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Rachel Gulbrandsen

Professor Cheeks
LBS 400
December 9, 2014
English Language Arts Reflection
The frameworks of English Language Arts emphasize the Common Core Standards.
The Common Core Standards provide a clear educational goal that is expressed in the
frameworks. The frameworks demonstrate a clear understanding that learning English
continues from kindergarten to 12th grade. The English Language Arts frameworks want
children to learn how to read aloud from grades 1-4. Children are also responsible for
reading by themselves as well. Also, there is great support for children do learn more than
one language. Teachers must have the knowledge that children have the ability to use
multiple dialects. Depending on the child, some speak more than one language. For
example, speaking Spanish at home and English in the classroom. Teachers should
recognize that there are appropriate times for students to use English and other times to
speak the language more comfortable to the student. When picking books for students to
read, the frameworks suggest that a teacher must have knowledge of the book prior to the
lesson and must come up with engaging lessons. The frameworks state that, the teacher
plays a crucial role in ensuring that all students engage meaningfully with and learn from
challenging texts (ELA Frameworks). My English 350 class focused on different texts and
we had to go over each text and decipher them. The teacher would go over each text
individually and then would compare and contrast the two, which relates to 1st grade. In
the field, I have been prepared by learning of what not do. During one of my classroom
observations, I witnessed a teacher just send children who had a difficult time reading to
me in the back of the classroom, while she continued on with her lesson. Instead of finding
a book that all could read, she completely left them behind and did not include the students

who had difficulty with the readings. I want to include all my students and if some have
trouble with the material I would form reading groups, where students would read
together, while I helped the students who had some difficulty. I feel prepared in helping
students write clear ideas and how to add evidence, which is included in the frameworks. I
feel comfortable in preparing outlines, which will help make a clear, stringer essay. In
English Language Arts I feel comfortable teaching about the order of an essay. I would use
the hamburger model, which assigns every part of the essay to a different part of a
hamburger. For example the top bun is the intro, the hamburger patty is the body, the
lettuce is commentary for quotes, and so on. The image ends with the bottom bun, which is
the conclusion paragraph. I feel less prepared in teaching phonetics, which takes place
throughout elementary school. The frameworks emphasize that a teacher must provide a
rich language experience and since I have not yet taken the English class that discusses
phonetics. For English Language Arts, my artifact will be my Comp-Co Op blue book from
my English 350 class. The Comp-Co Op essay was the test that I needed to pass in order to
be able to graduate and pass the class. The essay was worth a large percent of my overall
grade, and I was able to score a 21 out of 24, which is fairly high. I am not allowed to
discuss the topic I wrote about, but I was able to take the lessons from all of my English
classes and put them together into a good essay. Sometimes the key to writing is to know
whom your audience is and even though you may not agree with how something should be
written, you must modify your essay in order to give the reader what they want. I
struggled with that on the practice essay because it was difficult for me to be personal in an
essay because I was taught to not be personal in an essay. However, I managed to reach out
to my reader and I as able to get a better grade.

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