After class on June 2nd, Wynne and I discussed my first solo lesson. I had expressed interest in focusing on essay writing, and we decided to make my lessons be around composition and grammar.
We discussed covering transitional phrases, conjunctions, commas and linking thoughts together. We also discussed how the class should go. We'd continue with using the warm-up activity to get the students ready for the lesson and in the attitude of learning. She also provided me with sample outlines, activities, websites and readings to help me prepare for my first lesson.
Our discussion was very productive and it left me with many ideas. I was excited and jotted down potential ideas in my notebook while on the train heading home. I really wanted the lesson to be informative, engaging, and interactive.
At home, the preparation process took way longer than I expected. I told Wynne during our meeting that I'd have my lesson plan to her by Thursday; I didn't sent it to her until Friday morning. I first wrote my objectives and then constructed the lesson based on them. I wanted to cover:
-Capitalization
-Punctuation Rules (commas, semi-colons, and colons)
-Transitional Phrases
-Conjunctions
I realized when I hit the punctuation section that I had taken on more than I could handle, but I kept through and covered everything. I sent my draft to Wynne knowing that I probably would not get through the lesson in the first 1/2 of class (although my time break down stated I would). Maybe if the students had no questions, I'd be able to. But this is unrealistic and would not help the students and only confuse them more.
Wynne provided great feedback and confirmed my feeling of taking on more than I could chew. She asked me to focus on introducing the rules "thinking about where [I] see the most errors in capitalization, and just choose the most common rules." I tried to have all 1,000 punctuation rules, but she knew the students wouldn't grasp all this in one session. She also pointed out where I could be more interactive or use the students existing work to facilitate or supplement the activity sheets I created.
I went back to the drawing board and tried to address the things she pointed out. It was good to go back and actually look at all the things I expected to teach. It reinforced my need to hone in on the top 4 or 5 rules the students needed. I updated the lesson plan and realized than I could probably teach all the rules in two more lessons. I decided to rename my lesson "Essay Writing Workshop 1.5" (1.5 because Wynne and I had already introduced the lesson in previous weeks, and I'd just be building on the concepts).
I think the final product is good, although I may have to solicit Wynne's expertise tomorrow during the lesson. Maybe I will not be able to clearly explain a concept and ask her to chyme in with an example or simpler definition. But, that's what team teaching and collaboration is about. I am ready to do this!
Note: All lesson plan items (lesson plan outline with activities and PowerPoint presentation) will be posted on the next blog for easy access.
I thought the planning process was pretty effective. Sometimes, the plan goes awry in class, and sometimes we have to make changes based on the constraints of the day.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job refining your plan to include the most vital points of comma use and capitalization: as you create learning objectives for the next lesson, think about what you want the students to be able to show you by the time the lesson is over. In this cases, it would be like asking: what should they be able to do with a transition word or comma when this lesson is over?
Even with grammar, there is a steep developmental arc for students learning to apply rules to their own writing. While the rules may be clear to them and they can correct sentences when prompted, the challenge is to get them to use this knowledge in their own writing. Besides focusing comments on one grammar issue per essay, what else can we do to foster the use of transitions in student writing? Can we design some revision activities to encourage this?
One possibility for one your next lessons might be to build off some of the knowledge you introduced in lesson one so students can practice applying what you have taught.