Alexa Chu Clark University Master of Arts in Teaching Program Learning Activity Plan 1 st grade, Woodland Academy, Mentor Teacher: Cindy Bourgelas

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1 1 LAP #3 The Mixed Up Alphabet Fall 2012 I. Content: Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content? This lesson will focus on a read aloud of The Mixed Up Alphabet. Students will revisit the text with an engagement designed to help them retell how the letters in the alphabet were feeling before and after Z wanted to be in the front of the alphabet. Students will really tune into character feelings as the focus of this text. II. Learning Goal(s): Describe what specifically students will know and be able to do after the experience of this class. Students will be able to (SWBAT) report out the letter s feelings to a partner in preparation to writing. SWBAT turn and talk with a partner about character feelings. SWBAT retell how certain letters in the alphabet are feeling (for example, Z). SWBAT continue to discover our theme of cooperation. SWBAT write how characters were feeling and why through writing. III. Rationale: Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your Curriculum Unit Plan learning goals. This lesson will follow The Crayon Box that Talked and continue our talk about sharing and working together, both in our stories and in our classroom. These themes play a very important role in our classroom and in our school. The learning goals also relate to our CUP learning goals and help students meet goals for future lessons and our final assessment. IV. Assessment: Describe how you and your students will know they have reached your learning goals. Assessment in this lesson will be informal through whole-class assessment character feelings and turn and talk to a partner. This assessment is consistent with past LAPs in this unit in order to provide students with consistency in what the expectations for learning are. By this point in the unit, I will know which students conversations to tune into and which students need to be engaged more in our discussions. By having students write feelings down, it will be a way of holding each of them accountable and assessing them individually.

2 2 Formal assessments will be individual student writing about characters in the story. Expectations will be students writing about: 1) What the characters are feeling, 2) Why they feel this way, and 3) How they know. V. Personalization: Describe how you will provide for individual student strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each student and scaffold learning? Recognizing character feelings in a story will strengthen their reading skills and help many accomplish their individual reading goals. Being able to write about character feelings will also allow students to be more engaged and give them more confidence in a large discussion setting, talking about it beforehand. Writing their thoughts about character feelings will keep them engaged and prepared to share as a class. Students will also talk about character feelings in turn and talk before and during writing their own. VI. Activity description and agenda: Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of your class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path toward understanding. Time Teacher will Students will Materials 3 minutes *Write objective on board/poster Rich introduction and objective: We are reading this book for character feelings and why we know they are feeling that way not about predictions or connections, just character feelings. 10 minutes Read The Mixed Up Alphabet with some turn and talks. How do you think the letters are * Call students to rug in pairs; make a horseshoe Students on the rug will listen to introduction and objective. Students listen to story. Students turn and talk to a partner about how the The Mixed Up Alphabet The Mixed Up Alphabet, marked pages

3 feeling on this page? Turn and talk to your partner. Move on. characters in our story feel and may be asked to share. 3 What do we know about the letters in our story so far and how they are feeling? Turn and talk. How are the letters feeling here? Turn and talk to your partner. 15 minutes At the end of story: Remember we were reading this story to think about character feelings and why they were feeling this way. We are going to write about how the characters are feeling. (MODEL) For example, I would say: Z is being selfish because he wants to be in the front. He is always last. I know this because in the story Z said he wanted to be first. Now turn and talk to your partner about what you are going to write about. Students write first Students turn and talk about what they will write and then write on their own. The Mixed Up Alphabet, paper for students

4 and add a picture if they are done, then to the rug reading. Must bring to me before they start picture! 3 minutes Wrap up/ Finish charting Introduction to next week s book Final thoughts, answer any student questions The Mixed Up Alphabet, letter charts, markers, individual student feeling sheets that are leftover 4 VII. List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses. Reading standards for Grade 1 students 1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. 4. Identify words or phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings. Speaking and listening standards for Grade 1 students 2. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text or read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. Writing standards for Grade 1 students 3. Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure. VIII. Reflection a. In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose and learning goals, in what ways was the activity(ies) successful? How do you know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned differently another time? My main learning goals for this lesson were for students to talk about how the characters in our story are feeling and why they know, and also for students to write about how the characters are feeling in our story and why they know. In the read aloud of the book, students were given turn and talk time to talk about how the letters in our story were feeling at different points in the story. Although they did not get as much time as normal to turn and talk, most students were able to grasp how the

5 characters were generally feeling at different points in our story. For example, in the first turn and talk where Z says he wants to be in the front of alphabet, Jairus was able to talk to Kevin about how Z was feeling crabby and grouchy because he didn t know why A was so special and was always in the front of the line. This is evidence from the text that Jairus used in turn and talk. Through the writing activity students did, I know that all students were able to at least report how the characters were feeling in our story. Not all of them were able to tell me why, but I got a variety of responses. These responses range from: - Being able to tell me how the characters are feeling and why with evidence from the story (David, Yaritza) - Being able to tell me how the characters are feeling but not why (Charlie) - Being able to tell me how the characters are feeling and why but not an accurate comprehension (Griseida) At the end of this activity, I was able to hold each student accountable for what they they thought the characters in our story were feeling and why. Further looking into the responses I was able to see that I should have modeled the writing a little better. A lot of them spent too much time on the writing which should have been just a quick, pick a feeling, tell me why, and I am working out different ways to get them to focus on their writing for tomorrow. As well as students reaching my learning goals in one way or another (whether through discussion or writing), I also had parts of the lesson which are a plus for me as a teacher and that show the progress I am reaching towards with my classroom management and communication with Cindy. I called partners to the rug in the beginning of the lesson to 5

6 avoid confusion on the rug and to also try pairing students accordingly. This worked for most groups and I will try different pairs tomorrow, but for the most part it is trial and error. The objective was good for students to focus on, and as fun as the poster was, seemed to hook them too much, as I had to re focus their attention on me several times in the beginning of the lesson. For timing, students were off the rug and writing in less than 20 minutes, which is a huge accomplishment for me and my students. There were times they were getting out of control, but through using our system, I was able to use the classroom management system we have in our room to refocus students and give warnings to others. Charlie got sent back to his seat at the end of our story, and a handful of students got reminders as well. This is definitely showing progress for me as I am showing students that I will be consistent in our reminders and if they are not showing me they are ready to learn there will be consequences. 6 b. What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your next LAP? There are many things that will inform my next LAP since I will teach basically this exact same lesson with a different book tomorrow for LAP 4. In the reading of the book, I will keep the questions strictly to how the characters are feeling. One of the questions in my turn and talk today were What do we know about the characters so far? How are they feeling? Tomorrow, this questions will be worded just to focus on character feelings to really bring the focus of the lesson center for my students. Also with turn and talks, students will be given a little more time. I only gave them about a minute for turn and talk this time, and seem to almost always give them too

7 7 much turn and talk time or too little turn and talk time. This is something I continue to work on and that varies each time I ask a question. Tomorrow, I will be tuned into who is sharing in pairs and if they are staying on topic to the feelings of our characters. This also happened when they were sharing what they would write about with a partner. Some students did not have a plan when they got back to their seat, and this relates to the writing they then wrote (see below). The range of different writing responses I got are partly due to my directions at the beginning of the writing activity. Students knew they were listening for character feelings and why, but I did not model the writing part on the board with students and did not monitor if students had a plan on what to write before going back to their desks. There was also confusion to if they were to draw pictures first and then write or vice versa. This directly impacts my next LAP because it is the same layout as this one. I will better model the writing expectations and not let students leave the rug without a clear plan of action for their writing. To inform my next LAP, students will share what they plan to write to give other students better expectations of what I am looking for. What I am struggling with is my students who still find writing very hard for them. I know they have good ideas and most of them can verbally tell me what they want to say, but when it comes to the writing part, they cannot read anything they wrote. For example, Jairus was able to give such a wonderful explanation of character feelings in the turn and talk, but in writing, had a hard time expressing himself on paper. Poor Washington struggles with writing sounds and needs guidance to write down his ideas. Part of this writing struggle for this lesson in particular is that some students may have felt they

8 could lolligag with this writing. As students finished, they formed a line on the rug to 8 let me read their story, and as the line got bigger, some students flew under the radar and did not even come to check in in the twenty minutes they got to write. To inform my next LAP, I will not have students line up to check in with me, but instead, walk around more and individually check in with students as they seem to move on to their pictures. As it is virtually impossible to check in with every student as they write, I will make sure to check in with students I know have struggled with writing in the past and in particular, struggled with the writing today (for example, Washington).