I have gathered into a presentation form. I have written long paragraphs that are relevant to the topic, but are not very audience-friendly. I will have to continue to brainstorm different ways of effectively presenting the valuable information that I have learned.

Comprehension

I found it surprisingly difficult to relate these readings about comprehension to my own comprehension processes. I have studied the topic of comprehension extensively in many of my classes here at MSU, but have never really reflected upon my own strengths and weaknesses with regards to comprehension. Using the chart on page 262 of the Tompkins book, I would say that the comprehension strategies that I use the most are connecting, evaluating, and monitoring. While I am reading, both for pleasure and for school, I like to think about the other things I know about the topic. Mostly, I make text-to-self connections, but this strategy really helps keep the material meaningful to me as I progress. I also enjoy evaluating the content of the text that I am reading. I really love being able to recommend books to other people, and being able to recognize what the author did well and what was not adequately illustrated throughout the book comes down to being able to critically evaluate the content while reading. I am also really skilled at monitoring how I am comprehending while I read. I am able to catch myself daydreaming or skimming after only about a paragraph of non-comprehension, which is crucial if I want to quickly complete books and articles. The two comprehension strategies that I struggle with the most are drawing inferences and predicting. I think I do poorly drawing inferences because I was always taught in elementary school that there was a "right" answer and a "wrong" answer. As I got older, adjusting to inference and interpretation was difficult for me. Also, I am very bad at predicting. Once I allow myself to sink into a good book, I rarely take the time to evaluate what I think will happen next throughout the story. Although I know that this is a very valuable skill to have, sometimes I simply cannot force myself to slow down enough to evaluate my thoughts about what I think will happen next.


In my placement, I spend most of my time working with the students who are at a lower reading level than most of their peers. They often struggle to answer the comprehension questions at the end of the text, and when I ask them questions about what they have just read, they cannot go into details about why they answer the way that they do. According to the article by Applegate, the students that I work with are minimalists. I believe that some of them are afraid of failure, so they fail to elaborate. However, many times I think that the students simply cannot remember what they have read adequately enough to respond to the most basic questions. What worries me the most about these students is that they do not have the strategies they need to become successful as readers in the future. Instead of looking back to the text to find the answers to the questions, they either look to me for what I think is the answer or simply guess. I believe that if they were taught some of the skills that are also discussed in the Applegate article, they could make gigantic progress and eventually match their peers' levels of understanding. One of the reasons that I think that these students are struggling with comprehension questions so much is that they are not yet fluent in their reading. The Tompkins book discusses this as a reason why students cannot comprehend; instead of focusing on understanding the story, these students are using all of their energy to decode the unknown words in the text. Related to this is the fact that most students who are not fluent do not have advanced vocabularies, so when they are finished reading the text, they may not understand some of the words that they have just finished reading. It is our job as teachers to teach students the comprehension strategies that they should use to become skilled readers. I cannot wait to relay some of the things that I read about for class this week to my future students!

Discussions

As a future teacher, I have mixed views on the roles of discussion within a classroom setting. I was very quiet throughout my schooling, and remember becoming upset and nervous about the prospect of being forced to share my opinion in order to get credit for participation once I reached college. Although many discussions focus on the students and the thoughts and ideas they bring to the atmosphere of the classroom, I believe that it is up to the teachers to build trust and engage the students in such a way that they will be willing to share.


Unfortunately, I have not seen many examples of group discussion in my placement. I am in a Montessori school this year, which means that students work independently to complete a set amount of lessons throughout the week. My collaborating teacher rarely gets up in front of the entire class to teach. The one time this happened while I was present, the students discussed bullying; what it looks like and how to react when it happens. The discussion was very teacher-centered, with students simply talking to her instead of letting their ideas develop without needing validation. I was reminded of this when I was reading the Almasi article and it said, "the teacher becomes the ultimate interpretive authority". Instead of letting their definitions and ideas about bullying build off of one another, the students had to get teacher approval before sharing additional ideas. During their normal "work time" they are allowed to talk to one another and collaborate, but there is no structured discussion in a large group setting. The lessons that occur take place in smaller groups, often with the teacher asking questions that have an expected answer from one of the students. The focus of these lessons is either mathematics or grammar, so they do not give the students a lot of opportunity to come up with and share their own opinion with others. I believe that the teacher in my placement is reading a book to the entire class, but I am never present when this activity is taking place, and the only times I hear the teacher referring to it is when she is asking the students comprehension questions.


A lot of good scaffolding ideas were mentioned in the Goldenburg article that I read for class this week. He talked about how important teacher preparation is to conducting quality discussions. The teacher must be aware of the theme of the chosen literature before presenting it to the class. Also, the teacher must provide students with the background knowledge that they need in order to understand the theme of the literature. For example, if the writing is about an event and how people from a particular culture respond to it, students must be aware of the basics of that culture, and they must be able to look at different points of view before reading the literature. This is an essential aspect of scaffolding with students who speak English as a second language, and also emphasizes the importance of knowing your students, as we have discussed at length in class so far this semester. Another part of scaffolding that was mentioned in the Goldenburg article was choosing appropriate texts for the age level and experiences of the students. This could be difficult to do in classes where multiple cultures, ages, and levels of knowledge are represented, but it is important nonetheless. Even choosing a picture book to discuss can lead to meaningful, deep discussions. We saw many examples of these types of books last week in class.


Another way that teachers must scaffold students takes place during the actual discussion. Sometimes students can get off-topic and need to be redirected so that they stay focused on the important content. I experienced this when I was teaching my social studies lesson last semester. I led a small group of students in a discussion about the first Thanksgiving, and they kept redirecting the topic of discussion to what they imagined the first Thanksgiving to be like instead of the facts that they were reading from the primary and secondary sources that I provided and how their views were shaped or changed as a result. Students can get off-topic in other ways as well. Teachers need to shape the discussions when too many topics are being introduced in a short amount of time. An example of this was given in the Almasi article as well. In that situation, the teacher had to remind the students to complete their current thoughts before moving onto a new idea.


Overall, I learned a lot about discussions through the readings that we did for this week. I believe that it is important not to minimize the role that a teacher must still play in discussion even if the students are shaping the flow of responses. With the correct teacher scaffolding, all students will be able to teach each other through their ideas about literature, and the classroom will become a safe, secure place for students to develop and grow.