Leah Newton TPA Task 2: Instruction Commentary (Reflection) 1.

In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text. a. Cite examples of strategies aimed at engaging all your students and examples aimed at engaging specific individuals or subgroups. During the I Do portion of the lesson, I instructed students to take notes. This is a simple strategy, but it allowed me to ensure that all students were engaged. The expectation to be writing reminds students that they are not passive observers and should be processing the information. During the We Do portion of the lesson, the main strategy that I used to engage all students was think-pair-share. Students first thought about a summary for law 148 of Hammurabis Code. They wrote down who the law was about, what would happen to those people according to the law, and why it would happen. They then paired with their table groups and shared their responses. During the sharing portion, I scanned the room and circulated to check that all students had actually processed the learning. Finally, students summarized laws on their own during the You Do portion of the lesson. I also used a few signature strategies to engage subgroups and individuals, making sure that they would remain on task and would practice summarizing with the rest of the class. I used incentives and narration at the beginning of the lesson, giving table group points to those students who were reading with Document C. I used anonymous group correction when I stated, Your eyes should be on your law, or on the board, and positive framing when I stated, Im just thinking thats great that you have a lot of answers and Thats great you can help out with the next one. These comments were in response to students who were trying to share out during the I Do portion of the lesson. I was glad about their enthusiasm to learn but didnt want them to miss any of the demonstration just in case they hadnt yet fully grasped the material, so I redirected them in a non-accusatory manner. b. How did these strategies reflect students academic or language development, social/emotional development, or cultural and lived experiences? (How did you connect to prior learning in a way that integrates skills and strategies?) I used the Post-It strategy at the beginning of the lesson of referring to the objective and ensuring that students understood what it meant. The objective was to Summarize a section of nonfiction text. We had learned about the difference between fiction and nonfiction text in a prior lesson, as well as the different types of nonfiction, so for most students the only new academic concept in the objective would have been summarizing. I knew, however, that some students were still struggling with the difference between fiction and nonfiction text, and I didnt want them to become frustrated by focusing upon identifying or defining nonfiction text in addition to summarizing. I explicitly said, therefore, that our nonfiction text was Hammurabis Code (They were already familiar with Hammurabis Code from a prior lesson).

The behavior management strategies that I used reflected an awareness of the students social and emotional development. In general, sixth grade students are still at an age when they desire praise from their teachers, so the table group points were effective. I have never seen a table group or an individual student get embarrassed for being recognized positively by the teacher, but older students might have felt that way. I also used clear expectations as a behavior management strategy. In my students community, disrespect is status quo, so I was sure to be explicit about what to do and not what to do during the sharing portion of the think-pair-share. 2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson. a. How did these strategies reflect students varying language proficiencies and promote their language development? I used an anchor chart to support language development. The anchor chart said, Hammurabis Code: Is it Just? and then defined code as law and just as fair. The anchor chart was very simple, with the definitions written in large letters, so that all students could see it. I know that many of my students need glasses but cannot afford them, so I always keep that in mind when creating posters. The anchor chart scaffolded content the vocabulary by relating it to words with which the students were already familiar. I also rephrased words in the text that were likely to be unfamiliar to my students. For example, I made students aware of the key word shall and explained that shall is like a fancy word for will, so I know that this will happen. I also said that if the lady was unfaithful to her husband, she basically cheated on her husband. I encouraged student participation by using student language in my lesson. During the I Do- You Help portion of my lesson, one student summarized the law by saying, A married couple was together and the lady was drowned because she cheated. Although it was a bit repetitive to say that a married couple was together, I decided to use this sentence as the example for the class because I know that inclusion of student wording into the lesson helps to give students a sense of agency. I would have corrected the student if she was wrong or completely off-track in her comment, but we were not studying economy of language. Finally, I showed an awareness of the students varying language proficiencies. I have an emergent reader in the class, so I finger pointed the words on the board as I read them out loud. This helps students develop one-to-one correspondence in their reading. I also read the law for the I Do out loud and asked a student volunteer to read the next law out loud for the We Do. Reading the law more than once and hearing it should have helped students in the decoding process. For those faster readers, I said, If you finish early, you can begin putting it all together in one sentence. The optional step of creating one coherent sentence provided a challenge for students who may have otherwise become bored.

3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s). I elicited student thinking from the onset of the lesson by explaining that we had been discussing Hammurabis Code and whether or not it was just (I explained this right after holding up the anchor chart). I said that before we could understand whether or not the code was just, we had to summarize and make sure we understood the code. Later in the lesson, I said, I wonder if this is fair or just, but first I have to understand what its talking about. These statements encouraged the students to think about the essential understandings associated with the lesson and to ask themselves, Why does summarizing matter? We do not currently post Big Ideas in the classroom or directly teach them in the lessons, but I would expect students to come to a conclusion such as, Summarizing is important because I cant evaluate something or make a decision about it unless I can summarize it. My ongoing responses to the students encouraged them to think independently. For example, I validated JaNise after she shared her sentence. I also narrated academic-related accomplishments in addition to behavior-related accomplishments. I said, I see that weve already found who its about and were writing it in, which then prompted more students to consider who the law was about and write it on their papers. Although the narration is not a direct response to any particular student, I do feel that its a way of responding to the class as a whole and that it elicits student thinking. 4. Reflection a. Reflect on students learning of concepts and academic language as featured in the video clip(s). Identify both successes and missed opportunities for monitoring all students learning and for building their own understanding of skills and strategies for comprehending and/or composing text. Overall, this lesson was fairly successful in terms of monitoring learning and building understanding. Many of the strategies that I used helped to improve both engagement and comprehension. Overall, however, I would say that the incentives, narration, positive framing, anonymous group corrections, and clear expectations had the greatest impact upon student engagement. The explanation of the objective, use of the anchor chart, rephrasing of difficult vocabulary, and think-pair-share were most effective in supporting student comprehension. There were a couple missed opportunities. To ensure that all students were intellectually engaged in the mini-lesson (as opposed to pretending to be engaged by staring at the board), I think that I should have pulled popsicle sticks when choosing students to read the parts of a summary. I had already made it very clear that the anchor chart listed the parts of the summary and I do think it was more engaging to have students read the chart to me rather than reading it aloud to them, but I would have increased participating by telling students that I would cold call. I also missed some opportunities to help students become independent learners. It was better for me to rephrase vocabulary than allow students to get confused or frustrated, but I could have done a think aloud for the unfamiliar vocabulary, using context clues to show how I

determined meaning. This would have helped students to understand more than just a few new words. As it was, they learned the meaning of code, just, shall, and unfaithful. b. If you could do it over, what might you have done to take advantage of missed opportunities or to improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs and characteristics? To take advantage of these missed opportunities, I would pull popsicle sticks to select students to read the anchor chart. I would let students know that I would be pulling popsicle sticks in advance, so that they could self-monitor their participation. Rather than simply providing the definitions of new words, I would also use context clues to model a think-aloud about those words. For example, before displaying the anchor chart, I would say, Our nonfiction text is Hammurabis Code. This document called Hammurabis Code says that it was written by Hammurabi and it list a bunch of laws. So, Im going to say that code means law. I might even identify some context clues and then ask for student volunteers to share possible definitions. For example, I could say, If a woman is unfaithful to her husband, she shall be tied up and thrown into the water. Unfaithful must be something bad, because theyre going to drown her for it. How can a woman be bad to her husband? Before the think-pair-share and before independent work, I would remind students to use their context clues to figure out unfamiliar words. To improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs and characteristics, I would include more visual and kinesthetic elements into the lesson. Although students could follow along visually on their papers and on the board, I think that it would have been useful to have some images at least on the anchor chart. For the kinesthetic learners, I could have done more checks for understanding during the I Do. It would have worked well to have students raise their hands each time they heard me explain a new part of the summary. Not only would this have given me a better grasp on the progress of all students, but it would have allowed students to physically demonstrate their learning. I was satisfied with the lesson, but Im excited to grown and improve as the school year progresses.