demonstrating mastery and pedagogical expertise in ELA
STANDARD 1
ELEMENT A
Teachers provide instruction that is aligned with the Colorado Academic Standards, their District's organized plan of instruction, and the individual needs of their students.
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The basis of the curriculum I helped build and teach surrounded the use of mentor texts and mini lessons. In the artifact I attached here, I lead a class discussion about a short story and two poems. I ask the students to recall figurative language techniques from prior learning and apply new techniques to the narrative they are currently writing. The art of teaching lays in the dance between standards, core knowledge in this case, and student engagement and application.
ELEMENT B
Teachers develop and implement lessons that connect to a variety of content areas/disciplines and emphasize literacy and mathematical practices.
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Mentor texts are a huge part of ELA instruction which is a great opportunity for cross-curriculum learning. I was intentional about choosing articles that dipped into history, social emotional learning, and science. Overall, my goal was to get students thinking, thinking about the world in a curious way. The article I attached is a reading that I assigned to my Daily English class. It's about peak brain productivity. I introduced the rereading strategy and we practiced as a class while they learned about a practical subject matter based in science.
ELEMENT C
Teachers demonstrate knowledge of the content, central concepts, inquiry, appropriate evidence-based instructional practices, and specialized characteristics of the disciplines being taught.
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One of my strengths is placing myself in my students' perspectives. Instead of writing out vocabulary definitions, I recognized that students were not excited by that nor does research prove that as an effective strategy. I created an integrated and interactive vocab plan by using games and manipulatives instead. I cut out each of the words and definitions from each chapter of Ghost and had the students match each word to its definition. I also created an online version on Quizlet for my virtual students.
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reflect
tion
Throughout the semester, scaffolding and language arts skills began to build upon themselves. I was able to gauge student understanding and growth much better because I was paying closer attention to data. Before each lesson, I would ask myself, "What is the purpose of this lesson? How does it benefit students? How can I do it better?" And by the end of the day, I've asked myself over and over again, "How could I have done that better?" I was in a lucky position since I got to reteach the same curriculum two quarters in a row. I was able to notice my improvement from the first quarter compared to the second.