observation #5 - ela lesson, narrative

Fifth Formal Observation Student Teaching Observed by: Tonia Hassell, University Supervisor

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Alexandra Keresztes

Narragansett Elementary School

Grade 4 Tonia Hassell, Cooperating Teacher

Date

April 27, 2015

Title of Lesson

Characteristics of Personal Narrative Writing

Grade Level/

Content Area

Grade 4

ELA: Narrative Writing

Objectives Students will brainstorm a new list of possible writing topics to develop as personal narratives.

Students will determine some characteristics of personal narrative writing by analyzing a model.

Common Core

State

Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive

details, and clear event sequences.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose,

and audience.

Instructional

Materials &

Resources

Copies of graphic organizer for brainstorming personal narratives and screenshot to put on Promethean Board

Copies of student model: Watch Out For Your Little Sister (or another short model of personal narrative) and screenshot to put on

Promethean Board

Chart: Personal Narrative Elements

Colored pencils or crayons (to make notations about the elements of personal narratives)

lesson based on: http://www.pps.k12.or.us/files/curriculum/G4PN2014.pdf

(Portland Public Schools)

Instructional

Activities &

Tasks

Teach (Modeling):

One of the first things you should know about personal narrative writing is that they are true stories that really happened to the writer.

Personal narratives are always stories from your life. To help you think

of some possible personal narrative stories, I found a great

brainstorming chart for you to use!

(Display on Promethean Board and read through the categories with students) I want to think of as many possible personal narrative topics as I can. So, I am going to read each category on this chart, then start

adding my ideas.

I have an idea for a personal narrative about a mistake I made when my family moved for the first time and I tried to help with cleaning

o I really thought that I was being helpful, but the results were not good and my parents were not happy when our fish were


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floating at the top of the fish tank instead of swimming!

WHOOPS!

o I dont want to write the whole story yet though I just want to make a note about that in one of the boxes

o But wait where should I put it?

Ask a few students to help you put this into a box (and mention that you might be able to put some ideas in more than one box but pick which works best)

Great! Does anyone else have an idea for the mistakes category?

Invite one or two to share.

Ive got a few other ideas for other categories too! Lets see Oh! Family rituals! Whenever we are home, my parents make it a point to

have family dinner EVERY night oh and places Ive visited! Well, I visited Boston and Fenway Park about a week ago!(Add those into chart)

Invite one or two students to add other ideas.

If necessary: use a model of own completed chart

Active Engagement (guided practice):

Now youre going to brainstorm ideas in your own chart! (Pass out individual charts) Im going to give you about 5 minutes to get down some ideas in any categories you can. Dont worry about getting something for every box, though! Just try to get some really good

memories in there!)

At the end of the time, ask students to put their pencils down and share a couple ideas with their partner.

Teach (Modeling):

Now that we have a list of possible topics for a personal narrative, I want to share with you the important elements, or pieces, that go into

writing personal narrative pieces. If I want to write me personal

narrative about how I tried to help clean the fish tank before moving, I

do not want to write a how-to for cleaning a fish tank. Writers have specific elements that they use to create personal narratives.

Display the Personal Narrative Elements chart go through each element and briefly review what it means.

Lets have a look at how another 4th grade writer used these personal narrative elements to develop her piece.

Pass out copies of Watch Out for Your Little Sister and display it on the Promethean Board

Read through the entire piece aloud

Link to Independent Practice:

Did anyone hear some character description in Ashleighs piece? o Tell students to take one colored pencil or crayon and underline

that sentence. At the bottom of the page, use that colored pencil


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to write the word character at the bottom (as a key!)

What about setting description? o Tell students to take a new colored pencil or crayon and

underline that sentence. At the bottom of the page, use that

colored pencil to write the word setting at the bottom (as a key!)

Repeat once with each dialogue and interesting details then ask students find at least one extra piece of evidence for each and put a star

next to the new ones

o Tell students to take a new colored pencil or crayon and underline EACH piece of evidence. At the bottom of the page,

use EACH colored pencil to write the word dialogue or

interesting detail at the bottom (as a key!)

Closure:

Pass out narrative folders Put all of your materials into your new narrative folders.

Can anybody remind me what a personal narrative is? o Allow one student to give a general definition if needed ask

another student to assist and build on the last answer.

Can anyone remind me of one of the four elements of personal narratives?

o Allow students to go through each of the four elements and, if necessary, ask them to explain what the element is or a trick to

finding it (ex. quotation marks surround dialogue)

Tomorrow, we are going to begin writing our own personal narratives from ideas on our brainstorming chart!

Assessment Informal:

Students will help me determine which box my own idea can go into and give me additional ideas for the example chart.

Students will share their ideas on their individual brainstorming chart verbally with a partner.

Students will help find an example of each of the four narrative elements in the example, Watch Out for Your Little Sister

Formal:

Students will create their own chart of ideas for narratives with a short bullet for each idea.

o I will check to make sure that the ideas make sense in the box that they have been placed and talk to the students who do not

give as complete of ideas or whose ideas are unclear.

o Additionally, students will be sharing with their partners and I can listen in to those who can articulate their thoughts well but

maybe do not write them as clearly.

In the example narrative, students will be sharing the different pieces of evidence to demonstrate the four narrative elements. They will

underline and color code the whole class examples (note: every student


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should have the same four examples shown on the Promethean Board

PLUS two additional examples)

o Students will find at least one additional piece of evidence to show dialogue and interesting details on their own. They will

underline each using the color code that they have set up during

the guided practice to differentiate the two pieces of evidence.

Learner

Factors

Students will be presented with a graphic organizer to help them categorize

their ideas for potential narrative topics.

Students will be beginning to develop an understanding of the elements that are

important to narrative writing: character description, setting description,

dialogue, and interesting details. To help them develop this, they will be color-

coding each element of personal narratives which creates a more visual key for

some of the students in the classroom.

Students will be sharing ideas with partners and with the whole class which

will strengthen their interpersonal intelligence. They will also strengthen their

intrapersonal intelligence as they recall memories they want to put into their

brainstorming chart. Throughout the lesson, students will be working on their

linguistic intelligence as they will be putting their ideas into writing.

Provide A, D, and B with the chart on their iPads.

Provide M, Z, A and N a copy of the chart with lines to help organize their

writing.

Give E the option of typing his using WordQ, but explain that he must do so in

a timely matter and that he will have to finish in the same amount of time as the

rest of the class.

Create a definition of personal narrative writing to display for the class. Create a class sized poster of the personal narrative element chart.

Examples of each document that will be handed out will also be shown on the

Promethean Board. With this, step by step verbal and visual (they will watch

me do them) instructions will be essential to students achieving the task at

hand.

Will do the brainstorming chart on the board prior to passing it out to ensure that students are not putting any of these ideas on their own

chart, but are paying attention to how the ideas are organized. THEN,

individual charts will be passed out for students to complete their own

brainstorming activity.

The story will be posted and passed out simultaneously. I will read the entire story aloud for the students and THEN we will find each narrative

element in the story as a class. I will show them exactly how I expect

them to color code each type of element and how I would like them to

create a key.


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Environmental

Factors

Students will be at their desks for the entirety of the lesson. They will be asked

to focus on their own work as well as to take part in class discussions and focus

on the Promethean Board at the front of the room.

The Four Elements of Narrative Writing will be displayed on a chart in the room.

Extension/

Enrichment

Activity

For the next days Morning Work, provide an example of a narrative to each student. Have them find each of the four narrative elements in the example and

color code them (like in the modeling/link to independent practice of this

lesson). Ask students to turn this in when they are completed to ensure that

students can differentiate each of the four elements.

Tomorrow, students will begin to write their own short narratives on a topic

from their brainstorming chart. These will be worked on throughout the

narrative unit to build upon the ideas they developed in this lesson.


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Lesson Reflection:

1. How effective was the lesson plan? Explain. When I take into account that the technologies I was intending to use were not

working for the lesson that I had planned, I think that I mostly abandoned the

lesson plan as it was written. I attempted to do what I could with what I had

available to me and it allowed me to attempt new things that I probably would not

have done had the technologies been available to me in the way I anticipated

using them.

While I kept the same ideas, I changed the structures of what I intended to do. I

felt that this lesson plan allowed me to make these changes because I was able to

keep the overarching ideas but work them into what I found was working. For

example rather than pair sharing, which I expected to take longer and get students

telling their entire story rather than just their ideas, I had every student share one

idea and the box that they put it in, in approximately five words. This not only

allowed me to check that they were properly organizing their ideas on their

brainstorming chart, but also made their classmates interested in reading the

stories that would be developed in future lessons. I also let the students do the

majority of the talking in this lesson rather than doing it as a lecture, which I felt

was how the lesson plan outlined the lesson.

As I was having difficulties pulling up the resources that I intended to use for this

lesson, I had to rely on unclear images of the resources which forced me to be

very clear about the things that I put onto the board that I also expected to see on

their sheets. For example, each time a student listed where a narrative element

could be found in the story, I underlined where it was in the text but made sure to

repeat the exact sentence that I was underlining. I also changed my plan to have

the students go element by element (and therefore color by color), which achieved

the same result but kept the students focused on one thing at a time. I found that

this kept the students more focused, and probably more organized, than I

originally planned.

2. Was the pace of the lesson appropriate? Explain. This is the first lesson where I feel that I was truly well paced in a lesson, even

though all of the students seemed eager to share out their personal narrative ideas

and the stories that accompanied them. I think that I anticipated that this lesson

was going to take more time than it really did and, because of this, I found that I

did not call on every student like I would have previously. Rather, I limited the

amount of information that students shared after their brainstorming session so

that all students could share their ideas out with the entire class. By limiting the

number of words that students could use to explain their ideas and get their

classmates interested in their story, I found that all of the students also became

more engaged and were exceptionally respectful of the fact that I was limiting

what they could say.

Although I do not necessarily think it is appropriate to use this strategy all the

time, I found that it was extremely useful to building suspense in the class and it

made it possible to fit a large lesson into an hour long block of time. This lesson


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made me realize that I could use this as a strategy during brainstorming lessons. I

would like to implement this strategy in the future in similar lessons.

3. Did you implement effective classroom management strategies? (Ex: use of proximity, positive reinforcement, etc.) Explain.

As stated above, I tried out a different strategy for this lesson. I had read in an

article that limiting the number of words that a person can use in a day really

makes them think about the words that are coming out of their mouths and the

effect that this has on what is said. This lesson gave me the ability to try this out

because in the brainstorming charts there was no way for students to write the

entire story. Instead, I asked them to think of keywords that would later help

them remember the story; then, by going around the room and asking every

student to share out their favorite idea using only the words they wrote and the

specific box they wrote their idea in, I found that every student in the class was

extremely aware of when other people were talking and became more interested

in what their classmates were saying. This strategy not only helped to prevent the

talkative students from telling their entire story, but allowed the more shy students

to share very little (which was a huge accomplishment compared to them usually

sharing nothing).

4. Were all the students actively engaged in the learning process? How did you meet individual needs of students?

The students were actively engaged in the learning process and seemed to want to

know more with every idea I was adding into my own brainstorming chart. They

wanted to know more of what happened in each story idea that I gave which

allowed me to think ahead for future activities that I could contribute to within

this unit. They were all interested in talking about the different ideas that they

had on their brainstorming which enabled me to ask them each to share their idea

with the class. I found it very interesting that they all wanted to ask one another

more about their ideas, almost to the point where they were trying to tell one

another their stories; while I tried to prevent this from happening, I think it helped

me see how interested students were in this type of activity. While I was reading

aloud the sample story, the students were all reading along with me and then were

eager to help point out the different story elements. They did a fantastic job at

identifying the majority of the story details, but I found that interesting details

were a bit more like pulling teeth so I want to work more on this specific narrative

element in future lessons.

Since I was having so much difficulty with the technology, I realized I was not

going to be able to give this to students on their iPads. In order to accommodate

these learners specifically, I provided more time during brainstorming than I

intended to because many students were sharing their ideas and it let the slower

writers get more ideas on their chart. Asking each student to share meant exactly

that: every student had to share one idea with the entire class, even if it was not

something that they would do on their own. By limiting the number of words that

they were able to use in sharing their ideas, it did not put as much pressure on the

students to hear out their entire idea because they were not dictating the full story.

Additionally, I did not ask students to fill in every box and I asked them to try to

get at least three different ideas in the boxes.


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5. Were the materials of interest to the students? How do you know? The students were definitely interested in the different topics that they could put

ideas in on the brainstorming chart. This was clear because all of the students

were eager to share their ideas and stories throughout the lesson and they all came

up with more than the three ideas that I asked them to come up with.

The students all found the sample story interesting and this was evident because

during different parts of the story, the kids were laughing and connecting their

own experiences to what the sample writer had in her story.

At the end of the lesson, when I told students that the next day, I would share the

story I had written based on the first example I gave them, they all genuinely

seemed excited to see writing that I had done. Even after I mentioned that I was

going to have them locate in my writing the same four narrative elements that

they found in the sample story in todays lesson, they did not seem to be any less interested than they were upon hearing that I would be sharing my own narrative.

6. Discuss the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of your teaching. (What worked, what didnt, how does this inform your instruction?)

I felt that this was a very successful lesson for my first experience in narrative

writing. I believe that there were many successful aspects, but I wish that I were

able to have used the resources available through the site that I adapted this lesson

from. I feel that the students seeing what I intended to do with the materials

would have further enhanced their understandings.

Despite the technical flaws, I feel that I was able to make adjustments during and

throughout my instruction. I found that this was the first test that I have really

had which tested my ability to adapt to the realities of failed technology

immediately before a lesson and how I could adjust my instruction around these

realities.

7. Discuss your assessment. (What was learned?, how do you know?) From my informal assessment, I learned that some of the students had a lot of

difficulty limiting their grandiose ideas (which bordered on shortened versions of

stories) to just a few words. Additionally, the students were all very interested in

contributing to where the different narrative elements in the sample story.

As I walked around look at their brainstorming charts, I noticed again that the

students were having difficulty shortening their ideas to brief blurbs of just a few

words. Despite that there was all-around difficulty in shortening ideas in writing

and verbally, all of the students were able to color code and accurately locate the

four story elements, including finding examples of dialogue and of interesting

details independently.

observation #5 - ela lesson, narrative

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