6005 Assignment 1

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University of Texas, Tyler *

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6005

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English

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Jan 9, 2024

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docx

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Hayley Weakley 6005 Assignment #1 Synthesize the Learning It is important to teach the reading and writing connection in the classroom. One of my favorite ways to begin students thinking in my 6th-grade classes is to have authentic discussions. While reading a novel, I love to come together as a class and have students participate in comprehension questions, giving their opinions and relating parts of the story to personal experiences or something relating to the world. When we do not have classroom discussions, I like to start our class with a bell ringer that involves quick writing. This allows the same concept, but having the students write their responses down on paper. I will usually allow them to turn and talk about their responses or pick a few students to share with the class. Something I would like to incorporate into my classroom is Reader’s Theater, which will allow students to express emotion within what they are reading by acting out a scene in the book. Not only can that encourage teamwork, but I also feel acting can encourage students to put emotion into their writing. In addition, to incorporate more technology in the classroom, I would like to have a classroom blog because it is important for students to answer critically to the main question and to agree or debate peer responses. These avenues allow the student responses to give different perspectives to their peers and motivate students to think more critically. After reading The Flexible ELA Classroom by Amber Chandler, I have learned a more clear way of providing opportunities for choice and differentiation. I plan to create various choice boards for assignments to encourage students to take control of their education by allowing students to choose something more relatable to their way of thinking. Choice boards give the students options to demonstrate their knowledge of an assignment. When realizing that all students do not think alike and have different levels of success, this is a great opportunity to differentiate for the class. For instance, as the author explains adding direction to the menus is a way of always listing the simpler tasks first that would be geared for the “struggling” student, while the more challenging tasks are listed at the end for the more advanced student (Chandler, p. 15-16). It’s not brought to their attention that’s how the tasks are listed, but it gives order to differentiation without having to point it out. I feel that would give more meaning to the assignments for the students as they will have more confidence in what they are working on.
Throughout the school year, after getting a running record on students, I would want to encourage them to step out of their comfort zone, within reason, as in don’t let a student choose an E task when they can barely complete an A task and end up setting themselves up for failure. But if students could push themselves a step further and choose something a little more challenging, I feel they can expand their writing abilities. The portion that stuck out from the book is the menu for independent reading. That seems to be one of the biggest struggles among students and I plan to implement this into the classroom. The menu is set up like a restaurant menu and the author explains that this helps not make independent reading so “boring.” It keeps the reader accountable for reading and helps with comprehension. In addition to the tasks, I noticed the menus also had student-friendly language within the text. For instance, on the independent reading menu, one task is labeled “Cartographer” and it defines that as a “map- maker,” and in the description of the assignment, there are other words that are simplified for the student for better understanding in parentheses. I find that very helpful for students and reduces confusion or insecurity for asking what words mean. Overall, allowing students to have a choice in their schoolwork gives a sense of meaning and engagement and helps change up the monotony.  An area I would like to learn more about is annotating texts. This is a tool that allows students to break down text while reading non-fiction and is a type of note-taking within the text. As module one mentions, “ Annotation allows students to leave a trail of thinking on a copy of the text that they can refer back to when responding to what they’ve read through discussion, written response, research, or multiple-choice questions .” To grow more in this area, I plan to:   Speak with mentor teacher(s) about how they introduce annotating to the class Read and do professional development to further my understanding of annotation Observe another teacher practice annotation with their students Once I am more familiar with annotation, I plan to model annotation with my students Another area I would like to learn more about is how to create authentic discussion that is not teacher-led. In Module 1, it says the discussion would be teacher-led at the beginning of the year, but then is expected to eventually allow the students to lead the discussions. I would like to know how the teacher transitions from leading to being an active listener. To learn more, I plan to:  
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