I definitely learned a lot from this lesson. While I think
it went well overall, it’s hard to judge with a small sample size outside my
target age group. The students were interested in the lesson, in part because I’m
so passionate about middle grade and young adult books that I can’t help
gushing about them. But also, they are independent reading books—the books
students would choose to read on their own time even outside of school. So, in
a way, examining plot, character, setting, and theme in this way felt almost
like a book club: How did the author accomplish this seamless integration of
all the elements? It’s like taking apart a puzzle. Many people don’t even
realize novels are puzzles because the pieces fit so well together when done
right. When an author is less accomplished, or when any of the narrative
elements is a bit off, the edges show. As you can tell, I can talk about the
craft of novel writing all day, but back to my point: The Lesson.
Students aren’t always as familiar with content as I assume
them to be—that’s the first thing I learned. While setting high expectations
and expecting the best out of students is great, that pre-assessment in crucial
in gauging how much the students actually
know about a topic going into it. Sometimes it’s less than I presume.
Having the different colored markers was a nice indicator of what each
individual student knew coming into the lesson. Again, that would be more
difficult with a big group, but strategically colored sticky notes in carefully
arranged groupings could help.
One thing I would change for next time would be to model the
learning web graphic organizer that I’m asking them to complete as individual
practice. It’s one thing to model the thinking processes, but showing the
writing piece and giving an example of how I would make a connection web would
be really helpful. I could use my original HOLES example and expand it to
include the graphic organizer portion.
The assessments told me I need to give a clear model of the
post-assessment. The pre and ongoing assessments went well and were very
informative, but to have an exit ticket where I’m judging the success of a
lesson and making plans for future interventions—that should have been
introduced more explicitly. From a data standpoint, the assessment DID tell me
how well most students understand the narrative elements as they exist separately
from one another. Fewer students were able to make strong connections between
the elements, especially when it came to proving a certain element needed to be
handled that way in order for the story to make sense with the other pieces. As
readers we like to believe authors have an unlimited playground of choices when
it comes to how characters, plot, setting, and theme come together, but that’s
not really the case. Yes, some elements surprise us, but it’s only a good
surprise if it works, not a random 75-degree
day in the middle of a story about surviving the frozen tundra. Not a
squashed-in theme of corporate greed in a medieval love story.
Planning is key. This lesson could have gone way off course
if I didn’t have a clear learning target and specified activities to guide us
through the lesson. Teachers without a plan tend to either lecture too much or
not enough—overcompensating by talking or leaving it all up to the students to
figure out. Planning allows for a healthy balance.
As far as teaching, I learned I am on the right track with
classroom and time management. Portions of the lesson took about as long as I
anticipated, and students remained on task for the most part. The gradual
release of responsibility and ongoing assessments also worked well.
Overall, I’m happy with the way this lesson turned out. I
definitely recognized some areas where I can improve, as well as portions that
may need to be adjusted for a younger and wider audience. But by taking the
plunge and teaching a full ELA lesson—that’s where the real learning comes in.
No matter how much you study or how many books you read, there’s no substitute
for DOING. For being in the field applying these practices. There’s a reason
being able to teach others something is the highest level of understanding: in
order to teach it you have to know it on more than a surface level. You have to
paraphrase and come at it from different directions. And I did. This fall, I’ll
be directly applying this new understanding to a group of incoming 7th
graders, so all the practice is valuable.
