Our last lesson at Hennessy was focused on paragraph shrinking. We started by telling the students that this was our last lesson with them. We also answered their questions about why we were having the lesson on a Monday rather than our regular time on Thursday. We then showed the students the visual agenda and read through all of the activities we listed for the day. The icebreaker activity was a short reflective discussion. We asked the students which book we had read in our past lessons was their favorite. After each student shared, we activated their prior knowledge. We discussed whether the students had read any informational texts before and if they had ever heard of or used the paragraph shrinking strategy. Next, we introduced the vocabulary for the lesson. Each word was taken from the read-aloud book and was written on a whiteboard for the students to see. To practice using paragraph shrinking, we showed the students an anchor chart. On it was a different, shorter paragraph taken from the book. With the students’ suggestions, we determined the subject and the most important detail from the paragraph and rewrote the shrunken version on the chart.
The paragraph we were shrinking for this lesson came from the book Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motions by Loree Griffin Burns. Since we were only reading one paragraph from the story, we made sure to ask the students comprehension questions about all of the pictures on the page and how they related to what we read. We then passed out the graphic organizer to the students. As a group, we re-read the paragraph, then went through each section and filled it in with the students’ suggestions. Once each section was completed, the students rewrote the final shrunken paragraph with teacher support. We had a quick brain break activity before moving on to our final activity. The students’ writing journals were passed out, and they were asked to write about an experience they had had at the beach. The teachers supported the students' writing by helping with spelling and transcribing the students’ ideas on a whiteboard. To close out the lesson, the students were able to take their writing journals home with them. We also had some small prizes to thank them for all of their hard work with our six lessons together. After cleaning up our workspace and the students putting away their materials, we thanked them again and said goodbye for the day.
Something that went well with this lesson was the structure of the activities and the amount of time we had to complete them. For this lesson, the time we had to teach was only one hour instead of two. It was a shorter amount of time, and we had to restructure our regular timing of the activities during the planning. This actually kept the students more engaged with the content since there was less downtime between activities. We were able to keep the lesson flowing without rushing through any activities. An area of weakness was only reading a single paragraph from our book for the lesson. While it did help to only focus on one event from the book, during our discussion before and after reading, we did have to make up for the lack of information. To help with the students’ understanding of the topic, we were paragraph shrinking. We read the synopsis on the back of the book and briefly explained what each chapter was about. This was a long informational text, but I feel like the students' understanding of the topic would have improved if we had read more than just one paragraph.
Both students who participated in this lesson met the objectives. In our plan, the SLOs were “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify the main idea of a paragraph from the read-aloud story with differentiated core support by completing a paragraph shrinking graphic organizer” with varying proficiency. Both students were able to do this by writing accurate information in the story’s paragraph in each section of the organizer.
This teaching experience showed me the importance of structuring a lesson to get through all of the necessary content without rushing through it. Since we had half of the time of our normal lesson periods, I was originally worried about it not being long enough. However, sticking to the planned structure and staying on time with our planning helped us complete all of the necessary activities for meeting the learning objectives.
This experience allowed me to stay professional with teaching while the students were excited by something else. From previous practicum experiences, I’ve seen that the last lesson is usually the most emotionally charged. Whether the students are excited or upset that our time together is ending, their emotions can affect how focused they are on the content. This lesson was no different. Which is why I am glad to have more practice in this situation. As a teacher candidate, it is important to help the students stay focused on the lesson while acknowledging their current emotions.
This teaching experience will influence me to think more critically about the best way to deliver content in a lesson, especially when I need to focus on a specific learning strategy. The one thing I would change about this lesson would be to have read more of our book or to have taken more time to look at and discuss more of the pictures. We were able to read a paragraph in our book for the students to complete the graphic organizer. However, I wonder if the students’ understanding of our topic, rather than only focusing on the strategy, would have improved if we spent more time getting into the book.
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