First quarter Reflection

"Now that you are nearing the end of your first quarter of your internship, what has been your biggest surprise about being in the classroom and working with students?"

The year is speeding by. It's already the time of year when turkeys are gobbling, rain is falling, and snow might be covering. Reflecting on my internship thus far, I have had a lot of surprises. My biggest surprise you ask? - Easy. Fourth grade is amazing!!

Although a simple statement, there much is packed into this enthusiasm. Prior to my internship, most of my teaching experience had taken place in a primary classroom. I have always known that I love working with grades k-3. When I found out my placement, I was both excited and nervous to be spreading my wings in a 4th grade classroom. On top of this excitement and the normal nerves, I was extremely anxious - what could I possibly have to teach fourth grade? Lots!

I knew that I would be challenged in this classroom, but I never suspected that I would become so passionate about fourth grade. Our students are excited to learn, enthusiastic, responsible, capable, motivated, and still young. Here I was worried that fourth grade would be drastically different than primary grades, and certainly there are some major contrasts. However, on the whole, the content is still the same, only the level of sophistication is increased. While still focusing on narrative elements in stories, we can also take the time to delve into books wrestling with persistent social issues. Without hesitation, I can firmly state that fourth grade IS awesome!

Eve Bunting Author Study

After building some background about the author and pre-assessing last week, the fourth graders have started an incredible narrative elements study through the works Bunting. As of today, I have already had the privilege of teaching 2 lessons to 2 different classes. This back-to-back teaching has been such a privilege and learning opportunity - I get to make improvements to my lessons that teachers usually have to wait a year for!

This first week has been geared toward direct instruction and guided practice with identifying the narrative elements in a text. Specifically, we will be looking at: characters, setting, and plot (conflict, resolution, and ending). Throughout this week, we have been reading Fly Away Home to model these elements with the students. For instance, on Tuesday, we read the story with the explicit purpose to identify and describe the main characters. Below, you can see this lesson in greater detail.


Lesson: Main characters in Fly Away Home


(1) Learning target: students will be able to identify and describe the main character(s) in narrative text. As a class, we re-read Fly Away Home with a focus on identifying the characters. Following this reading, I modeled how to fill out a Character Mapping worksheet, something that students will be required to complete in pairs next week with a new Bunting text. The worksheet has students write down information about the character's: appearance, emotions, actions, traits, experiences, and reactions from other characters. This entire process was completed both by modelling and asking for student contributions.

(2) Evidence: Using this worksheet, I first modeled information for each character facet and provided text evidence to support my claim. Students who provided contributions that followed this same process of providing text evidence were successful in meeting the learning goal.


(3) Reteach: As we move into next week, students will be working in pairs to finish the worksheet that was modeled on Tuesday. If they are having difficulty, they have both their peer and Tuesday's example to help guide them in the right direction.


(4) Extend: For students who are successfully meeting expectations, they will have time to translate this study of the narrative elements of one author into their own writing. A further extension could be to have them work with students who are struggling since teaching is one of the best ways to enhance one's own learning.