Lesson Critique (1:2)

This lesson is great! As the teacher goes through the lesson, she scaffolds instruction until the new information and skills are ‘easy’ for the students. She uses the readers/ writers workshop model for teaching this. She starts with ‘I do’- reading a book and found poetry. Then goes on to ‘We Do’- where the class creates a found poem together and then ‘You do’- where the students present the poem.  

Learning Outcomes:
(The lesson can be aligned with your state standards for grade K-2) 

The teacher has clearly defined outcomes and what she wants her students to come out of the lesson knowing.  Which is to identify appealing words from the story, select their favorite words and part of the story, create a poem with the words they chose, preform their poem to the class, listen to others as they preform and assess their own efforts.  

Learning Activities: 
The teacher has her students create a poem together as a class and then present it.  

Instructional Grouping:
 In pair students share their favorite words, phrase etc. (from the second story that was read).  

Instructional Procedures: (in short) The teacher starts by reading a book, then they read a found poem about that story. She then shows her students how to create a found poem and reads another book to them. She then has her students find their favorite words etc. with a partner and together as a class they create a poem from the words they all chose. They then read the poem together, discuss their rubric for when presenting the poem, the students then practice for presentation, students present in front of class and parents and finally she discusses the performance with her students.  

Resources (Including Technology):  

2 books, found poem, poem planning page, rubric, word mover (helps students create found poetry)

Teaching Practices (connected to learning theory): As mentioned above, this lesson is great, The teacher scaffolds instruction and helps her students learn how to create a found poem.  

 Assessment:  Throughout the lesson the teacher monitors the students’ progress and takes notes on what she sees. In addition, there is a rubric that both she and her students will see how they did. 

Accommodations: There are no direct accommodations for students who may need special instruction, but there is room for that to be easily added.  (like: explaining the hard words/ having students get help with finding words for the poem etc.) 

Components of of Becoming Literate (1:1)

Literacy is defined as the ability to read, write, speak, listen and language. In order for a person to become properly literate, these five components must be present. The common core/ next generation standards outline and give a foundation/ guide to teachers on how to teach these components. The standards ensure that throughout the years in school, students will become properly literate.  

As mentioned above, there are five major components for K-12 to become literate. The overall main goal of reading is for comprehension of the text. In addition, reading and writing are often linked together. Many times, in order for students to comprehend the texts and read for understanding, they need to write about it in different forms.  

The speaking and listening component include a wide range of communication/ personal skills. The ability to listen to others, whether through oral or media resources and then to be able to communicate that information, in an appropriate form (depending on the audience). The last component is language, which is the effective use and vocabulary of the language. 

For all these components, technology can enhance the learning process, like having students read online sources and comment on a blog about them etc.  

Thinking back to when I was in young elementary school, although I don't remember much, there are some instances that jump out. Whenever teachers gave us assignments that had an authentic reason to them, the whole class was engaged in the process and we remembered what was taught long after class was over.  

For example, reading for a research project or for a fair that the whole school will come view (like a history fair), we read with purpose, researched with meaning, wrote the information down with enthusiasm and overall, really worked hard using all the skills that the teacher taught us.  

Another time that sticks out is in second grade, when we learned about writing letters and then we wrote to a company. We all used and remembered the skills that the teacher taught us. When teachers engage students in authentic activities that uses the skills that were taught, students will learn and remember it much better.