Standard 6 - Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication – The competent teacher has foundational knowledge of reading, writing, and oral communication within the content area and recognizes and addresses student reading, writing, and oral communication needs to facilitate the acquisition of content knowledge.
This is a secondary lesson plan that I created for a Literacy class in the program. The lesson is the first of three which focuses on students using and understanding vocabulary in context. I chose to add this lesson plan as an artifact because the standard used aligns with standard 6- "the competent teacher recognizes and addresses student reading, writing, and oral communication needs to facilitate the acquisition of content knowledge". Throughout my learning and teaching experiences, I have gained an understanding of the importance of vocabulary in relation to reading comprehension, writing, and oral communication. With a greater vocabulary, students can better understand words in context in order to comprehend certain reading assignments both in school and out. This understanding can also improve students' writing abilities and their oral communication with others.
The Illinois teaching standard that corresponds with this lesson is RL.10.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). The activities created for this lesson will prompt students to use context clues to understand the meaning of specific vocabulary words that may be unknown. The students would then be asked to create their own definition of the specified vocabulary words based on their context clues and prior knowledge. They would then be able to pair up with a classmate and compare definitions before being given the true definitions. The reason I went with this activity is because I find that a great way to learn new vocabulary is coming up with your own creative way to remember its definition.
This assignment really pushed me to think in a more creative way to help students to fully understand the concepts. I felt that giving the definitions and asking students to memorize it would not be as effective and would not require creative and critical thinking. By assessing student progress during this lesson, I would be able to assess the needs of students in regard to reading, writing, and oral communication.
This is another secondary lesson plan for ELA. The objective was for students to determine the theme from a given text. I included this artifact because it aligns with this teaching standard. Students need to be able to determine the theme of a story through critical thinking. This skill can promote deeper thinking in students.
The Illinois teaching standard that this lesson is based upon is RL.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. The activities in this lesson are designed to help student differentiate between the main idea and theme of a story, identify a theme from the given text, and write about the theme. This lesson incorporates knowledge of reading, writing, and oral communication, to align with the teaching standard.
Creating this lesson was a great opportunity for me to incorporate multiple ways of learning into one lesson. This lesson could guide me in addressing any deficits in the areas of reading, writing, and oral communication.