Tara Rabideau

Inquiry Two, Part A:

Discuss Your Target Area and “Core Practice” for Guided Lead Teaching

1.      Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

The target area that I will focus on for my guided lead teaching is reading comprehension/strategy instruction.

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

There are approximately 30- 45 minutes allotted for instruction in language arts.

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

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.1 Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.5 Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1a Come to discussions prepared having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1b Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1c Pose and respond to specific questions by making comments that contribute to the discussion and elaborate on the remarks of others.

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?

This target area of reading comprehension/strategy instruction provides students with opportunities to learn important skills that relate to their lives. For instance, when students can comprehend what they read they can communicate better with others. In their real lives they will come across text that they will need to read and comprehend in order to understand instructions and directions. The skill of instructional strategies is also relevant to their everyday lives. When they come across text they do not know right away they need to have instructional strategies they can use to help them decode/read unfamiliar text. This learning includes learning literacy if students are using strategies to understand new text or learn new words. It could also include learning about literacy if students are learning the instructional strategies and then practicing how they are used. Lastly, this learning includes learning through literacy when students gain new knowledge by reading a text.

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?

The types of classroom talk that takes place within my target area includes asking questions, answering questions and telling why you thought what you thought, if you disagree, saying why, and calling attention to strategies you use. The classroom norms that I want to build within my classroom as I teach in this target area are the same ones my mentors have been teaching the students. I want to build on these norms by sticking to them and giving students more practice with the classroom procedures. These procedures include following the CHAMPS board and following the classroom rules for speaking and listening which are also posted in the room and referred to regularly.

6.      Which “core practice” do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

The core practices I want to work on developing/improving as I teach in my target area are develop structures that promote purposeful talk (book club) and questioning. Focusing on these core practices with contribute to my own professional learning because I will get a feel for how a book club runs in a classroom. I will see where I make errors in running a book club and be able to adjust them in my future teaching. Also by focusing on questioning I will get an opportunity to discover what higher level questions look like and I will get a feel for how a small group discussion, centered on a book, looks and sounds like.

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

Leveled book sets in school literacy lab.

8.      What additional resources do you need to obtain? none

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

To pre-assess my students in my target area of reading comprehension/strategy instruction I will use both a formal and informal assessment. The informal assessment I will use is to take anecdotal notes of what types of reading strategies my students are using. My formal assessment will be the R-MAZE and RCBM test scores from this year. They measure students reading comprehension and fluency.

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 find out more about individual students classroom behavior. I also need to get a better feel of the types of historical fiction books my students would enjoy to pick from. Lastly, I need to make sure I have a good understanding of were each of my students reading comprehension level is at.

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

A couple things I need/want to learn about the “core practice” I chose are, what is purposeful talk defined as, what structures promote purposeful talk, and what are higher level questions.

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

My main concern in planning and teaching my unit is that my language arts mentor is new to the school this year and is used to having and working with a language arts curriculum. Because of this it was hard for her to give me any suggestions on what past interns had done because she has never had an MSU intern. She also does not have a language arts curriculum of her own from past years because this is her first year in this school building and her first year teaching 5^th grade. She previously taught 1^st graders.