Summary of Co-Teaching Experience

Course taught: English 9 Literature Analysis (includes reading and writing)
Cooperating teacher: Erika Wanczuk
School taught: La Costa Canyon

Units/major lessons taught during semester:
Unit: Examining Short Story Elements through the Exploration of a Variety of Short Stories
Lessons taught: Beauty is Truth and The Golden Mean; Cask of Amontillado Dramatic Reading; Short Story Jigsaw; American History Character and POV (including historical context and videos)

Unit: Finding Character through the Exploration of Friendship and Relationships in Of Mice and Men
Lessons taught: Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck, the Great Depression, 1930s, and Financial Crisis; Of Mice and Men using real-world and 21st century skills to analyze characters in Chapters 1 through 4. Of Mice and Men using real-world and 21st century skills to analyze characters in Chapters 5 and 6. Of Mice and Men Plot and George’s Character Arc.

Assessments used (formal and informal)

Reading Journal and Reading Guide Students keep journals via a reading guide as they read.

·         Formality: informal
·         Type: diagnostic, formative
·         Purpose: assess skills, knowledge or concepts
·         Implementation Method: written
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling, supports
·         Evaluation Criteria: journals turned in periodically as a way of monitoring student reading.
·         Feedback Strategies: written feedback and student conferences
·         Student Self-Assessments: Provide one rubric for the unit.
 
Vocabulary Quizzes weekly quizzes on vocabulary from Of Mice and Men in order to facilitate reading and enrich their vocabulary.
·         Formality: formal
·         Type: diagnostic and summative
·         Purpose: assess knowledge or concepts
·         Implementation Method: written
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling
·         Evaluation Criteria: correct answers
·         Feedback Strategies: re-teaching, marking up quiz, allowing students to redo
·         Student Self-Assessments: ability to redo, ability to use in essay writing and assignments
 
Essays (grammar and mechanics) Transition words, introduction, body, and conclusion are all valuable to students in their writing and allow them to effectively organize their ideas in an essay. They help students understand the relationships among the ideas they present in their essays.
·         Formality: informal and formal
·         Purpose: formative
·         Implementation Method: written
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling, marking up papers
·         Evaluation Criteria: rubric
·         Feedback Strategies: peer review, teacher review, student and teacher conferences
·         Student Self-Assessments: peer review, self-review with rubric, compare to examples, ability to redo

Whole Group Discussion Students interact in discussions about the questions and issues raised in the text. Questions are valuable and promote learning. There are no right answers. Students learn socially and consider global themes. 

·         Formality: informal
·         Purpose: formative
·         Implementation Method: verbal
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling, frameworks/scaffolding done previously, include reminders
·         Evaluation Criteria: watching, listening, questioning, facilitation
·         Feedback Strategies: peer review, teacher questions,
·         Student Self-Assessments: peer review, participation, reflection
 
Small Group Discussion Generates diversity of opinion that is stymied occasionally by the whole group discussion.
·         Formality: informal
·         Purpose: formative
·         Implementation Method: verbal
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling, frameworks/scaffolding done previously, include reminders
·         Evaluation Criteria: watching, listening, questioning, facilitation
·         Feedback Strategies: peer review, teacher questions,
·         Student Self-Assessments: peer review, participation, reflection

Direct Instruction/Lecture: Must be used infrequently and for short bursts of time and information.
·         Formality: informal
·         Purpose: formative
·         Implementation Method: verbal
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling, frameworks/scaffolding done previously, include reminders
·         Evaluation Criteria: watching, listening, questioning, facilitation
·         Feedback Strategies: peer review, teacher questions, verbal approval
·         Student Self-Assessments: peer review, participation, reflection

Writing prompts Trigger background knowledge and helps students formulate ideas before presenting them. Allows students to have a private conversation with the teacher.
·         Formality: informal
·         Purpose: formative, assess prior knowledge
·         Implementation Method: written
·         Communication of Expectations: modeling, marking up papers
·         Evaluation Criteria: visual, written comments
·         Feedback Strategies: peer review, written comments
·         Student Self-Assessments: peer review  and compare to examples and peers
 
Summative test To measure the students learning from the short story unit, we administered a multiple-choice common assessment of short story elements, created in partnership with other English 9 teachers in the department.
·         Formality: formal
·         Purpose: summative, comprehension
·         Implementation Method: reading a short story and responding to multiple choice questions
·         Communication of Expectations: two practice tests prior
·         Evaluation Criteria: selecting the correct response
·         Feedback Strategies: review correct answers in class
·         Student Self-Assessments: test answer protocol for any student who wanted to discuss the question they got wrong, the correct response, why they thought the wrong answer was correct, and why the correct answer is the appropriate choice.

Content strategies utilized

Visuals
Graphic Organizers; Power Points and Prezis; Photographs; Videos; and Websites.

Models and guides
Rubrics, Writing guides; Reading guides; Primary sources: articles, texts, and short stories, poems, essays.
 
Tactile/hands on: student activities including dramatic readings, creating posters, giving presentations, using technology, and access to realia.
 
Reading Journals and Reading Guide
I ask students to keep a running journal as they read this novel. I will explain that they need to make entries in the journal every time they read. I will ask that the journals be turned in periodically as a way of monitoring student reading. Primarily though, I will tell students that these journals will be a way for us to center our class discussions on the issues that are of interest to them.

Vocabulary Quizzes

I incorporate weekly quizzes on vocabulary words from Of Mice and Men in order to facilitate reading and enrich their vocabulary.

Grammar and Mechanics: I selected concepts to incorporate in this unit. I chose transition words because they are valuable for students in their writing and allow them to effectively organize their ideas in a longer essay. I also think it will help the students understand the relationships among the ideas they present in their essays.

Whole Group Discussion                                                               

This is an essential part of the teaching during this unit. Students learn through interactive and authentic discussions about the questions and issues raised in texts. These discussions should be premised on the following. Questions are valuable and promote learning.

Small Group Discussion and Cooperative Learning
This is also a key activity in facilitating learning, but it adds a component of intimacy and privacy that some students thrive on and some topics necessitate. Also, this kind of learning activity can generate a rich diversity of opinion that is not elicited as easily by the whole group format. Further, by thinking about how I might divide the students into groups, I can manipulate the learning and the interactions in a positive way.  

Lecture

There is a place for the lecture format in the classroom, but it must be used sparingly, for limited lengths of time, and derive from the teacher’s informed opinion that the lesson plan necessitates this less interactive (thus, less desirable) format.

Writing prompts        

These do not have to be used daily, but I think they can be a good way to assess prior knowledge and a good means by which students begin to crystallize their ideas before presenting them in a whole group discussion. Writing prompts allow students a private forum through which they can address a teacher directly. Writing prompts give students practice in expressing thoughts on paper that may be easier to convey verbally.

Classroom environment (management techniques)

Classroom environment (management techniques)
We built community at the beginning of the year and kept building throughout each lesson. Strong engaging curriculum is the best classroom management. We used seating charts to place students in appropriate places conducive to their learning and near others they partnered well with, in addition to taking special needs and English learning needs into consideration for proximity to the source of instruction. We fostered mutual respect and diversity of culture, values, goals, and ideas by having open, big idea discussions and addressing issues as they arose. We used a signal from the same place in the classroom, during discussion, to gain attention and bring students back to the discussion at transition points. When needed, we used progressive discipline plans of checking in with the student during class, discussing how we could help the student(s) just outside the classroom door during class, discussing what’s working and not working after class, contacting students parents, and we had to give one referral.
 Tutored in Academic Language Development (ALD) support class.

Writing Analysis of Students' Work

My students wrote a reflection--after completing the reading of the final chapters of Of Mice and Men and participating in a group discussion--based on the following prompts.

1.    Who is a hero in Of Mice and Men? Why?
2.    Who is a villain in Of Mice and Men? Why?
3.    Describe one character’s hopes, dreams, or plans in the story? Was their dream realized? Why or why not? Explain in detail.
4.    Who is a friend to another character in the story? How did their friendship develop? How can you tell they are friends? Why do you think they are friends?
5.    Which character experiences the most isolation or loneliness? Why? Remember, isolation doesn’t have to be physical—it can be mental or emotional, too.

After everyone is finished writing their responses to the prompts, read your reflection to a partner, listen to your partner’s reflection, and write down at least one of your partner’s ideas.

The learning target was for students to be able to, upon completion of reading the novel, and after having a group discussion, respond to questions that require higher-level thinking regarding major topics from Of Mice and Men to demonstrate their comprehension of the story elements, big ideas, and characters from the novel, and analyze and apply their reading to questions that bridge their previous learning to their upcoming character essay writing assignment.

The assessment was graded by using the below rubric.

Criteria	3=excellent	2=sufficient	1=minimal	0=missing
1.         Included the question in the response.
2.         Used specific and correct details from the novella.
3.         Expressed opinions, provided evidence and included reasoning.
4.         Used complete sentences.
5.         Responded fully to all of the questions.
6.         Used correct grammar, spelling, and sentence construction.
7.      Met with a partner and included at least one idea from the partner.

The assessment did assess the desired teaching and learning targets appropriately because students demonstrated their ability to use higher-level thinking to answer questions regarding major topics from Of Mice and Men.

The overall class results helped me determine that my class has a good understanding of the skills and concepts taught because they worked independently on this assessment and every student had thoughtful, complete, detailed responses that met either sufficient or excellent scores based on the rubric criteria.

For one student, K.M, this type of assessment was best for him because it was formative, included their opinion so there is no “right” or “wrong” answer which eliminates this student’s test taking anxiety, and as long as the student defended her ideas and expressed her thoughts clearly based on the rubric given in advance, the student’s chances were as good as any other student to prove their comprehension in a way that resonated with them. There was choice based on interest and connection. Students could choose any character they wanted to write about.

As a result of this assessment, I learned that K.M. read the story, followed the discussion, and was able to apply their learning to the higher-level thinking questions, and could reflect deeply as the meaning of the story. This student also worked with a partner and demonstrated her literacy skills. Even though she is a special needs student, she was able to achieve the same level of success and understanding as the other students. Therefore, the supports given during previous instruction were sufficient, and material, content, pacing, instruction, and activities worked to build students up to this assessment.

I offered written comments, a rubric, and collaborative learning as feedback. Following are student writing examples from this assignment.

This student received a 1.5 based on the rubric.

This student received a 3 based on the rubric.

This student received a 2.5 based on the rubric.

This student received a 1.5 based on the rubric.

This student received a 2.5 based on the rubric.

This student received a 2.5 based on the rubric.