The Teacher Toolbox Project: Model Lessons

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The Teacher Toolbox Project Model Lessons

• Day Two
• Welcome

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• Model Lesson Scheduling
• Time Allotments
• Daily Activities

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Time Allotments - Grade 4

• 144 planned instructional days
• Wiggle Room
• District Assessments
• 120 minute lessons/day - planned
• 90 minutes Reading - Board Policy
• 60 minutes other Language Arts - recommended
• 30 minutes - teacher discretion

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Units - Planned Time Allotments

• Fourteen - Genre based
• Integrated - All strands
• Objective/Content Specification overlap
• Reading??Writing connections
• Frontloaded
• Explicit Instruction
• Modified methods - Literature Circles, Writing
  Workshop, Notebooks

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Discretionary Time Recommendations

• Spelling
• Houghton-Mifflin Spelling and Vocabulary
• Vocabulary Development
• Independent Reading/Read Aloud/Directed Silent
  Reading

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Vocabulary Development

• Explicit, direct, and consistent instruction in
  vocabulary development must be provided to
  students. However, according to research, it is
  not enough to provide instruction regularly.

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• Instruction must be structured in such a way as
  to be
• integrated (connected to students prior
  knowledge, the curriculum, and to associated
  words)
• repetitive (consistent and repeated exposure),
  and, most importantly, to
• provide opportunities for students to use words
  in active and meaningful contexts.

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• To ensure student success in developing and using
  extensive vocabularies, instruction should
  include
• Scheduled silent, independent reading and teacher
  read-alouds to increase exposure to rich language
  use.
• Well-planned, meaningful vocabulary lists
  connected to novels and texts under study.

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• Targeted lessons and organized activities that
  provide students active learning opportunities to
  study new words and conceptual connections of
  words, strategic methods to acquire new
  vocabulary, and use newly acquired words.
• Time dedicated to the purpose of increasing
  student knowledge of word parts affixes, base
  words, and roots.

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• To ensure increased vocabulary knowledge,
  classrooms must be not only print-rich, but they
  must also be text rich.
• Perhaps the most important component in the
  classroom environment to ensure students
  vocabulary acquisition is the teacher who has an
  extensive, elevated vocabulary and enthusiasm to
  effectively communicate the need for students to
  strive for a comparable level of word knowledge.

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So often our goals are good and true, but the
furor of educational pressures makes us abandon
the very things that would help us reach those
goals. None of the strategies in any book or
program, nor all of them combined, will take
the place of the wealth of words learned in a
strong reading program that includes time for
you to read to your students, time for them to
read with you and other students, and time for
them to read self-selected books
independently.This reading forms the larger
context for any word study a teacher may choose
to do. Janet Allen in Words, Words,
Words
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• Major concepts
• background experience and
• conceptual knowledge
• structural and contextual
• analysis
• utilizing dictionaries as
• resources

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• There are two basic types of context clues
• Semantic/Syntactic
• knowledge of words and word structure
• Typographic visual/graphic/formatting cues

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What We Need To Know AboutConceptual Development

• Builds on prior student knowledge of similar
  words (synonyms), word parts (affixes, base, and
  root words), and word families.
• Builds student skill in analytical thinking.

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The Relationship Between Word Identification
and Sustained Silent Reading Percentile Rank
Minutes of Reading a Day 20
.7 30
1.9 40
3.3 50
4.6 60
6.4 70
9.5 80
14.2 90
21.3 98
65.0
What we know about silent reading
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Unit One

• Author Study

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Major Concepts and Skills

• Literary Devices and Their Effect
• Academic Writing
• Essay
• Two-column Notes

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Major Concepts and Skills

• Writing Process
• Revising for sentence variety
• Using active verbs
• Literature Circles
• Review of Conventions

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Unifying Focus Study Multiple Texts by an Author

• As a class William Steig
• Independently Self-selected

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Getting to Know Unit 1

• Author Study

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Poetry

• Poems are other peoples snapshots in which we
  see our own lives.
• Charles Simic

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Poetry in the Classroom

• Oral fluency
• Meant to be read aloud
• Expression
• Repeated readings
• Echo and choral reading strategies (A8)

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Poetry in the Classroom

• Vocabulary
• Poems are short, and they pack a punch - often
  they say a lot with a few well-chosen words.
  Ralph Fletcher
• Strong images
• Powerful words
• Literary devices

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Poetry in the Classroom

• Response
• Oral and written
• Personal connection, opinion, feeling, etc.
• Illustration

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Choosing Poetry

• Children enjoy poems that evoke laughter and
  delight, poems that cause a palpable ripple of
  surprise by the unexpected comparisons they make,
  poems that reawaken pleasure in the sounds and
  meanings of language.
• Jack Prelutsky

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Literary Devicestechniques used to achieve
particular effects (A4)

• Alliteration
• Dialogue
• Hyperbole
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification

• Imagery
• Onomatopoeia
• Repetition
• Rhyme
• Rhythm

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Identifying Literary Devices

• You and your partner each select a different
  picture book by the same author.
• Read your selected book.
• Identify and record the literary devices used.
  Use two-column notes.

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Compare/Contrast

• Create a Venn diagram with your partner to
  compare and contrast the literary devices used in
  your selected text.
• Compare and contrast the genre, characters, and
  illustrations. Add to your Venn diagram.

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Compare/Contrast Essay

• Use your Venn diagram to write a compare/contrast
  essay. (A19, B14, B17)

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Sentence Variety

• Short, long
• Simple, compound, complex
• Imitate models from literature. (A16, A17)
• Select three sentences from your selected text.
  Write your own sentences, imitating the models
  selected.

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Revision

• With your partner, revise your essay. Revise for
  sentence variety and active verbs.
• Work with another group to peer conference and
  revise your essay. Use the TAG strategy. (A20)

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Points to Remember

• Model, model, model.
• Share expectations ahead of time. Rubrics and
  checklists are included as blackline masters.
• Adapt lesson/assignment to meet the needs of your
  students.

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Other Activities

• The Real Thief by William Steig
• literature circles
• think-aloud
• character traits and feelings
• Book Review
• Independent reading and response (A3, B4, B13)
• Portfolios
• Assignment Overview (B1)

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Unit Two

• Expository Text

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Major Concepts and Skills

• Expository Text Structure and Features
• Academic Writing
• Essay
• Note Taking
• Oral Presentation Skills
• Retell

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Major Concepts and Skills

• Writing Process
• Prewriting - Outlining
• Revising for leads
• Grammar
• Sentence combining
• Compound sentences - coordinating conjunctions
• Pronouns - subject/object
• Subject-verb agreement

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Unifying Focus Integration With Content-Area
Study

• Recommended focus
• Science Unit 2 - Plantanamalia
• Expository Evidence Kit

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Getting to Know Unit 2

• Expository Text

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Expository Text Structure - Why?

• Content area reading/academic work
• Real-life reading
• Two years textbooks
• Strategic tools for students
• Academic structures - notes, outlines, etc.

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Expository Text Structure - What?

• Description
• Problem/Solution Question/Answer
• Chronological/Time Order
• Comparison/Contrast
• Cause/Effect
• Sequence (Direction)
• (A1, B9, B11, B17)

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Expository Text Features - What?

• Fonts and Special Effects
• Textual Cues
• Illustrations and Photographs
• Graphics
• Text Organizers
• (A1, B2, B3, B17)

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• Fonts and Special Effects
• color
• italics
• boldface print
• icons symbols

• bullets
• bullets,
• bullets,
• and more bullets!
• framed text

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Textual Cues

• For example,
• However,
• On the other hand
• To illustrate...
• Consequently
• ...because
• (B11)

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Text Organizers

• Cover
• Title
• Table of Contents
• Headings
• Subheadings
• Glossary
• Appendix

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Graphics

• Overlays
• Diagrams
• Cutaways
• Cross sections
• Tables
• Charts
• Graphs

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Scavenger Hunt

• Work with your small group to perform the task on
  your Scavenger Hunt card.
• Be prepared to debrief with the whole group.
• (B17)

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Academic Writing - Note Taking

• Use a developmental model for learning
  demonstration, participation, practice, and
  sharing.
• Take notes in a variety of contexts such as
  taking notes from texts, interviews, news
  articles, oral presentations, and films. This
  unit focuses on taking notes from texts.

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Academic Writing - Note Taking

• Reproduce a page and make a transparency.
• Read the passage aloud, underline key phrases,
  and verbalize your thinking processes as you
  work.
• Demonstrate how you turn key phrases into notes
  and complete sentences.

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Academic Writing - Note Taking

• Consider using an organizing thinksheet as
  another vehicle to help students take notes.
• After students become proficient at note taking,
  encourage them to write short summaries of their
  findings.
• (A6)

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Revision - Leads

• Why leads?
• Capture the readers attention
• TAKS
• What leads?
• Question
• Definition
• Quotation
• Exclamation
• Sentence Fragments
• (A15, A16, A17, B13)

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Revision - Leads

• Work with your partner to discuss alternative
  leads for your essays.
• Revise your lead.
• Be prepared to share
• with the group.

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Other Activities

• Organizing Grid (B3)
• Summarization (A8)
• Vocabulary Development
• Strategies (A5, KWL A7, A10, B5, B6)
• Context Clues
• Semantic Mapping
• Dictionary Use
• Note Cards

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Assessment

• Or, what about grades?

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Purpose of Classroom Assessment

• To provide information about what students know
  and are able to do

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This information is important to

• Teachers
• Administrators
• Students
• Families
• The Public

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Teachers use assessment to

• Plan future instruction to meet the needs of
  their students
• Share information with students about their
  progress

• Collect information to assign grades
• Evaluate the effectiveness of instructional
  strategies and curricula

Put to the Test by Therese M. Kuhs, Robert L.
Johnson et al.
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Types of Assessment

• Observation
• anecdotal records
• checklists
• Performance
• essay
• oral retell
• Selected-response items
• multiple choice
• short answer

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Unit Assessments

• Observation should be ongoing.
• Major assignments can be formally assessed.
• Essays
• Oral retells
• Unit tests
• Rubrics are provided for essays and retells.

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Other Opportunities for Assessment

• Writing at various stages of the writing process
  (draft, revised draft)
• Selected activities, such as story maps,
  organizing grids, note-taking skills, response
  logs, etc.

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Portfolios
Students should collect their work in a working
portfolio to track progress.

• Pieces can include essays with drafts, class
  assignments such as story maps, sample journal
  entries, tests, drawings, self-evaluations, and
  any other documentation of student performance.

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Portfolios ?

• Portfolios should be reviewed regularly for
  students to critique their own work, write
  reflections, and set goals.
• Additional training on portfolios will be
  provided.

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Avoid the GOTCHA.

• Share your expectations and rubrics with
  students.

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Avoid the GOTCHA.

• Grades should not be given on work done during
  Concept Development when students are still
  learning a concept or skill. Grades should be
  given when students apply a concept or skill,
  such as in Student Practice.
• During Concept Development, use diagnostic
  assessment. Determine individual needs and plan
  for future instruction.