Initial
Lesson Plan
Revised
Lesson Plan
Observations of Student
Learning
Elizabeth taught the lesson first. When I watched the video of her lesson, I really liked how she got the students’ minds ready for the story by showing them the cover and asking them for their thoughts. This sparked their interest and encouraged them to start making guesses about what the book might be about. I hadn’t built this into my own lesson plan and decided to add it. You can see it in my revised version of the lesson.
I also really liked the way she read to the students. Calmly and simply; she wasn’t over-theatrical, which I can sometimes be. I kept this in mind and thought about keeping a simpler tone when reading to my own students.
I noticed that Elizabeth’s students were pretty quiet during the reading. I wondered if this was a classroom expectation for read alouds that they were following or if they just didn’t have contributions that they wanted to make.
When Elizabeth and I talked together after her lesson, she shared with me that next time, she would have introduced the sketchbook prompt before the read aloud and that she would have reminded her students, throughout the story, to be looking for connections. I took this suggestion from Elizabeth and tried to be conscientious in my own lesson about reminding kids of the lesson goal. I built it into my plan.
Elizabeth also told me afterward that she would have built in more questions to ask throughout the read aloud so that the kids would have had more opportunity to contribute and discuss ideas. In spite of her comment, it’s something that I wish I had been more intentional about in my own lesson. I found that my students would have benefited from much more conversation.
Originally, Elizabeth and I tossed around the idea of using two prompts in the sketchbooks to help the students understand how to make connections. Structured prompts such as, ‘Most Important Detail’ followed by ‘This Reminds Me Of.’ In the end, Elizabeth decided not to structure the sketchbook like this for her lesson and I ultimately went that way, too. I decided that I preferred to leave the activity more open. I wonder if the support and direction of these prompts would have helped the kids to make more courageous and profound connections than they ended up making. If I were to reteach this lesson I might think about trying it this way.
Reflections on and Analysis
of Teaching the Lesson
The students engaged with the lesson, but did not meet the goal of making connections between the book and their lives.
Initially, I thought the students were getting the idea. I showed them the book cover and their responses spoke within the realm of connections. Michael said, ‘this book reminds me of when I went off the bus and what my hair looks like. Because, like, the real thing that was connecting me, is that the back cover had an—alligator!’ The bus on the cover reminded Sophia of a number book where she had to count cars and buses and trucks. Sunny remembered taking the bus and subway when her dad's car broke down (it's still broken) and thought the people on the cover might be ‘going to their house.’ These responses reassured me early on that the students were on board with the lesson's goals.
I spent the majority of the time reading the story and modeling my own connections. ‘I have a connection to this page,’ I told them about living in New York City and seeing all of the performers on the train and how all of the passengers enjoy the performances. And, at the end of the story: ‘Remember when CJ’s grandmother pointed out that rainbow? It reminds me… One time in Philadelphia, I was walking around, in a neighborhood that kind of looked like the one in this book, and then I saw this vegetable garden, which had these beautiful vegetables--peppers, eggplants, lettuce--growing out of this container, and I was thinking, oh my goodness! This is such a beautiful surprise. So that kind of beautiful, surprising thing on not such a nice street… This page in the book reminds me of that time. That’s a connection that I made to my life.’ Because I believed the students understood the goal of the lesson, the only modification I made was, for the sake of time, I did not introduce two vocabulary words.
The assessment activity showed mixed results. When I asked the students to draw or write about a connection, they mostly drew literal representations of what they liked from the book. Christopher drew a bus with an alligator poster on it. Sunny drew a bus with a rainbow arching over it—a compilation of two different pages from the book. Sophia drew CJ and his grandmother looking at one another with sunshine above them. And Michael drew a building with graffiti on it and a rainbow arching over it. He even looked at the page of the book as he drew his picture to make sure to get the drawing exactly right. Only afterward, when Michael and Christopher were discussing that rainbows only come after rainstorms, he decided to add dark clouds and raindrops. I felt that this was headed in the right direction.
Looking back, I may have not invited enough conversation. In the video, I see that the students made few connections during the actual reading of the story. I worry that I was too focused on the time instead of discussion.
If I were doing this lesson again, I would start with the formal content of the story. The students would discuss character, setting, and events in full group discussion or pair shares to get everyone talking. They would have lots of opportunity to discuss. Ideally, they would eventually discuss deep aspects of the book—CJ’s grandmother’s optimistic outlook, observations about living in a big city, and the meaning of the rainbow at the end of the book. And they would make connections to their own lives. But these goals probably would come later. First, my students would need to understand the story itself.
Some of these goals would come through re-reading. I think re-reading is important with young kids as part of teaching them to look at the same text from different angles. I would focus on where CJ and his grandmother are going on the bus, what a soup kitchen is, and who eats there—all parts of the story that the students missed in the first read. Reflection, which I focus on in my overarching question, takes place over time and through re-reading. It’s a drawn out process.
LITERACY
Lesson Design
What
Students will listen to a read aloud and then be asked to pay attention to their thinking and make connections to their own life through a sketchbook activity
How
I will be reading a story, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena, to a small group of students in my kindergarten class. After modeling for the students, I will then ask them to use their sketchbook to respond to the text and make a personal connection. Depending on the child’s ability and / or interests, they will draw, write, or do both in their sketchbooks. Finally, we will come back together as a group and share out our sketchbook responses with one another.
Why
This is a book that Elizabeth and I were introduced to in our Children’s Literature class during our first term in Penn TEP. We chose it for our students because it’s at the appropriate language level for kindergarten but also deals with important, weightier issues. We hope that our students, who are in Philadelphia public school classrooms, will be able to relate to the setting and characters depicted. The setting is urban. The main character, a young boy named CJ, and his grandmother, are black. The story follows them on a rainy day as they take the bus from church, to the last stop on the bus, Market Street, where they regularly volunteer at a soup kitchen. Their journey to the soup kitchen is filled with all of the wonderful things that one sees in a city environment--sights, smells, sounds. We also felt that the depth and relevance of this book would lend itself well to an activity that is meant to encourage personal reflection and personal connection; I sometimes feel that my students aren’t asked to do enough of this in the classroom so I wanted to find a way to weave it into my lessons. An additional benefit of using this book is that the many sensory descriptions tie in nicely to a five senses unit that my class is currently working on. Also, a major feature of the story is that CJ’s sometimes grumpy but inquisitive comments are followed by his grandmother’s wise and positive outlook on the world. Her way of finding beauty in their city life is a major part of the story.
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