TPA for MY Lesson on Alexie

LESSON PLAN

1.      Teacher Candidate:

Janna Thurston

2.      Subject:

English Literary Arts

3.      Lesson Title/ Central Focus:

Sherman Alexie:  Dreams/Barriers

4.      Grade Level(s):

Sophomore                       

5.      Length of Lesson:

·         20 Minutes

6.      Academic and Content Standards (Common Core/National):

CCSS Speaking and Listening Standard for Grades 11-12 SL 3

Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.

CCSS Reading Standards for Literature Grades 11-12 RL10

By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.

7.      Learning  Objective(s):

·         Students will be able to better understand the character of Junior’s point of view.

·         Students will be able to compare the obstacles in their own lives with those of their neighbors and those of the character of Junior.

8.      Academic Language:

·         “Barriers” must be understood in the context of the book. Having already read the first two chapters the class should be able to use context to understand that Junior is talking about major life altering barriers that prevent his parents from achieving their dreams.

9.      Assessment:

·         Students are given 5 points for continuing the assignment at home. This is a participation homework activity and will not be judged on talent, style, or content. 5 points for turning it in.

·         Formative – The participation will be considered when designing future lessons of this sort.

·         Students have the opportunity to discuss and answer the teacher’s questions, their level of interest and comprehension will be monitored.

·         Formative – These observations will be taken into account when designing future lessons.

10.  Lesson Connections:

·         The students will be compelled to feel more empathy from the character of Junior if they can relate themselves to him. By drawing attention to their own obstacles in life and then directly drawing attention to the way Junior feels will make connections in the student’s mind of empathy and understanding.

·         Prior Knowledge Expectation:

·         Students have discussed some of the biographical facts about Alexie. Based on the cover of the book, the brief write up in the cover, and biographic information discussed the class has been asked to predict possible topics the book may follow.

·         Students must feel comfortable discussing in large and small groups.

·         Students have already read the first two chapters so they should have developed some empathy for Junior’s character already. This exercise builds on the understanding that life is hard.

·         The students are sophomores in high school. A lot of life has been lived. Our community is not wealthy. The majority of the class comes from homes with divorced parents. The students understand the obstacles in each-other’s lives, sometimes a lot better than we do, and they will be able to sympathize and understand their own classmates.

·         Our community is not so different from the Reardon Alexie describes because we are even further from the reservation. Most of us know someone who grew up on the reservation. This lesson will help us understand each other.

11.  Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks to Support Student Learning:

Introduction

·         The learning objective will be made clear during the lesson, and stated at the end of the lesson.

·         I will engage the students in a question about the previous lesson on biographical information on Sherman Alexie.

·         I will introduce the activity after reading a passage from the text about how serious Junior takes his own cartoons. This will encourage a slightly more serious drawing session.

Student Voice

·         The students will be encouraged to discuss, draw, write, and think about the topic and asked to share anything they would like.

·         At the end of the activity, before we share our drawings with the class I will ask for a show of hands vote as to who thinks they learned something about Junior from the activity.

·         Students are asked to draw, write, or in some way express their own dreams for their future. Sharing with the whole group is optional but encouraged.

·         Students are given a homework assignment to encourage further thought on the subject. I will state my office hours as a reminder when they walk out the door.

Learning Tasks

·         The students are learning to put themselves in the mind of a fictional character in order to gain a deeper understanding of the text.

·         The students are learning that their own community of classmates might all face very different barriers to success, providing a deeper understanding of their own community.

·         Procedures asked to accomplish are listening with respect, taking out paper and pencil, drawing or writing, speaking to a neighbor, discussing with the class.

·         Students must draw, write, or in some way express what a dream is.

·         The teacher will read out loud, encourage discussion, ask questions, give a prompt to talk to neighbors, and ask for feedback.

·         Guided practice is involved by asking the students to speak to their neighbor, and by asking students to make another drawing as homework.

Teacher’s Role	Student’s Role
Introduce the lesson with a question, “Did you all read the chapters last night? Let’s get out our texts!”	Answer Get out text
“Turn to page 95.” Read the selection from the text slowly.	Turn to page 95 Listen
“When Junior says that he understands the world through his cartoons, what does he mean?”	Answer
“Turn to page 12. Here is where Junior has drawn a picture of what his parents would have looked like if someone had paid attention to their dreams.”	Turn to page 12
“I want you to turn to the person next to you and take turns quickly telling each other what you dreamed of becoming when you were little.” Hand out blank paper while students discuss. Offer an example, “When I was little I really wanted to be a fireman. I dreamed of being a hero and saving people from burning buildings, riding around on the big red truck, living at the firehouse!”	Talk quietly with neighbor. Listen. Think.
“Now draw what your neighbor wanted to become.”	Draw
Walk around the room, encourage the students to really think about what they are drawing. “I didn’t just want to be any fireman! I wanted to be the best! The best fireman in the world. World famous hero. What would that look like?”	Draw
“Alright one more thing before we can share our pictures. Find space on your paper somewhere snd write down some barriers that might stop someone from achieving this dream.”	Listen. Write.
Make sure the students understand that the barriers need not be specific to the person. Any barriers that life can through at you.	Think. Write.
List some things that might keep you from becoming a fireman.	Write or draw.
“You can stop writing now.” “I would like to read to you from page 13.” Read passage about poverty. “What does Junior men ‘Poverty only teaches you how to be poor?”	Answer. Discuss.
“Did this activity help you to see things as Junior sees them?” “Let’s see a show of hands, who thinks this helped them understand Junior a little better?”	Raise hands as feedback for the teacher.
“Think about what Junior drew on page 12.”	Look at page 12.
“Anyone want to share their picture with the class?”	Share. Discuss.
Announce homework assignment one minute before the bell. “Homework tonight – draw or write what your dream is right now. Tell me what you want to be when you grow up! Due at the beginning of class tomorrow! 5 points! You will have a chance to share with us if you like.”	Pack things to leave. Listen.
As the bell rings remind the students of office hours and help available.	Listen

·         Estimate of Time:

o   Introduction                                                       5 min

o   Look at picture on page 12                                2 min

o   Ask your neighbor about their dreams               2 min

o   Draw a dream life                                              5 min

o   Think about barriers                                           5 min

o   Closure, assignment, office hours                      1 min

·         Key Teacher Questions or Prompts?

o   What does Junior mean by his pictures being “serious”?

o   Think back to when you were a little kid

o   Think about the kind of obstacles that could keep you from your dreams

o   Did this help you guys think about how Junior feels?

·         Students will be asked to turn to the person next to them and ask questions.

Closure

·         Students are asked to give a show of hands if they reached the learning goal.

·         The entire unit is on this book so relevance to future lessons is known.

12.  Differentiated Instruction:

·         Students are given the choice of writing down a description of the dream or of drawing the dream appealing to all strengths.

·         Students are given the chance to do the second drawing at home so that the rest of the class isn’t watching them while they draw if they are shy.

·         All sharing is voluntary so no one should feel singled out over their socioeconomic status.

·         The teacher will move throughout the classroom while students talk and draw, offering prompts and reminders for short attention spans.

·         Differentiated instruction is designed with my class in mind. These are issues we have right now.

13.  Resources and Materials:

·         Resources

Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Print.

Ippolito, Jaclyn. "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Lesson Plan Unit." Pocket Knowledge (BETA) | Browsing. N.p., 12 May 2008. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.

·         Materials Needed

o   Students need: text, paper, pencil

o   Teacher needs: text

14.  Management and Safety Issues:

·         Management issues are the same as for discussion; chance of rude behavior.

·         Students are familiar with the classroom expectations.

15.  Parent and Community Connections:

·         Junior draws how his parents would have looked if they had accomplished their dreams encouraging deeper though about their own parent’s lives.

·         Students are asking each other what their dreams are as a classroom community.

·         Students are asked to think about how everyone has barriers, but we all have different barriers; relating the lesson to a broader life-lesson.

Assessing and Evaluating Learning

This article has really brought a lot of questions into my mind that I haven’t really thought about before. I did take the education 303 class, the assessment class, but I just don’t feel like I learned that much. At the end of that class I spoke to one of my other education instructors, voicing that I felt very unprepared to assess my students and I was told that 303 is the only course we are given about assessment. I feel pretty anxious about the assessment portion of teaching.

I feel like my assessment class really focused on the validity and reliability of tests. I understand that I need to test the students based on what I have been teaching, but I do not know what the best FORMS of assessment would be for different learning goals. I can make a test. No problem. But how do I best test the knowledge of my students when I am focusing on interpretation skills or social justice understanding and how does that compare to how I would test on content or thematic understanding?

I feel like there are a lot of areas that we focus on in the Language Arts classroom. We teach reading skills, writing skills, critical thinking, cultural and historical understanding, interpretation, evidence based argument, and so much more! How in the world can I tell if my students are really getting this stuff? And even more worrying is how can I provide evidence that they are learning it?

In the article it is mentioned that instead of norm based assessment a teacher may choose to use an individual progress assessment instead. I have never seen anyone state the idea this way, but what a brilliant plan! Of course I want to asses my students based on their individual progress! What else matters? This made me think about Katie Brown and how she explained that an ELL student is required to take the state standard tests even when they are only beginning to understand English. Even if that student has individually achieved several grade levels of progress in a short amount of time the state test results will show the student as achieving below average for their grade level. Why are we testing students based on what we think they should know at a certain grade level or a certain age? This is part of the problem with implementation of the common core standards. If I have a student who has not met the standards for their grade level ever, how can I expect them to jump forward five steps and meet their grade level now? They need to start at step one in order to get to step two before we can begin to teach step five!

I also see this as a drawback to many pedagogical practices that we have discussed in this class. If we take our eleventh grade English class and focus on discussion based learning they may have never been exposed to discussion before and don’t know how to discuss. We might spend half the year trying to normalize our students to the discussion process before any great discussions can take place. If discussion were incorporated in the classroom from elementary school then we would not need to start from square one in high school.