GLT Reflection

Day 1: Pre- assessment: write a notebook entry to the best of your ability. It can be about anything, fiction/non-fiction; but it must be in paragraph form (not a poem/list/etc.). There wasn’t anything for students to learn this day. The at-risk students did struggle with their writing stamina and staying focused. As a whole, my students’ did not write as much as they are capable of. This could be interpreted as they are unable to focus and write for an extended period of time, that they have poor writing stamina. In reality, my students as a whole have strong stamina and can stay focused for a long period of time. I learned that many students have trouble with words that sound the same but have different meanings (threw/through, piece/peace, right/write), as well has how to correctly conjugate verbs (brung/brought, hid/hided, found/founded), and the majority of them do not understand indentation to show a new paragraph. I will reteach the material to students who need additional support by conferring with them while they write. I will focus on whichever convention they need the most work on—capital letters for proper nouns, question marks, etc. If I were to teach this lesson again I would have each student come up with a goal for their writing—which aspect of grammar conventions they are going to really concentrate on. I think this would improve their writing because it gives them a clear focus rather than trying to work on numerous conventions.

Day 2: Capitals and Quotations: discussion about when words are capitalized and when you use quotation marks, write a story about a time you went somewhere with someone. Students learned that proper nouns are capitalized and we use quotation marks to show when people are talking. These are not new concepts to the students, I just felt they needed a reminder of them. I looked over their writing and they all applied what we talked about and improved from the day before. I learned that many of them knew when and how to use capital letters and quotation marks, they just did not always transfer that knowledge to their writing as evidence. I don’t think these things will need to be retaught, but when conferring with students I will look to be sure they are using capital letters and quotation marks correctly and if they aren’t, I will have a quick discussion with them. If I were to reteach this lesson again I would have them go back in their writing notebook and edit previous work, capitalizing letters that need to be capitalized and using quotation marks where necessary. I think this would be better because it is teaching them that writing is a continuous process and they can always go back and change things whenever they want.

Day 3: Period and Exclamation: discussion about when to use periods and when to use exclamation marks, look at examples, apply to own writing. Students learned that exclamation marks are used to show emotion in writing. Again, these are not new concepts to them, I just felt they needed a reminder. I looked over what they wrote, and it seemed they tried to use exclamation marks as much as possible. Similarly with day 2, I learned they knew when and why to use exclamation marks, but they did not think about that and use them when writing. I do not think this will need to be retaught, but I will remind them to use exclamation marks and will be looking for use of them in their writing. If I were to reteach this lesson again, I would provide them with a writing sample containing no punctuation and spend the mini-lesson inserting correct ending punctuation and discussing why that is what should be used. Likewise as in day 2, I would have them go back in their writing notebook and edit their previous work, using exclamation marks where they are trying to convey emotion. This would give them a mentor text to learn from as well as further show how writing is a continuous process.