6. Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication

This detailed lesson plan was an assignment that I completed with a classmate who also completed the adult studies program at Trinity, working towards receiving a special education teacher licensure.  The class that we wrote this lesson plan for was focused on literacy and how it is found in all content areas that students learn.  We were asked to essentially present on what we wrote for our lessons with our partners to other members in our class as well.  We all were able to listen to one another and provide feedback to each group and group member to help each other know what we need to work on in terms of our overall teaching abilities as we continue moving forward as professionals.  

This artifact meets knowledge indicator 6B which states, "The competent teacher understands that the reading process involves the construction of meaning through the interactions of the reader's background knowledge and experiences, the information in the text, and the purpose of the reading situation."  Through creating this news vs. opinion lesson plan, we were able to better understand the reading process and the different components that it is broken down into.  It also provided myself and my classmate the opportunity to figure out how to build on our readers' (students') background knowledge and lived experiences.  The main thing that we set out to achieve in this lesson plan was to teach students how to look at different pieces of text and be able to determine what kind of text they are, specifically speaking here whether it is news (fact) or opinion.  We also included an anchor chart highlighting the components to look for when determining what kind of text it is to give students a visual to refer to and support them in their learning along the way. 

There were many valuable pieces of information that I gained from this project that I completed with my classmate, as it pertains to reading and helping support students in their overall literacy skills and setting them up for success in their reading ability as a result.  I also learned and was made more aware of the way in which reading is present in so many other content areas.  That being said that makes it that much more important for students to be equipped with the literacy skills necessary to be successful in other academic areas and be given a more balanced instructional delivery approach that seeks to provide students with access to their education in a more meaningful and generalized manner. 

Throughout my time completing my student teaching experience, I had the opportunity to teach my students about a specific ELA component that my school implemented, which was called community access words.  This included words like on, off, boys, girls, and groceries.  Incorporating additional language acquisition and vocabulary development with the students that I worked with in my placement was very important for them to be exposed to.  These community access words were also aligned with our core words work that we did as well, just in a different way that was more connected to words that they would come into contact with in their communities.  This looked like talking about the grocery store in this example, as we talked about different groceries and words that students would possibly have heard surrounding this topic already or may not be as familiar with.  This also went along with creating a foundation for students and building on prior knowledge and using scaffolding to assist students in their overall learning experiences. 

This artifact meets performance indicator 6J which states, "The competent teacher selects, modifies, and uses a wide range of printed, visual, or auditory materials, and online resources appropriate to the content areas and the reading needs and levels of each student (including ELLs, and struggling and advanced readers)."  The way in which this artifact clearly meets this indicator for this standard is through the materials used to provide students with a real-world learning experience that they can connect to things that they will encounter in their communities, while also implementing lesson activies with a variety of materials being used to support student learning.  Throughout this activity that I planned for my students, I was able to incorporate an Aldi advertisement of groceries and other items that were being highlighted in that week's flyer and I asked my students to pick out items that they would want to buy from Aldi to put in their grocery cart.  This not only allowed them to have some autonomy within their learning, while also being exposed to grocery words and being introduced to some specific grocery store names as well, as this was the next focus area within our community access words ELA study.  

When creating activities for my students for this community access words lesson on groceries, I wanted to make the content more relevant to them and learn how to provide my students with a variety of lesson materials.  I did so by showing my students real grocery store ads from Aldi to provide them with information in a new manner that utilized a wide range of printed and visual materials that are still appropriate within the content area being taught and is still ensuring that each student's individual needs are being met.  In this case, this is regarding students' reading needs and the level that they are at in their literacy skills overall.  I learned how to create a community access words lesson for my students that provided them with language acquisition and vocabulary development in a way that still used visual pictures to support student learning.  I also figured out how to present information about groceries to my students in a way that was more relevant and meaningful to them, while also giving them a brief introduction to a larger branch surrounding the same topic.  I gave my students a bit of information about one specific grocery store (Aldi) and informed them that we would be learning more about different grocery stores in our next community access words lesson and would see in those future lessons what grocery stores each student has been to or possibly has not heard of before.  This will also give me an idea of what students already know and what information I should include that is new to them and that will be important for them to know moving forward.