Reflection and Self-Evaluation

Overall, I am really happy with the success of this unit and the learning that the students

had. I think that this unit that was designed by Lucy Calkins and Kelly Hohne was certainly

challenging for me to follow and unlike anything I have ever had to teach from. That aside, I

learned so much from this unit, and I think students enjoyed learning about persuasive writing.

Even after four bends, mapping out to being just over one month of work, students remained

excited and positive when learning about this style of writing, which I really appreciated. I think

students did well at learning different strategies in how to organize their writing, how to plan,

how to add details and voice to their writing, along with many other new strategies that we

worked on every day. Students were able to work independently, with partners, collaborate about

ideas, share their work, and listen to others ideas that helped them grow as learners, rather then

only listen to me when I directed the lessons. It was really a joy seeing the different ideas that

these 3rd graders have ideas such as bullying, pollution, endangered animals, clean water,

education for girls, clear cutting trees, current politics, among many others. I continue to be

amazed at all the unique ways that young children are able to formulate simple solutions to

problems that adults seem unable to grasp. This writing unit proved that these 3rd graders are

intellectual thinkers who have the power to truly make changes in their school, community, state,

country, and even the world.

While I think this unit went well, and I think students learned a lot, I definitely struggled

with the format of this unit plan. I wasnt used to the concept of a script while I was teaching,

and it often made me flustered at the beginning of the unit. The book, Changing the World:

Persuasive Speeches, Petitions and Editorials was wordy and had lots of information that I

didnt feel helped me with each lesson. I really struggled with teaching the unit for the first few

lessons because I felt overwhelmed and uncomfortable with the structure of the book. I didnt
feel as though there was much creativity for me as a pre-service teacher, but I understand that

this is what teachers have to adapt to and teach. I am glad I was able to learn from this book

during my student teaching semester because I received lots of support and feedback from my

mentor teacher, which I think truly helped me grow as a teacher.

Something that I learned from teaching this unit is to have perspective and remember that

these students are in the beginning stages of learning how to write. These 3rd graders are so

young, and I would often forget that when feeling surprised or overwhelmed at their lack of

effort or comprehension of the lesson. My mentor teacher would often remind me that they are

still in the beginning stages of their careers as students, and I have too high of standards when

considering what students should be producing for work. I dont necessarily think students work

was a reflection of my lack of teaching, rather than it being a reflection of their age and learning

development. I also learned a lot about differentiation through this unit, and I think writing is a

great subject where students can work from the level that they are at, and only continue to grow.

During each daily conference with the students, I was able to sit down with the student and only

focus on their writing and how it could be improved. I enjoyed this aspect of teaching because I

wasnt comparing students work with others, rather I focused on each student individually and

their personal writing journey.

I think the most successful learning goal for this unit would be learning goal #1. The

biggest idea that I hope students take away from this unit is that they must know how to have a

brave and bold opinion, and how important it is to back up their thinking with reasons. This goal

allowed room for students growth and I truly think that every student improved their persuasive

writing in terms of learning goal #1. Students varied on their abilities to formulate varieties of
reasons to back up their claims, but I believe that they all showed that they are able to back up

their bold, brave claim with comprehensible reasoning.

While students truly showed growth in their writing, I would say learning goal #3 was

definitely the least successful goal. I had a difficult time trying to figure out how to encourage

students to write for longer periods of time, and take their excitement and energy of their topic,

and convert it into words on paper. Students really need to continue growing their writing

stamina, and I am learning how to help them with that. I had a challenging time trying to have

students stay focused, and I would be frustrated because I didnt understand why students didnt

want to write. I learned that I should continue trying to make writing fun, and continue trying to

inspire the students so that they want to write.

I think that it is important for teachers to remain reflective and to work on different skills

or qualities that continue their progression of being successful educators. Two of my own

personal professional goals that I would like to see myself continuing to work on in the future

are: practicing a variety of assessment strategies, and continuing to create lessons that have the

multiple means of differentiation. I would like to set assessment strategies as my professional

goal because I want to become more knowledgeable at recording assessment data, whether the

assessment is pre-assessment, formative, or summative assessment, because I didnt really see

where much of this data goes in terms of other educators seeing the data. I would like to try

different assessment strategies that I have yet to try, that way I can see how different strategies

work for students. I would also like to set the goal of differentiation for myself. I have learned so

much about differentiation, but I would like to continue learning how to accurately differentiate

materials for the ranging levels of students. It is so important to provide students with materials
that fit their learning levels, but I want to learn how to still give materials that thoroughly

challenge the students too.

Completing my Teacher Work Sample has been both challenging and rewarding, but

mostly rewarding in the sense that I am very proud of the work I have accomplished with

students in a short amount of time. I have grown very close to these students and I have worked

very hard to help them learn in the best ways possible. I had a challenging time learning to teach

through the Calkins and Hohne unit plans, but the students were amazing and were

comprehending what I was teaching each day. I always wish there was more time to review some

topics that I wanted students to truly learn about in writing, but timing is always an issue in

school. I am really glad that I decided to create a website for my TWS, as it took me out of my

comfort zone, and helped me produce something I am truly proud of.