Context for Learning Information

School Information:
1. In what type of school do you teach?

Iowa-Grant Elementary/Middle School, located in Livingston, WI, is a rural elementary

and middle school combined featuring grades 5-8 in the middle school section.
2. List any special features of your school or classroom setting that will affect your
teaching and learning segment.
None
3. Describe any district, school, or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations
that might affect your planning or delivery of instruction, such as required curricula,
pacing plan, use of specific instructional strategies, interdisciplinary learning, or
standardized tests.
The curriculum follows the Common Core State Standards and standardized tests are
taken. This RLA class uses the Reading Wonders series by McGraw-Hill.

About the Classroom Featured in This Assessment:

1. What is the name of this course?

This course is Reading and Language Arts (RLA)

2. What is the length of this course?

This course is a year long broken up into 4 different grading periods.
3. What is the class schedule?
The class begins with 15-20 minutes of silent reading. They will then move on to the
lesson, with the 94 minute period divided into reading instruction for roughly half the
time and language arts for the other half, occasionally with overlap.

4. How much time is devoted each day to ELA instruction in your classroom?
At least 30 minutes every day.
5. Is there any ability grouping or tracking in ELA?
Every students Reading Counts book progress is checked daily during silent reading
time. Standardized test scores divide students into RTI groups based on the areas they
need the most help in. Those with low reading scores focus on ELA during a separate 47minute RTI time every other day.
6. Identify any textbook or instructional program you primarily use for ELA
instruction.
Every week, students use the Spelling City app to learn and practice their spelling words
followed by a test administered by the app every Friday. The Reading Wonders series is
also used to teach vocabulary, literary devices, grammar, and reading comprehension.

7. List other resources you use for ELA instruction in this class.
Reading Counts tests
eBackpack.com
SMART Board
Notability app
iPads

Student Information in Classroom Featured:

1. Students are in 6th grade.

2. There are 21 students in the class
11 females, 10 males

Students with Specific Learning Needs

Planning Commentary
1. Central Focus
a. Describe the central focus and purpose for the content you will teach in this
learning segment.

The central focus of this lesson is for students to broaden their vocabulary, as
well as teach them reading comprehension skills. With this lesson, the aim is to
get students to think critically about ancient societies and compare/contrast
what they learn about those societies with the one they live in. They should be
able to make textual inferences to understand the society featured in the story.
Additionally, the students will use textual clues to determine the point of view
the story is being told in.

b. Provide the title, author, and a short description of salient features on the text(s)
that a reviewer of your evidence, who is unfamiliar with the texts, needs to know in
order to understand your instruction. If there is more than one text, indicate the
lesson(s) where each text will be the focus.

The text used for this lesson was the Literature Anthology from McGraw-Hills
Reading Wonders series. The story from the text is titled A Single Shard from the
novel of the same title by Linda Sue Park. This story is set in 1100 A.D. in Korea and
is about a boy called Tree-Ear, who lives under a bridge with a man called Crane
Man. Tree-Ear is fascinated by one of the local potters, Min, and watches him work so
as to learn the trade himself. In the end, Tree-Ear accidentally breaks one of Mins
pieces, so Min takes him in as a helper to repay his mistake.
c. Given the central focus, describe how the standards and learning objectives within
your learning segment address students abilities to:

construct meaning from, and interpret complex text

create a written product interpreting or responding to complex features of a text

Reading Standards for Literature 6-12

RL.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well
as inferences drawn from the text.
The learning objectives of this lesson focus largely on students creating an idea of what 12th
century Korea might have been like based upon their reading. To do so, the students must be able
to fully comprehend what the author has written, then take that knowledge and apply it to what
they already knew about societies in general to create a new mental image for the unfamiliar time
and place.

d. Explain how your plans build on each other to help students make connections between textual
references, constructions of meaning, interpretations, and responses to a text to deepen their
learning of English-Language Arts.
This lesson reviews many concepts that they have already been taught and should know, while
applying them to new text. By beginning the lesson with introducing new vocabulary words, the
students are able to apply those definitions as the words come up in the text. This leads to a fuller
understanding of what the text means and allows for a more complete understanding of the story.
Prior to this lesson, the students had been learning about point of view in writing. A Single Shard
is a story written in third-person with dialogue among characters, and as the students read, they

are to identify the point of view and assert their answer using textual evidence. A Single Shard
was also the third story they read focusing on ancient civilizations; therefore, I asked questions
leading the students to make connections among the civilizations to deepen their understanding
and allow for more accurate interpretations.
2. Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
For each of the prompts below (2a-b), describe what you know about your students with respect
to the central focus of the learning segment.
a. Prior academic learning and prerequisite skills related to the central focusWhat do students
know, what can they do, and what are they learning to do?
The students had already read stories and learned about the ancient civilizations of Rome and
the Kushan Empire (now Afghanistan), and therefore should already have an idea of what
pre-modern life was like. Additionally, they should already have some of the skills necessary
for interpreting text to create a mental image of a society long gone. The concepts of
foreshadowing and flashback, both conventions used in the story, have been introduced to
them, though not yet refined. Though most of the vocabulary that may be unfamiliar to
students is taught prior to reading the story, the students know how to use context clues and
textual supports to fill in any gaps. In this lesson, they are learning how to apply this
knowledge to comprehend more difficult text, as well as reviewing and refining their skills.
b. Personal/cultural/community assets related to the central focusWhat do you know about
your students everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds and practices, and interests?
The students cultural backgrounds are rural communities, with many of them
accustomed to helping with chores and farm work. Though the stories are not related to farming,
they all feature children around the students ages who were given jobs and responsibilities. Both
the students and the characters are at turning points in their lives where the responsibilities are
increased, creating a personal connection for the students.
3. Supporting Students English-Language Arts Learning
Respond to prompts 3a-c below. To support your explanations, refer to the instructional
materials and lesson plans you have included as part of Task 1. In addition, use principles from
research and/or theory to support your explanations.
a. Explain how your understanding of your students prior academic learning and

personal/cultural/community assets (from prompts 2a-b above) guided your choice or adaptation
of learning tasks and materials.
I was aware of what my students should know and be capable of, but also aware that they
aare in the beginning stages for many of those skills. Bearing that in mind, I decided to
stop the students throughout the reading, after one page on average, to ask questions to
check for understanding. If the students seemed to understand what was happening in the
story, I would sometimes try to deepen that understanding by asking questions relating
the passage to present day and/or their personal lives. I also made it clear that at any time,
they were allowed to raise their hand if they had a question about the story and that I
would answer them at an appropriate stopping place.
b. Describe and justify why your instructional strategies and planned supports are appropriate
for the whole class, individuals, and/or groups of students with specific learning needs.

This lesson is appropriate for the whole class with room for adjustments as I would see
fit. I decided to alternate the reading of the story between playing the narrated recording
provided on McGraw-Hills ConnectED website (the online supplementary resources to
Reading Wonders) and having each student read a paragraph at a time out loud. The
recording allows for students with learning disabilities related to visual processing to be
able to follow along easily, while the student reading prevents students with ADHD from
getting too fidgety or bored. Having each student read out loud is beneficial to building
oral fluency, and allows them to learn from their peers mistakes. However, though
participating was of course encouraged, students were also allowed the right to pass if
they felt uncomfortable reading to the class. This prevents students with reading
disabilities from feeling ashamed and discouraged from reading.

c. Describe common students errors or misunderstandings within your central focus and how
you will address them.
Sometimes with the new vocabulary words, the students will mix up the definitions when
they come across the words in the text. This is not only detrimental to their vocabulary, but also
to their full comprehension of the story. To fix and prevent this, I will be sure to provide quality
definitions and examples, then ask the students to come up with their own sentences using the
new vocab words to check for understanding and correct any confusion before the story begins.
When I stop to ask comprehension questions, I will also ask questions regarding the passages
that the vocabulary words appear in to make sure they remember what the words mean.

4. Supporting English-Language Arts Development Through Language

a. Language Function. Identify one language function essential for students within your central
focus. Listed below are some sample language functions. You many choose one of these or
another more appropriate for your learning segment.
Analyze
Explain

Argue
Interpret

Describe
Justify

Evaluate
Synthesize

Within this central focus, the essential language function used is to analyze. While the stories
are fairly straightforward in plot, there is deeper meaning to them and the students must use their
new vocabulary and comprehension skills to eke out that meaning. By analyzing the story
through the guiding questions I ask them, they are learning what it takes to fully comprehend text
and how to analyze text on their own.
b. Identify a key-learning task from your plans that provides students with opportunities to
practice using the language function identified above. Identify the lesson in which the learning
task occurs. (Give lesson day/number)
When teaching the vocabulary words, I first ask the students what they think the word
means before giving the definition. Using their prior knowledge of common Greek and Latin
roots, they are often able to analyze the word and come up with a ballpark definition. When
reading, the questions I ask them often relate to reflecting upon what has already happened,
followed by asking about what might happen next. This technique makes the students analyze
deeper to be able to give a summary and prediction.
c. Additional Language Demands. Given the language function and learning task identified
above, describe the following associated language demands (written or oral) students need to
understand and/or use:

Vocabulary

Plus at least one of the following:

-Syntax
-Discourse

d. Language Supports. Refer to your lesson plans and instructional materials as needed in your
response to the prompt.
Students must grasp the new vocabulary words before moving on to the rest of the lesson,
because knowledge of the vocabulary used is vital to understanding and proper analysis. Without
knowing the vocabulary, they have no way of knowing what the text is actually saying. The
students must be willing to participate in, or at least pay full attention to, the discourse during the
reading. I ask them questions and they must be able to provide appropriate and thoughtful input.

Describe the instructional supports (during and/or prior to the learning task) that help
students understand and successfully use the language function and additional language
demands identified in prompts 4a-c.

This lesson is mainly discussion based and relies on the contribution of students. While I
encourage it, I do not require students to take note of points that we explore in class.
When it comes to language, context clues are what I want students to focus on most
because it is the easiest way to define a word without a dictionary in their hands. Wait
time is increased to accommodate the students with special needs. As a class, we discuss
together what the students believe the word means based on the words that they do know
around it. Similarly with interpretation of key points, I ask the students a question and
then give them time to think about an answer before opening the floor to discussion. This
helps students to share their own thoughts and become involved with their writing. It also
accommodate those who learn best by listening because they are able to sit back and hear
what everyone has to say.

5. Monitoring Student Learning

In response to the prompts below, refer to the assessments you will submit as part of the
materials for Task 1.
a. Describe how your planned formal and informal assessments will provide direct evidence of
students abilities to construct meaning from, interpret, and/or respond to a complex text
throughout the learning segment.
The informal assessment comes during the lesson. When I ask questions, it allows me to get a
glimpse of their level of comprehension as well as get an idea of how they are thinking. The

formal assessment comes in the form of vocabulary worksheets that include a word bank and
have fill-in-the-blank and matching questions. The students also are given worksheets involving
practice with identifying point of view.
b. Explain how the design or adaptation of your planned assessments allows students with
specific needs to demonstrate their learning.
Though the worksheets themselves are not very versatile, the students are given class
time to work on them, allowing struggling students to ask questions and get the help they need.