Inquiry 2: Part A questions

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

·       I will be creating a unit on characters for my Guided Lead Teaching. In this unit, readers will talk and think about the characters in their books. Key concepts of this unit are; collecting ideas on graphic organizers/post-its, comparing and contrasting characters within texts and across texts, creating conversation about the characters in texts, making inferences about characters and retelling using story elements.

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

·       Everyday we have 20 minutes for a read aloud which is immediately followed by 40 minutes for Reader’s Workshop. I will be able to read texts with good examples of characters during the read aloud and follow that with a mini lesson.

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

·       RL.2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

·       RL.2.6 Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

·       RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

·       SL.2.2 Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

·       Characters are vital to stories and to how readers understand a text. They are found in a wide variety of genres and allow authors to get across their messages, illicit emotion and guide readers through their stories.

Readers will develop theories and grow ideas about the characters in their texts. They will learn how to have conversations about characters with their reading partners that involve an exchange of ideas. Readers will learn about literature by identifying character traits by inferring from text, study how characters handle situations they face and compare a character from one book to a character from another book, or from a student’s life. Readers will study the changes in the character across the plotline of the book and think about a character’s motives by thinking about why the character acts as he or she does.

Readers will learn through literacy by forming theories about specific characters in their books. As children continue to read in a text, they usually revise their theories as they follow a character through different situations and encounters. What is motivating the character? Does the character change across the plotline of the book(s)? How do secondary charters affect the main character?

5.     What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

·       Throughout the lesson, there will be a balance of teacher-led talk and student-led talk. The read alouds and mini-lessons will be teacher-led with opportunities for students to talk. After the mini-lesson the students will be reading stories to themselves or to a partner. The format for our read alouds now is to read the text to the students, then have to students turn and talk to a neighbor with about the prompt they were listening for (example: what do you think the author’s message is?) and finally they get in a large circle and listen to each others ideas. I love that this that has been established as a class norm because it encourages discussion instead of the typical lecture format seen in most classes.

6.     Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

·       I would like to focus on developing structures that promote purposeful talk. As I mentioned before, some of these structures are already in place but I would like to try more. I have never been in a class that used paired reading, jigsaw discussions or book clubs. I think these can be great assets to comprehension and I would like to try them to grow myself as a teacher and widen my knowledge of facilitating such structures.

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

·       There are leveled reading books in our library that I will have to go through to find ones with good/strong characters in every reading level. We also have two reading interventionists and a librarian at our school that I can connect with for advice. I am also using Waterford School District and Oakland Schools Curriculum guides to help shape my unit.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

·       I need to find the books that I will be using for my read alouds. My teacher has a very large supply of books of all genres and topics so I know I wont have a problem getting enough books—the key will be finding the best books for each mini-lesson. I also need to find books for each of my distinct reading levels of my students for the partner or group share aspect of my unit.

9.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

·       Currently, my students have been told to follow the character in order to find the author’s message or big idea. Through observation, I have noticed that the students can find the big idea of the story but cannot use examples of how the character helped them do that. This unit will be much more explicit for them in terms of what they need to look for and give them examples of how characters shape stories.

10.  What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

·       I need to know how much prior knowledge my students have with characters and hope they shape texts. If they have some prior knowledge then I build off of that instead of doing things that will be boring to them since they already know it. If they don’t have any prior knowledge, its fine, I will have to make sure I do a thorough job scaffolding their understanding. 

11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

·       My main concern that I need to clear up with my MT is that our Reader’s Workshop typically consists of a mini-lesson and then 25 minutes of silent reading from their leveled books to gain stamina. I need to see if these 25 minutes are required everyday or if I can use that time to do a partner or group read instead. I am also concerned about finding enough low-level books that have good examples of characters in them so I need to start looking right away.

12.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

·       As for the actual teaching of the unit, I am concerned with my classroom and time management. I have slowly begun to take on more responsibilities in the class that have allowed the students to see me as a teacher too so hopefully they respond well to my lessons and respect me as their teacher. Planning out how much time each activity and transition will take will also be a challenge. I hope to get advice from my MT for this.

Inquiry 2 - Part A - 12 questions

1.    Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

o   For Guided Lead Teaching I will be conducting a unit on Personal Narratives. Students will learn the characteristics of personal narratives and write their own personal narrative throughout the unit.

2.    Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

o   Each day we spend 60 minutes on independent reading, 30 minutes on read alouds and 45 minutes on writing each day. Until the MEAP test is complete, the writing time is often used for MEAP prep with the third graders and extra math time for the second graders. For my unit, I will be able to share personal narratives for read alouds and will be able to use all of the writing time. The first seven minutes of writing are used for instruction during a mini-lesson and the rest is used for student writing.

3.    Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

W.3 (2^nd) – Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

W.3 (3^rd) – Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

a)    Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or character; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally

b)    Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.

c)    Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order.

d)    Provide a sense of closure.

4.    How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

o   In many situations throughout their education, students will be required to write personal narratives. In addition, most informal communication with friends and family members is some form of personal narrative. Thus, understanding the features of a personal narrative will help students communicate successfully throughout their lives. Students will learn literacy by learning to write in a new style. They will also learn about a type of literature they will be able to find in both the school and classroom library. The personal narrative is not only a form of written literacy but is also the most common vocal interaction between people. Students can practice using the features of personal narratives in their conversations with their peers as well. Finally, many movies and TV shows are personal narratives, though the features are more difficult to locate. It is possible that we could view either a movie or a TV episode and locate the features of personal narratives within. Students will learn about literacy by learning the features of personal narratives and how to write them. Students will learn through literacy by reading personal narratives throughout the unit. These examples allow the instructor and students to locate features of personal narratives that students can then locate in their own reading and mimic in their writing.

5.    What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

o   Within this target area, there will be many types of classroom talk. During the mini-lessons presented at writers’ workshop, the talk will be mainly teacher-led and I will review the features of personal narratives with the class. I will work to include their ideas and examples in the instruction allowing the opportunity for participation. In addition, I will ask students to read personal narratives during buddy reading and look for the features we learn about during writers’ workshop in these books. In this way, the discussions would be student-led and the students will be focused on their reading and comprehension skills. Finally, I will be having students create their own personal narratives. While students will be using the features we discuss, the content of the piece will be up to them. They will be asked to use a TAK organizer that we are learning about now to help them organize their writing and then transfer those ideas into the final work. The generation of a brand new piece of writing requires higher order thinking. In addition, noticing the features of personal narratives in their own and others’ writing is a version of higher order thinking as well.

o   As I continue the use of student interaction in the classroom throughout this unit, I intend to utilize the many norms already in place in our classroom. It is expected that students will quickly find their partners and immediately begin working on their reading/discussion and this is something they are very good at already. In addition, the students know that during teacher-led discussions, they need to raise their hands rather than call out as 59 students shouting out their ideas will not be productive. Finally, as students work independently on their writing pieces, they know that they should be silently working and raising their hand for help from the three teachers. These are all norms that I love in our classroom and that I want to continue to implement throughout the unit. It is also my hope that we might start to peer-review students’ writing but that may be a bit above grade level. If this opportunity arises, I would expect that students again quickly find their partners and immediately begin working. I would have students first read their partner’s writing and make notes on a sticky note about something they want to talk to their partner about (they should not write on the other student’s work). After discussing the ideas of their partner, students could then choose to take their partner’s suggestion or not. Finally, I would expect students to create a final copy with the changes suggested by teachers and peers as well as their own revisions.

6.    Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

o   The core practices I want to develop and improve upon as I teach about personal narratives is the use of the mini-lesson that focuses on students’ instructional needs and genre study. In our school we utilize 7 minute mini-lessons to teach content before having students work independently. By improving my use of the mini-lesson, I hope to be able to meaningfully convey content instruction quickly. This will allow my students more time to practice and more time for me to work with students individually. Additionally, improving upon the core practice of genre study will allow me to teach my students great amounts of information about specific genres in a way that allows them to utilize these features in their own writing. This will help not only my current students but my future students as well because I will be better experienced in sharing this type of information in a relatively short amount of time. Thus I feel that pairing both the mini-lesson and genre study as core practices is a beneficial professional move.

7.    What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

o   In the community and neighborhood surrounding our school, there are many people with which the students can share their personal narratives. In our school district there are many resources available including leveled libraries, reading interventionists, librarians, and experienced writers who can assist me in understanding how best to teach students about and how to use the features of this genre of writing. In our school we have our own reading interventionist, a librarian, a school library, a classroom library, and a leveled book room in which I can find examples of personal narratives which will include the features that I want to teach students about during the mini-lessons. Finally, our classroom has many materials I can utilize in my unit about personal narratives including students’ writer’s notebook in which to practice writing, copies of the TAK organizer to help students organize their writing, highlighters for students to locate specific features in a copy of a text or in their own writing, and two teachers to help with revising students’ work.

8.    What additional resources do you need to obtain?

o   Resources that I still need to obtain are the actual texts I hope to share with the class. I will need text with examples of the features of personal narratives that I want the students to practice. I can retrieve these texts from the public, school, or classroom library but I still need to locate the texts I want to use. In addition, I need to determine the exact features that I will be including in my unit. I know that these features are a combination of the features in the CCSS standards and the features in the Waterford School District guide for teaching personal narratives. Finally, I need to obtain examples of student’s current work so that I understand which features students already understand and use and which still need to be mastered.

9.    How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

o   To pre-assess students on their writing of personal narratives, I will ask them to write a personal narrative about a specific topic such as one of the Seven Habits, their experiences over the summer, or their plans for the weekend. I will then review these pieces in search of the features to be taught in the unit to understand which features students already understand and use and which need to be the focus of specific mini-lessons.

10.  What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

o   I will need to find out what type of instruction students have had regarding personal narratives prior to this year so that I can avoid repeating what they already know and instead teach new content. In addition, I will need to understand which writing terms students already know and which they do not know so that I communicate in terms they understand and explicitly teach new vocabulary. I will also need to verify that my assignments involve kid-friendly topics that they know a lot about so that they can have enough information to write about them. 

11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

o   I want to learn a little more about mini-lessons before attempting to use them daily in this unit. I am unsure if there is a general format for mini-lessons or if the idea is just to keep it short. I know that I learned this in 402 from the Tompkins text but I need to review it. In addition, I feel that I could benefit from understanding more about the specifics of a genre study as it pertains to writing. In my experiences, genre studies span both reading and writing but these are taught separately in my classroom so while I can influence some reading, I want to understand specifically how genre studies affect writing.

12.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

o   The main thing I am nervous about with this unit is that students will struggle with the logistics of writing and not grasp the content I am teaching. While I know that we have strong writers in the class who will be able to focus solely on the content and style of their writing, I am concerned about the lowest level writers in our class who struggle to even copy text onto a page let alone develop their own piece of writing.  In addition to this, I am most worried that I will struggle with classroom management. We have a number of unfocused and unruly students in the class and I am nervous about my ability to control these students while teaching content. Up to this point in my teaching career and education, I have been able to manage behavior OR teach but this will be one of the first times I attempt to do both.

Routman's writing advice

In order to follow Routman's advice it is important to "focus on excellent teaching of writing, you will be teaching beyond what the standards require."

Things to work on:

-When only several students need explicit guidance, form a small group to teach, instead of teaching the whole class.

-Watch the amount of time spent on mini lessons. Sometimes kids don't get the chance to write when the lessons take up all the time.

-Before the kids write, go over the key writing techniques that you went over the day before to help remind the kids what you're looking for in their writing. (Expectations!)

-Focus more on the content and coherency of the piece instead of focusing on capital letters and punctuation.

-Keep the flow of writing. Have them try to write every day, but if this isn't possible, have them write on consecutive days.

-Share your thinking!

-Talk about writing, demonstrate different kinds of writing,  have the kids talk about writing and ideas


In order to help my students with writing, it is important to share writing samples with them, in order for them to write on their own. This is part of the "we do it;" where the teacher guides the children in the correct steps, and models fluency. It is important to allow students to express their ideas orally, before starting the actual writing. This helps students feel more comfortable with the writing process as they become more confident with their ideas. Shared writing is especially important for ELL students.

I think that one of the dilemmas I might encounter is making sure the kids have enough time to write, especially with younger students. It is so easy to get caught up in a lesson, and answering kid's questions that you lose important writing time. Another issue I have with time is that many of my younger students take a very long time to think about what they want to write, before they begin the drawing or writing process. This gives them less time to develop their writing piece. I could "finesse" this by integrating smaller learning groups for the students who still need guidance, in order for other students to begin writing.This would create more time for my students who are eager to write, but still creates the time I need with my students who need more instruction.

What Can I Do? - Julie

During these first few weeks of the school year I have been balancing being a professional member of the staff, a student who is still actively learning and a teacher to my students. Professionally, I have not had any problems yet. The other teachers in my grade level are absolutely wonderful as are most of the staff. The positive environment makes me more comfortable but I still need to find my place within the staff and share my opinions in meetings more. Currently I feel a little out of place and out of my league with some of the conversations (curriculum, testing, evaluations, etc) but little by little I am finding my way. For the most part my students treat me as an equal to my mentor teacher and respect me. I am trying to do more each day to get them more comfortable with me teaching. The district I teach in (Waterford) has a strict literacy curriculum. I anticipate this to be challenging when I start my lesson plans because I won't be able to be as flexible with my lessons and unit. When planning these lessons I will try to take some of the things I learned from Finessing and Hybridizing article to add my own spin onto the curriculum mandidated by the district.

I have not been able to look at the curriculum calendar to see what I will be teaching this semester but overall I feel the most comfortable with the teaching and assessing aspects of the lesson planning. I am the most worried with planning a lesson that is inclusive to the entire class. I have a huge range of learners in my class with some at Kindergarten reading levels and some at or above 2nd grade level so I will have to use finesse to manipulate and manuever the curriculum.

Julie-I'm glad to see you feel the same way I do! Although I feel comfortable with the other teachers, I feel as though I don't have much to contribute when they talk about testing and curriculum. I am also happy to see that my students all treat me as a teacher, and treat me with respect. I have been actively participating since the first day of school, and I think that has helped the students see me as an equal with my mentor teacher. So far I have been doing the daily read aloud and discussion questions, and math calendar. By the end of the week I will be co-teaching a couple of math lessons and teaching the scholastic news on Friday. I am excited to have more opportunities, but I am nervous that they are not going to go very smoothly. The first day I did our math calendar it did not go very smoothly, but I was more comfortable with it the second time I did it, and now it goes great. Practice makes perfect! I am not worried about teaching content, but more worried that I am going to stumble over the lesson. I know that not every lesson is going to be perfectly, but I like to think that I will be able to plan them that way!