Ben Rathkamp

EDS 361A
12/14/13






















Language Arts PACT Content Area Lesson Plan with
Reflection



























Benjamin Rathkamp
EDS250
11/20/13

Context for Learning Form

Provide the requested context information for the class selected for this task.
Use as much space as you need.

About the subject area/course

1. How much time is devoted each day to specific instruction in science, social studies,
mathematics, and language arts in the class which is the focus of this task?

The amount of time the class spends on each subject varies by day. Fluency work, shared
reading, writing, math and the literacy workshop are undertaken everyday. Science, social
studies, ELD, critical literacy are usually done once or twice a week. Library class and
physical education are never done more than once a week.
The reading fluency task is a weekly process that takes up 15 minutes every morning.
This is typically followed by writing or critical literacy, for 30 minutes. After recess, there is
an hour of math followed by either science or social studies for 50 minutes. After lunch is the
literacy workshop for an hour and 45 minutes. The literacy workshop typically involves
individual reading, participation in an online, class-wide discussion board, the Advanced
Readers quiz and a couple other specific functions that I have not witnessed. Library class
lasts 4o minutes, once a week and PE is one hour, also once a week.

About the students in the class

2. How many students are in the class you are documenting? 32

3. How many students in the class are: English learners _10___
Redesignated English Learners __6___ Proficient English speakers __16__?

4. Please complete the following table about your English Learners latest CELDT scores (if
available):

# of Students at Each CELDT Level in Different Modalities
Score Level Listening Speaking Reading Writing Overall
Beginning

3 1 4 4 2
Early Intermediate 0 3 1 1 1
Intermediate

4 7 10 11 10
Early Advanced

8 6 4 2 4
Advanced 4 2 0 0 2


5. How many students have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) or 504 plans? _3 IEP_

6. How many students participate in a Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program?
__Unknown_______

About the school curriculum and resources
7. Describe any specialized features of the classroom setting, e.g., bilingual,
Structured English Immersion, team taught with a special education teacher.
Until a week ago, there were no specialized features in the classroom. Now, there is
ELD class that occurs 3-5 times a week for 50 mintutes. All the students in the fourth grade
are rearranged by their CELDT level for this period. The details are still fluctuating and a
permanent system has not been finalized. I believe the intention is to dedicated no less than
40 minutes, 5 days a week for this class.

8. If there is a particular textbook or instructional program used for science, social studies,
mathematics, and language arts instruction, what is it? (If a textbook, please provide the
name, publisher, and date of publication.)
Our school district uses Foss science kits, Envision math and a fancy critical literacy
curriculum that I am not privy to.

9. What other major resources are typically used for science, social studies, language arts,
and mathematics instruction in this class?
The 4
th
grade is grouped by ability for math. Our classroom gets the lowest ability
level kids. For this hour of the day, we are aided by another teacher.


1. Briefly describe the following about the context in which the learning segment
would be taught:
This learning segment is to be taught at Fay Elementary School in Mrs. Watts self-
contained 4
th
grade classroom. This is a multiple subject classroom with a little
departmentalization. The students have a different teacher for Library and PE. Some
of the students have a different teacher for math, depending on their ability. Math is
the only subject that is group by ability.

2. Describe your class with respect to the features listed below. Focus on key factors
that influence your planning and teaching of this learning segment. Be sure to
describe what your students can do as well as what they are still learning to do.

a. Academic development
Consider students prior knowledge, key skills, developmental levels, and other
special educational needs. (TPE 8)
The students in Mrs. Watts class vary in their knowledge, developmental levels,
and educational needs. About half of the class is reading and writing below grade
level with the other half on track. Two students are reading and writing above
grade level. Likewise, it seems that about half of the students are on grade level in
their science progress, though it is difficult to tell as their have only been informal
assessments thus far.

b. Language development
Consider aspects of language proficiency in relation to the oral and written
English required to participate in classroom learning and assessment tasks.
Describe the range in vocabulary and levels of complexity of language use within
your entire class. When describing the proficiency of your English learners,
describe what your English learners can and cannot yet do in relation to the
language demands of tasks in the learning segment. (TPEs 7, 8)
The classroom contains 13 English only speakers and 19 ELLS of a variety of levels.
There are 2 students in the beginning overall score level of the CELDT range. 1
student in early intermediate, 10 in intermediate, 4 in early advanced and 2 in
advanced. Most of the students are capable of constructing full, mostly correct
sentences, but some of them require help. Common mistakes in sentence
composition include incorrect verb conjugations and verb tense. Often times,
academic vocabulary can be an issue. Many of the students have good social
English but have trouble with academic language.

c. Social development
Consider factors such as the students ability and experience in expressing
themselves in constructive ways, negotiating and solving problems, and getting
along with others. (TPE 8)
Most of the students are at age appropriate levels of behavioral development. Two
of the students have IEPs related to behavioral factors. One of these students is on
the autism spectrum. Only one or two kids in the classroom have what I would
consider problems expressing themselves in a constructive way. The school has a
counselor for one day of the week to address behavioral problems and help resolve
conflicts.


d. Family and community contexts
Consider key factors such as cultural context, knowledge acquired outside of school,
socio-economic background, access to technology, and home/community resources.
All of the students in Mrs. Watts class are on the free lunch plan. Their socio-
economic background is very working class. About a third of the students attend an
after school program on campus that keeps them out of trouble until they can go
home. The neighborhood is very culturally and ethnically diverse with a large
Vietnamese population and a large Latino population. There is also a large
population of sub-Saharan African refugees.

3. Describe any district, school, or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations
that might impact your planning or delivery of instruction, such as required
curricula, pacing, use of specific instructional strategies, or standardized tests.
The school seems to be in between testing resources. With the plan to implement a
new testing system to align with the Common Core standards taking effect next year,
the school is not testing the students using the old method this year. It is still unknown
if the students will be taking any form of standardized tests this year.
My teaching is also restricted from the critical literacy curriculum. The provider of
the program does not allow from outside agents to gain access to their materials. I am
not allowed to teach the course or to attend the professional development sessions.



































EDS Lesson Plan Language Arts:
Informational Text The See-Through Frog Lesson #1


Name: Benjamin Rathkamp
Grade Level: 4th
Content Area: Language Arts
Date for Implementation: 12/9/13
Lesson Title: The See-Through Frog
Small Group/Whole Class

Standards: California Common Core State Standards RI 4.1
Refer to details and examples in the text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when
drawing inferences from the text.

Content Objective/Learning Outcome:
Given a one page, non-fiction, informational text, students will compose sentences that describe
the main ideas of each paragraph in one sentence per paragraph.


Language Objective/Language Learning Outcome
Given reference to the paragraph structure stems, sentence structure stem and the sentence
frames provided, students will be able to write a summary of the text analyzed in shared and
independent reading.


Assessment

Formative Assessment Tasks
During shared reading, group participation will provide instances to assess student progress of
the objectives. I will ask questions such as: What do you think the main idea of this paragraph
is? What evidence can you cite in the text that tells you what this paragraph is about?

There will also be a think, pair, shares and partner work that I will listen in on. Please refer to:
Instructional Sequence/Introduction/paragraph 4 for details.


Summative Assessment Tasks
Students will record their summaries in their writing journal to be graded later.


Materials Needed:
Text: The See-Through Frog
Writing journals
Pencils

Differentiation:
Shared reading will provide different points of access for students at different reading levels.
For my students who are at lower reading levels, the shared reading provides guidance through
the details of the text. We will do word work after an initial read through to try and determine
the definition of possibly unknown words by citing information in the text. This will provide
readers of different readers with a chance to learn new words in context, and if will provide more
experienced readers with the chance to exercise reading-for-meaning.

The sentence frames referenced in the body of the plan will provide scaffolding for the ELLs in
the class as well as students below grade level in writing.

I will make sure to speak slowly and clearly with plenty of accompanying, non-verbal
communication.


Instructional Sequence:

Introduction
Students will meet on the rug with their white board, their copy of The See-Through Frog, and
a pencil. Speaking slowly and clearly, I will first ask the students to tell me the rules of conduct
when we engage in group- work on the rug. Then remind the students of any of the rules they
missed. To tap prior knowledge and engage the students in the exercise, I will ask for
predictions about the text based on the title.

After taking and recording predictions, we will read through the text together. Afterwards, I will
ask the students to take 30 seconds to go through the text and circle any words they dont know.
Before they begin, to model this exercise I will use my own copy of the article on the document
camera. I will show the students how to circle the unknown words, then draw an arrow from that
word to the portion of the text that helps to define the word.

After the students take 30 seconds, I will ask for examples of their word work words, making
sure to offer plenty of opportunities time for my ELL students to participate in this opportunity to
meet develop their vocabulary and participate. Then, we will discuss their possible definition
based on the text and notate our texts accordingly. I will model all of this activity on the
document camera.

Next, I will ask the students to work with a partner to highlight important information that they
think is most relevant to the article and the main idea of the article.
With your partner, we will pick two important pieces of information that are relevant in this
paragraph. Partner 1 will pick a piece of information for both of you to highlight and explain its
importance. Then partner 2 will pick a piece of information to highlight and explain its
importance.

After this, back in full group, I will take ideas generated in partner, agree on a main idea for the
paragraph, and write a main idea sentence. To model this exercise, I will write the sentence the
class generated in plain view on the document camera on my copy of the text next to paragraph
one and ask the students to do the same.
The main idea of paragraph one is ___________.

Body
After this modeling session of the process I will deliver instructions and ask the students to
return to their desks to repeat the process we began with the whole article.

When you go back to your desks, I would like you to continue this process on your own. We
have been doing this together for the past few weeks, but I think that you are ready to tackle this
task by yourselves. First, read a paragraph. Then, do your word work. Circle any unknown
words and see if you can generate a definition based on what you read in the text. Please dont
forget to draw your arrows to the evidence you are basing your definition on. After word work,
please highlight the most relevant information in the text. Remember, do we highlight
everything? Do we highlight whole sentences? After you highlight, I would like you to compose
a sentence for each paragraph about the main idea of that paragraph. Please refer to the
sentence frames on the wall for document-based evidence if you need to. Completion of this
work will be your exit slip for recess. Please quickly and quietly make your way to your seats
and begin.

The sentence frames on the wall of document-based terms contains multiple sentence frames:
In paragraph ____ the author informs us _______.
The main idea of paragraph ___ is _______.
This article is mainly about ________.
The main idea of the article ________ is _______.

Closure
We will reconvene on the rug and I will record students ideas for main paragraphs on my article
on the document camera. We will then do a quick review about reading informational texts and
discuss what good readers do. I will look for answers such as, make predictions, connect the
text to our own lives and access background knowledge, summarize and make connections to
other texts.










EDS Lesson Plan Language Arts:
Informational Text The See-Through Frog Lesson #2


Name: Benjamin Rathkamp
Grade Level: 4th
Content Area: Language Arts
Date for Implementation: 12/9/13
Lesson Title: The See-Through Frog
Small Group/Whole Class

Standards: California Common Core State Standards RI 4.9
Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the
subject knowledgeably.

Content Objective/Learning Outcome:
Students will compose a paragraph that integrates factual information contained in the non-
fiction text The See-Through Frog into a fictional narrative about themselves.


Language Objective/Language Learning Outcome
Given reference to the paragraph and sentence structure stems and the sentence frames
provided, students will be able to write a story about themselves that cites specific information
from the text The See-Through Frog.


Assessment

Formative Assessment Tasks
During shared reading, group participation will provide instances to assess student progress of
the objectives. I will ask questions such as: What do you think your life would be like if your
skin were transparent? The text tells us what frogs with transparent skin. Can you use
information from this reading and apply it to your own story? Good writers make connections
to real life. The text The See-Through Frog has lots of true details about real life. Can you
imagine that you have transparent skin? Are there facts in the story that would effect you if you
did?

There will also be a think/pair/shares that I will listen in on and the class will share out.

During the body of the lesson, I will travel around the room to observe and help the students
with their paragraphs. This will offer a chance to witness a students individual work.


Summative Assessment Tasks
Students will record their paragraph in their writing journals, to be graded later.


Materials Needed:
Text: The See Through Frog
Writing journals
Pencils

Differentiation:
Shared reading will provide different points of access for students at different reading levels.
For my students who are at lower reading levels, the shared reading provides guidance through
the details of the text. We will refer to our word work from the previous lesson to review the
definitions of possibly unknown words. This will provide readers of different levels with a
chance to learn new words in context, and if will provide more experienced readers with the
chance to exercise reading-for-meaning.

For the ELLs in the class, paragraph and sentence stems will provide an applicable structure to
format their paragraph.

Paragraph structure:
In the informational text, The See-Through Frog, I learned that ________. If I also
_________, then I __________. I could ___________. I would (like or not like) this because
______.

I will make sure to speak slowly and clearly with plenty of accompanying, non-verbal
communication.


Instructional Sequence:

Introduction
Students will meet on the rug with their white board, their copy of The See-Through Frog, and
a pencil. I will first ask the students, speaking clearly and slowly all the time, to tell me the rules
of conduct when we engage in group- work on the rug, then remind the students of any of the
rules they missed. To tap prior knowledge and engage the students in the exercise, I will ask
the students to reread the text for two minutes, and then ask for a few examples of information
we learned about transparent frogs in the text.

After listening to a few facts, I will propose to the students that good writers base their fiction in
fact. I will say that fiction writing that draws on real-life experience is more effective because it
offers readers an entry point to the work, and makes the story more believable.

Then, I will introduce the exercise. I will tell the students that I want them to create a story or a
part of a story in which they also had transparent skin, like the frogs in the text. I will ask them
to chose one or two facts about transparent frogs that were specifically noted in the text and
base their own imagined experience from that. I will encourage them to place themselves in the
frogs shoes.

I will then provide an example by citing information from a previous text about vampire bats. I
will say, In the informational text about vampire bats, I learned that vampire bats had wings,
and long, opposable thumbs. If I had wings and long opposable thumbs, I would be really good
at basketball, because I could use my long thumbs to hold the ball while I fly above everyone. I
would then make a slam-dunk. I would become an all-star basketball player and have my own
shoe line.

I will record this paragraph on the board. After I do so, I will erase the details, leaving a
sentence frame that students can use if they choose. I will remind the students that this is their
own project, and they can write with or without the frame. I will point out that there are other
ways of delivering the same information with different wording.

The paragraph frame and stem will look like this:
In the informational text The See-Through Frog, I learned that transparent frogs ___________.
If I ___________, also, I (would/could) ___________. I (would/could) _________.

I will tell my students that if a paragraph is well written, the audience will know exactly what fact
in the informational text the writer was referencing.

I will ask my students to turn to a partner and share their ideas for what they might write.
Instead of having the students share their ideas verbally, I will ask them to keep their ideas in
their heads and refine them by putting them on paper. Then I will release them to their desks to
begin their writing.

Body
During the body of the lesson I will walk around the classroom to observe the students work.
For those students who are at lower language and writing levels, this will offer me the chance to
check in with them to make sure they are using the frames correctly and are understanding of
the task.


Closure
We will reconvene on the rug and I will ask the students who wish to, to read their work for the
class. The readers will be allowed to stand in front of the class and present. I will encourage
the rest of the class to play close attention and to note the information from the informational
text that informed the writers work. After the presenter finishes, I will ask the rest of the class to
cite the information from The See-Through Frog that the presenter used in their story.







Planning Commentary

1. What is the central focus of the learning segment? Apart from being present in
the school curriculum, student academic content standards, or ELD standards,
why is the content of the learning segment important for your particular students
to learn? (TPE 1)

The central focus of this learning segment was to provide students with different
experiences that would practice the abilities of good readers. The abilities focused on in these
two lessons are summarizing a text and synthesizing information from that text into written work.
The importance of learning these skills are highlighted by S. Harvey and A. Goudvis (2007).
Our information-rich society requires us to sift through ever-increasing amounts of data to make
sense of them and act Summarizing and synthesizing allow us to make sense of important
information, get the gist, and move on (p. 19). And, As readers distill text information into a
few important ideas or larger concepts, they might form a particular opinion or a fresh
perspective that leads to new insight (p. 19). It is important that my students learn the skills of
synthesizing and summarizing so they can efficiently and effectively glean information from a
wide and variety of a large number of sources and use that information to meet their various
needs. These lessons encourage students to read purposefully (TPE 1) and to write
increasingly more sophisticated narrative texts and adapt their communication in relation to
audience, task, purpose, and discipline (TPE 1).

2. Briefly describe the theoretical framework and/or research that inform your instructional
design for developing your students knowledge and abilities in both literacy and
academic language during the learning segment.

Much of my responsibility as a teacher of reading is to make what is implicit, explicit. My
efforts to teach will focus on explicit instruction that reveals how good readers think when are
reading, and to draw students attention to the task of being good readers. Instead of telling my
students what to think, I intend to lead them to draw their own conclusions through Socratic
method and the shared reading process. My framework is primarily sourced from the interactive
read aloud, as described by Harvey and Goudvis (2007). Activating background knowledge,
modeling, guided practice and sharing thinking are the core elements of this process. I also try
to include as many of the SDAIE strategies in my lessons to ensure that all my students have
the most tangible learning opportunity I can produce (Genzuk, 2011).

3. How do key learning tasks in your plans build on each other to develop students
abilities to comprehend text, and to develop related academic language? Describe
specific strategies that you will use to build student learning across the learning
segment. Reference the instructional materials you have included, as needed. (TPEs 1,
4, 9)

The main idea composition portion of the lesson is designed to provide students
opportunities to sort through a large amount of information, identify unknown words in the text
and define them using text based clues and extracting the essential ideas of the text. The
second step, in lesson 2, is to use this information to inform their own writing. When synthesis
happens, readers merge information with their thinking and shape it into their own thought.
After these two lessons, important information that has been extracted from text will be restated
and applied to a larger self-designed concept. This encourages students use of language
across reading, writing, speaking and listening (TPE 1).

4. Consider the language demands
1
of the oral and written tasks in which you plan to
have students engage as well as the various levels of English language proficiency
related to classroom tasks as described in the Context Commentary. (TPE 7)


a. Identify words and phrases (if appropriate) that you will emphasize in this
learning segment. Why are these important for students to understand and
use in completing classroom tasks in the learning segment? Which students?

b. What oral and/or written academic language (organizational, stylistic,
and/or grammatical features) will you teach and/or reinforce?

c. Explain how specific features of the learning and assessment tasks in your
plan, including your own use of language, support students in learning to
understand and use these words, phrases (if appropriate), and academic
language. How does this build on what your students are currently able to do
and increase their abilities to follow and/or use different types of text and
oral formats?


The lesson will focus on academic language that is used when analyzing, citing and
describing text. The students will use phrases, provided in sentence frames and sentence
stems that focus on documentation. The students will use vocabulary words such as paragraph,
main idea, author, informational text and non-fiction in sentence frames such as, in paragraph
___, the author informs us ____, and the text ______ is mostly about _______. The
students will practice the use of these phrases by engaging in a process of distillation with the
text. Students will highlight important details, then combine them using the sentence frames,
making use of the academic language mentioned above. Students will then reuse this
information, reshaping it to fit into their independently written stories. In our shared reading
exercise, students will use the sentence frames to verbally exercise use of the language
objectives, before writing their main idea sentences. The lesson will also be accompanied by
my constant reminder that good readers and writers cite their sources and draw specific
information from their texts to inform their work.

5. Describe any teaching strategies you have planned for your students who have
identified educational needs (e.g., English learners, GATE students, students with
IEPs). Explain how these features of your learning and assessment tasks will


provide students access to the curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their
learning. (TPEs 9. 12)

To offer structured support to my English learners, GATE students and students with
IEPs, I plan to use the sentence frames listed above, I will speak clearly and slowly, I will
provide ample wait time to allow students to generate answers to questions, I will tie my
lesson to background knowledge, I will model the activities I expect my students to
complete, and I will use Think/Pair/Shares and partner work. Again, much of these
structured support techniques are sourced from the SDAIE framework (Genzuk, 2011).
For my IEP student on the autism spectrum, I plan on keeping his immediate
environment conducive to his learning needs. He prefers repetition and planning, so he
always sits in the same spot on the rug. He is often paired with the same few students,
though I continue to work new students into his cycle, to expand his experiences within his
comfort zone. He has a powerful imagination, so I will make an effort to tap this resource
and use it to create engagement with the activity.
My other two IEP students require extra time with concepts and language support. I
will make sure to provide this during the lesson.









References
Commission on Teacher Credentialing (2013). California Teaching Performance
Expectations

Genzuk, M. (2011). Specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE) for
language minority students.

Harvey, S. Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work. Maine: Stenhouse.