Analysis of Student Writing and Lesson Plan

Analysis
The following analysis has been based on one writing sample I was able to collect from Cathy (pseudonym) and from a spelling test that I conducted.

Ownership and Meaning of the Piece
The piece of writing that I used to support my analysis was a story called "Fish's Day". The topic for the story was from a writing prompt given by her teacher. In talking with Cathy about her writing she said that she liked writing the story but that it was not entirely her idea. she liked writing a story about a fish who could talk but did not pick the topic herself. After she read me the story I asked her if she was going to have a sequel to Fish's Day. She said that she did not plan on doing that but after brainstorming different ideas about what she could write about she said that maybe she would add another piece to the story. From our conversation, Cathy did not explicitly say that she enjoyed writing, but her creativeness and enthusiasm about what could happen in a sequel made me think this was something she liked doing.

Six Traits Assessment
Overall the ideas Cathy was developing in Fish's Day had  a great structure and successfully got the reader's attention. Her topic was clearly identified and was consistent throughout the development of her writing. The title of her story alone allowed the reader to know what the story was going to be about and in what direction she was headed. To help the reader understand the transitions in her story she wrote things like "that was how my day began" and "a few seconds later" and even "a few minutes later". One thing in her story that could be developed a little better is that the reader's questions are not always answered. For example, when Cathy first heard her fish talking she said "she laughed so hard her brother couldn't sleep" but that makes the reader wonder if her brother ran in and also saw the fish talking. Instead Cathy never mentions her brother again.

Cathy's story had a very clear and engaging introduction that let the reader know where the story was going. In contract to her introduction, her conclusion was not as apparent other than the sentence "and that is how my day ended". The reader did not find out if the fish continued to talk or what happened next. Having read this story with Cathy was the cause for us to talk about if there would be a sequel. Another organizational piece was Cathy's transitions. There were times when she went from one thing to another smoothly but at other times there did not seem to be a steady switch but rather a jump. As the character in the story watches the fish swim and talk in his bowl Cathy mentions that the character is eating and that the fish tried to get the fish Angel's attention but he got mad and "Fish bit his head". There was not lead up to that in the story. Cathy did not give any clues to the reader that Angel's lack of response was making Fish mad.

I noticed in looking at Cathy's draft that she continued to develop her word choice. There were plenty of striking phrases in her story. In her draft she crossed out the sentence "I kept on tapping" and changed it to "I kept doing loads of tapping" and finally changed it to "I kept doing truck loads of tapping". She also went through her story to find synonyms for commonly used words like small, scared, and mad. She was successful in fancying up her writing and help to capture the readers imagination with a metaphor she used in relating the fishes behavior to bulls. Her word choices were accurate even while replacing commonly used words for synonyms. I also noticed in the draft that she had trouble with using the correct verb tense. This was a pretty common error in her writing. She had to change "singed" to sang, "hides" to hid, and "sleep" for slept, and "freezed" for froze.

In this piece of Cathy's writing I noticed a variety of sentence lengths and structures. They all have a purpose however, some convey more meaning and produce vivid pictures for the reader through her word choice mentioned earlier. Throughout the story, Cathy also begins the sentences in a variety of ways but resorts to starting with "I" a lot of the time.

Spelling
Not only did I have the opportunity to look at Cathy's spelling with the spelling test I conducted but also in her writing sample. In looking at her hand written rough draft of Fish's Day I was not able to find any spelling errors. Having worked on the spelling tests with Cathy I am not surprised that she is a pretty accurate speller with words in her spoken vocabulary. When we did the spelling inventory, Cathy missed three out of the 25 words (She spelled seller for cellar, comfident for confident, and opozition for opposition). For both opposition and for cellar, Cathy was not familiar with the words. They were not words that were in her spoken vocabulary. After noticing the error with confident, I wondered if I pronounced it incorrectly. However, I used all the words in a sentence so even if pronunciation was wrong the context would still be accurate. Without obtaining any patterns in her spelling mistakes I have trouble trying to decide where she would need work. It appears as though she is pretty comfortable with noticing letter sounds, and changing words to double consonants when needed. The only thing I can think is that she would need is more exposure words since two out of the three spelling errors were due to unfamiliarity.

According to Routman (2005) the students are sometimes not aware that they need to provide information to the reader to understand theie story (p. 145). I believe Cathy was pretty aware that this was something that she need to do to make her writing comprehensible. However, closely related to being able to give the necessary information to understand the story, sometime there is information that is added that does not make sense. This is an area that I think Cathy could use some help.

Lesson Plan
Objective: Student will understand that some information in a story can be irrelevant to the main topic.
Standards:
1.3.1. Revises text by adding, deleting, substituting, and moving text.
1.4.1. Applies understanding of editing appropriate for grade level
3.1.1. Analyzes ideas, selects a narrow topic, and elaborates using specific details and/or examples.
Materials:
Teacher generated piece of writing, pencil, paper, a students rough draft
Instructional Strategies:
To begin the lesson the teacher will read a sample piece of writing, either something taken from text and changed to add details that are not crucial to the topic, or something that the teacher created. Have the student listen and take notes on piece of paper the things that they wished they knew more about, or what stuck out to them as they heard the text read.
After the student identifies some parts of the text that do not lend themselves to the story, talk with the student about what things could be done. It is possible that they could be added with some other changes to the story, or maybe that they need to be deleted.
After the student makes the changes to the text, show the student either where it came from in published book or the revised text that the teacher generated.
At the end of the lesson the student will apply what they learned from looking at different piece of text to one of their own writing samples. This will give the student an opportunity to look at their own writing and wade through the irrelevant details and sentences that distract the reader rather than engage them.
Assessment:
Teacher will assess student's understanding that some information in a story can be irrelevant to the main topic by looking for a the student's revised story with a cohesive flow from one sentence to the next.

A Couple Thoughts on Teaching Math

Today was a great class. One of the first things that struck me today is when one of my classmates said "students need to understand that being uncomfortable at times is ok" in regards to answering a questions that was posed to them. To add to that statement, teachers need to realize that think time is ok for the students and should be given. When I had to teach a lesson last quarter in my dyad I remember asking questions and not lasting through the minimum seven seconds of wait time to allow for more students to think about the question and raise their hand. However, not until I asked a question and found that not a single student had an answer, not even the typical student who threw their hand up first, that I often went with the first student who raised their hand.  Right then I had the students turn and talk to their neighbor hoping that they would then come up with a response. After the minute or two talking to the people near them many of them raised their hand to answer the question. I really want all of the students to get a chance to engage in the conversation and in order to do that there needs to be a couple of moments of think time that might be uncomfortable for both the teacher and the students. However, the teacher is expected to make the situation as comfortable as possible in whatever way they can.

In class today I witnessed something that I would like to use in my classroom. After one of the table groups was called on to share a point from the reading the instructor did not summarize what one of my classmates said but instead chose another student to sum up the statement. This is something I touched on in my last blog but it was nice to see its application because I learned something about myself. I found that I am guilty of waiting for the teacher to sum up what a student’s says after my years of being exposed to many classes where the teacher does just that. When one of my classmates was called on reiterate what was said I thought to myself, “I don’t think I could really do that”. Experiencing this made me realize that I am not that great at listening.

One of my favorite parts about today’s class, which also made my head hurt a little bit, was being introduced to the positive and negative math manipulatives and the algebra tiles. However, when we were using the different manipulatives to help solve negative and positive equations I found that because that method did not come easily to me that it would be challenging to introduce it to students. That is something that I believe a math teacher needs to know. It clicked for some people in my class but not everyone. In a previous Math for Teachers class I took we learned a couple of different ways to solve equations with negative and positive numbers. Although, after learning about these new ways today I think what I learned before is actually more confusing. Instead of using a number line we would visualize or draw a flat like that would be the marker for zero (it was supposed to represent flat land). If you were going to use negative numbers you would have to dig underground and if you were in the positives you would pile dirt up above ground. For example, if had to do the equation -2+-3 you would dig down 2 and then dig down 3 more to be at -5. However, I think this way of solving equations with negative numbers gets confusing when you have to switch the signs. Realizing that there are so many different ways out there to introduce negative numbers to students makes me realize how important it is to be familiar with many different methods.

i Teach With My i Touch

While I have not had the opportunity to use my iTouch in my main placement yet, I am really enjoying thinking about the different uses and how it could be used for differentiated instruction. I am really noticing the different strengths and abilities of the students in the kindergarten classroom that I am in. Some students are reading beyond grade level, while others are still struggling with letter sounds. Some are confident with guess and go spelling during writing time, while others have to ask how to spell something before they can move on. Even during our math time I notice how some don’t want to show their work to solve a problem, while others have to if they want derive at the correct answer.

Thinking of three different students in my placement I believe the iTouch could be used to assist their learning. One of the students in the class is really struggling with matching the sounds to letters and even just saying what sound a letter makes. I believe the use of an iTouch with a phonics app would help her to practice her letter sounds. There is another student in our class that is in a similar situation as the one I just mentioned however she is an English Language Learner. She would benefit from using similar apps. The student learning English has not had enough exposure to our alphabet and the sounds the letters make which automatically places her behind the majority of the class. Another student I believe that would benefit using an iTouch is a student that is doing some therapy for his fine motor skills. Not only would the Touch require precision as he first just selected which app he wanted on the screen, but there are a variety of apps that would help him work on his motor skills throughout their use. There are apps for hand writing where you have to trace the letters, and apps where you have to make matching selections. This would help the student to focus in on what is needed and strengthen his fine motor skills as he used his muscles to make necessary taps of the screen.

For the last student that I mentioned, who needs assistance strengthening his fine motor skills, I could also see the use of the Touch being very frustrating. While I have not witnessed this student get frustrated before, I would be concerned that using a Touch might be too challenging. If he was playing a game on the Touch or just working on something else I could see that it might be discouraging if he continued to touch the screen in the unintended spot.  I suppose a limitation in using the Touch for the two girls I had mentioned that need help with letter and sound recognition is that they might not be able to use what they are learning within the context of a text. If they are just going through drills of letters and sounds and are not able to recognize them outside of the app then they are not able to apply what they are learning.

Continual Thought: Can a Student Say That For Me?

For some reason reading the title of the article Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say really confused me. I could not figure out what the message behind those words was going to be. Now having just finished reading it, the article's title makes perfect sense. Teachers, or adults, should not have to talk/lecture/clarify if the students are capable of delivering the same message.

I think a lot of good can come out of having the students talk instead of having the teacher constantly be the one explaining and clarifying.

1. The teacher gets the opportunity to see if the students understand (and this might just mean the directions that were given if you ask them to repeat them, or if they understand what their classmates are talking about if you ask them to synthesize)

2. This makes the student have to pay attention to their classmates instead of just listening when the teacher talks.

3. The teacher can also preserve their voice while taking advantage of the 25 or so more teachers in the classroom. The students can be great teachers they just might need some exposure to being one.

One of the things in this article that I enjoyed was the reminder to be nonjudgmental about a student’s response or comment even if it is intended to be positive. If a teacher tells a student “wow, that was great” you run the risk of the rest of the class not giving any input or additional answers out of fear that their comments will be no where comparable to “great”. Plus when you tell a student something was ‘awesome” or “good” those are seemingly useless words because they provide no feedback for what was awesome or good. Students just hear those words and feel good about the reaction but they do not know why exactly they produced such a response or how it can be duplicated. Our students need to know that so long as they put in the effort to genuinely answer a question then all answers are good.

I also really liked that the reading mentioned what to do if a student comes up and asks if their answer is correct. Instead of saying yes or no say, “I don’t know, could you explain your thinking”. This could be used as an informal assessment. The teacher would be able to observe if the student understands what they are doing, if they know the proper steps, if any steps were skipped, and if they were using the right terminology. In addition this would save the teacher some time because they would not have to guess where things went wrong if the student did not understand or got the wrong answer. They would simply point the teacher right to the problem while they were explaining their thinking. Also, students benefit a lot from trying to verbalize their thinking. We constantly have to explain ourselves either inside of school or out, so another opportunity to do so would be beneficial.

I really enjoyed reading this article. It made me realize some of the things I do, like answer my own question, or that other teachers do, like repeat what a student said. I will most likely return to this article to reflect on my teaching practices and see which ones are working and which ones need to go.

Miss Toliver: A Math Teacher's Idol

So I finally got up the courage to watch my first, math teaching experience in the middle school. I really should have watched it right away instead of waiting 4 weeks because then I would not have yet had the exposure to Miss. Toliver. She seems to make math so much fun for the students. While I taught a hands on learning lesson to the students it was far from "Miss. Toliver" exciting. This is proof that you can make learning and teaching fun. I know there are ways I could have delivered my lesson differently to better engage and excite the class.

Kids on Race: Accepting all Colors in my Classroom

The other day in class we watched a bit of "Anderson Coopers 360: Kids on Race". Below is just a clip from what we watched in class.



I thought this was a really interesting study. However, not knowing that much about studies and research I found myself wondering somethings. The questions were posed in such a way that implied that the participants had to answer. They asked "which girl is the prettiest?" or "Point to the girl that is the good student?" which makes it sound like there is an answer. I started to think about this when some of the older students responded by saying that there was not enough information for them to answer the questions, and that all people are equal regardless of what their skin color was. So how do you decided if younger children in the study just answer because it seems like they have to or because they are showing biases? What if the questions were "Do you think any of these children are smarter than the others?" that to me would show more than just asking them which one.  While I do not know too much about research I do know that they look at the validity of the study to see if things were conducted appropriately. I would be curious to see what others would say about this study.

Another thing that I think is important to look at in the data is the other side. They said that "66% of students pointed to the darkest skinned child when asked to point to the mean child". The other side to that is 34% of children did not and what are they hearing and learning that is influencing their decisions.

Regardless of my knowledge of this study and research in general I think there is a message I can take away from this that will impact my teaching and when I am a parent some day. I want to make sure that the things I say and that my actions don't make any students think that one color over another is better or worse. That is not something I believe and therefor do not want it to be a message that students pick up. One of the expectations in my classroom will be that students work together and accept and cherish diversity and everyone differences. I will not only tell this to students but I will have activities in place that help the students to see this in action. That will just be one of the way we will begin to be a class that is not colorblind but one that accepts color regardless of the shade.

Are middle school students like kindergarten students?

Back in September I had a great experience with one of the students. The students were working on drawing pictures of themselves so we could graph how many boys and how many girls there were in the class. As I am walking around looking the the portraits I am trying to keep in mind what I learned in my Art Education class over the summer. We learned that telling a student their art is "good" or "nice" or even saying it is "bad" is not constructive feedback and that makes kids think their work is only acceptable if it is "good" or "nice". Students should not just be looking for those words of praise but should know what it is that they are doing nicely or why it looks good. So as I walk around I am pointing out to the students what I see. I say things like "I see you have a big smile on your face" or I might throw in a "looking good, I see your curly hair and your brown eyes" since it is hard for me to leave out those words completely, and I think not too necessary but that is a different blog. I happen to walk over to one student and say "Gavin that looks like you, I see your brown hair, and your blue eyes. I think the only at thing that is different is today you are wearing a green shirt and in your picture you drew you are wearing a red shirt." I followed that up by saying are you trying to tell us something, tomorrow are you going to wear a red shirt and this is a picture of exactly what you will look like tomorrow" Then I went on my way to see some more pictures.

The next morning Gavin walks into the classroom. He says to me "Good morning Ms. Parks look" as he pointed to his shirt. All I said was good morning back. Then a couple minutes later to my surprise I realized what he was trying to tell me, Gavin had remembered what we talked about and wore a red shirt. I not only thought it was incredibly cute that he did that but I was amazed that he  remembered. I went back over to him and did not say I forgot because how embarrassing if a five year old can remember shouldn't I be able to? Instead I started talking about him looking like his picture and that I thought it was really cool that he surprised me and did that.

That experience made me think about how kids really do listen and they want to impress you.
I couldn't help but think of Gavin when I happened to have a nice chat with A yesterday, the middle schooler who I happened to mention in another blog that always has an attitude problem. As I mentioned before we have not had any conflicts and I never did anything wrong to her but that she just doesn't like teachers. As I walk past A's desk I happen to notice that her binder cover has been cleared out of all of her artwork and pictures. I wanted to ask but hesitated because I did not want to get the same angry look or mumbled comment. However, I decided to ask anyway and she quickly looked up and responded saying "I took them all out because I want to reorganize my binder and I am giving my artwork away." Not only was that the most pleasant response she has given me but she next said "would you like one?" I was shocked! "What me? You want to give me something" I thought. Of course I told her I would love something. By the way she is a pretty good artist. So she starts pulling all of her art out of her binder to show it off and let me pick what I wanted. I felt really bad I was getting her off subject but really good that she was giving me the time. It was a complete turn around. After I picked my piece of her art she put them away and got back to work. When class was over I went up to her and asked if she was going to decorate her binder after school. She replied back with saying that she might if she had time. This was the moment I thought about that kindergarten boy. I wondered if A would come in with a newly decorated binder and if she would be interested in showing me.
The next day I was excited for 5th period to come around to see if A would acknowledge me or want to talk more about her art. sure enough she walks in and I am sitting in a chair in the back of the room and she pushes her binder towards me to show what she had been working on. I perked up and started to talk to her about what she had created. "Yay" I thought it my head. We talked about what was new and that she had never really taken an art class. A little while later I had showed her a picture that I had on my phone of a self portrait I had done years ago. She laughed at it but it was a very genuine laugh together and not like she was laughing at me. It was great. I felt so pleased that it seemed like I made a connection with her. I hope that next week things are still on the right path.
While I am very happy with the way things are going, I am having trouble with the way A's and my relationship shifted. It seems like the only way I could connect with her was to get her completely off the topic of her school and work. How can you make sure to connect and get to know your students when you have so little time to do so? It was not like this was the only time I have tried to talk to her about her likes and interests. It seems like she needed multiple attempts. However, I am also not the teacher and I only see her and the rest of the class two times a week for two months which makes it challenging. Maybe this would not be as big of a challenge if I was there more often.