Link to Artifact:
Standard 6:
The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to document learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s on-going planning and instruction.
Connection to Standard:
My artifact is Mentor Texts for Writing. Mentor texts allow the students to get familiar with different styles of writing including different genres, language, formats and illustrations. These books demonstrate that students should take risks in their writing, try new strategies and develop and identify new techniques and approaches in their own writing. Reading these books will help students with their writing because it helps with content creation. They can get familiar with different ideas, styles, language and be an active reader engaging with the text. This will help students put their thoughts and that they are learning into structured sentences. In creating my mentor text I wanted to incorporate books with different writing styles displayed by the author, different points of view, character development, theme, organization and engaging language and illustrations for my students. In my classroom I want to promote being a strong writer, taking risks, trying out different styles while being engaged in their writing. My students will be provided with inclusive and engaging ways to see personal growth and learn to love writing. My mentor texts have a connection to standard 6 because as the teacher we want to engage students as learners to develop personal growth from using multiple lessons. Mentor texts include a variety of different styles of book that will engage with all students. Having many differences in the books will allow the student to find one that fits their criteria and standards of the books they would like to read and follow the direct. As well, reading these books to the class will allow all my students to understand the goals we are trying to reach through my lesson plans. An example of my lesson can be found in the book “Amazing Grace” by Mary Hoffman. This book follows a girl named Grace, she is a very talented girl who loves imagination. Her school is performing a play called “Peter Pan”. Since Grace is very outgoing she wants to play the main character. Her classmates tell her she can not play the lead because she is not a boy and she is African American. Grace feels very hurt and upset by this. Luckily her family provides comfort and tells her to reach for her goals. With all her determination she lands the lead role as Peter Pan. This book is a personal story from Grace’s point of view. To include my lesson plan the story is told from the perspective of our main character Grace. As a writing assignment for fourth grade I will ask the students to write a story from their perspective. This will be a personal story starring them as the main character and from their own point of view. One of the prompts I would give is, If you were in Grace’s point of view how would you be told you would not be able to play the role of Peter Pan because of your gender and race? How would this make you feel? This will allow the students to write from their perspectives and not the main characters perspective. This lesson plan allows for the students to gain personal growth because they are asked questions that involve critical thinking and to learn to write from different viewpoints. Standard 6 as well reflects on my mentor text because we document learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s on-going planning and instruction. This reflects on my mentor text because we are picking topics, learning objectives and books that are important for the development of the students’ learner progress. Each mentor text has a lesson involved in it that is apportate to what the student is learning in writing such as sentence structure. One a certain topic is covered and the standard is met then the class can move onto the next mentor text with a different lesson such as topic. This as well includes the teacher’s on-going planning and instruction because the books include lesson plans which follow a theme to teach and improve on the students’ writing. The lesson plans also build off each other in how to improve the students’ writing and what skills to focus on.
What I learned:
What I learned from this assignment is the importance of giving students different opportunities to strengthen what they need individually. I as well expanded my knowledge on how important it is to include books with differences in lessons. Books are a great way to get across students with what learning outcomes are expected. Through my mentor texts students can visually see and hear the different styles of writing. Books will give the students inspiration and critical thinking. When reading through the books you can ask questions. An example could be in the book “ My Hair is a Garden” by Cozbi Cabrera, a young girl named Mackenzie is not getting treated fairly by her classmates for her hair. She is an African American girl and gets upset over how her hair is different. She seeks guidance from her neighbor Miss Tillie. She uses a metaphor to relate her hair to a garden in an attempt to reassure her how loved she is by maintaining healthy hair and how it is not something to be upset about. She points out the importance of why her hair is so special. This is a great book to have in the classroom to create open minds and tolerance for others. Asking questions throughout the book like what does a metaphor mean or how would this make you feel. When teaching writing we can use this book to create discussions or reflective writing. Some of the questions can include, Mackenzie wants to take better care of her hair, what is something you want to get better at? This can create an engaging writing activity for the students to connect to the book. Furthermore, they can draw a picture of something they want to get better with as well. If the student was in third grade they can write that they want to get better at playing soccer and draw a picture of a soccer ball. This connects to the book as well as lets the students write about something they want to improve on which is promoting writing for a fun engaging lesson. Allowing students to understand the differences of the lesson we are learning about writing though the book will expose them to a variety of writing styles and we can focus on improving vocabulary, grammar, and writing structure skills. I overall learned the importance of inclusion in a classroom to create lessons that are engaging for students who have different outcomes. Learning to improve our writing skills from books is a great way to accomplish learning objectives.
