Keystone

Keystone Assignment: ELL Case Study

Candidate’s Name: George

Grade Level: 2^nd Grade

Title of the lesson: Creative Writing assignment on Super Powers

Length of the lesson: 45 minutes

Central focus of the lesson Student will write a creative story in his writing journal on Super Powers. Student will work on grammar, writing skills and comprehension. Key questions: ·       How to space out words when writing? ·       How to connect words to better penmanship? ·       What do super powers mean to you? ·       How can we pretend to have them in a story?

Knowledge of students to inform Student will have prior knowledge of super powers and understand that this has to be written in a creative way with proper writing prompts and skills they have learned and worked on.

Common Core State Standards CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.2.3 Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension, gather additional information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.2.4 Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.5 With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.

Support literacy development through language Vocabulary ·       Classroom vocabulary words, words that link to Super Powers Sentence Level ●     Sentence structure Discourse ●     Text structure within their sentences and story.

Learning objectives 1.     Will recognize and read common mistakes and misspelled vocabulary words. 2.     Student will answer the questions to develop there story 3.     Student will write a creative story on Super Powers

Formal and informal assessment ·       Reading the creative story and looking for details, writing skill and grammar. ·       Asking student to peer review and have the peer write down key details in the story. ·       Looking for a comprehending story to read.

Instructional procedure: 1.     The teacher will start the lesson by reviewing the key questions and explain the objectives. The teacher would ask the students to explain what has to be done in the lesson. ( At this point ask George, to see if he comprehends the task) 2.     Students will take out their creative writing journal and being writing the answers to the key questions. The class with discuss, this is a great way to have students being writing and get their mind working. 3.     After students will work independently on creating their story. The vocabulary words they have to use will be in their vocabulary journal where they can refer to the terminology. 4.     After 20 minutes I will stop the student to see if they are on the right track and review their work. Students will work with peers to review each others work. (This helps with George because he tends to rush, I can review his work and stop him from rushing) 5.     At the end when the work has been checked by a teacher (final Copy) Students will be selected to read their stories out loud. (This helps George with his Speech)

Instructional resources and materials ·       Writing Journals ·       Pencil ·       Vocabulary Journal

Reflection ·       Were students able to write a creative story on super power? ·       Was the writing lesson challenging enough? ·       Were students able to provide details? ·       Were students able to show proper writing skills?

Classroom and Student background:

This semester I did my student observations at Wilson F. Elementary School in Rockville Center.  The students in this school are 98% Caucasian leaving 2% of students minorities, which were not in Ms.Gigante’s class my cooperating teaching.  She has a class of 26 students with an assistant teacher who helps her. Ms.Gigante was aware of my project and suggested working with a student that has difficulty in comprehension, fine motor skills and other life skills like eating and speaking. We will call this student George. George is in 2^nd grade has an older brother and lives with both his parents. His parents are in denial with his difficulties and treat him like a younger child still.  George speaks English as his only language; no other language is spoken at home. He does get services for speech but it was recently taken away because his mom felt he is doing well, he goes for PT for his penmanship skills only.

            George is the type of student who thinks he is always right with everything, doesn’t proof read his work and rushes through his work. Working with him was a challenge and took a lot of patience.   His writing is ineligible because he does not connect his letters and writes spaced out.  I’ve learned if I take him out the room and work one to one with him he tends to focus better. He will take time with his writing, proof read his work before letting me review it and stays calm.  George is a good reader and it shows that his speech has improved but he struggles with comprehension. If there were questions to answer after a short story he would take 15 minutes answering a questions because he does not understand it. We will reread the story together and go back to look and write down the key details.  If he does answer the question and I ask him to read it to me he would get upset because I do not understand his writing. His vocabulary is very limited when speaking and he tends to stutter.

When working with him I had to be stern.  This is the first time in a while that I had to be stern when working with a student, if you were too nice he would walk all over you. During snack he would eat shoving all the food in his mouth and leaving his face messy, he thought it funny and not clean it. There have been many instances where he has stool in his pants not giving the teachers a reason why. His parents are very defensive when these situations come up and always defend him. I find it difficult and hard because as a mom I would only wanted best for my child, as he gets older it will on get worse. Hopefully further help can be given to him aside from the teacher and the PT he received.

SOLOM Matric and English Language Rubric:

When conducting the SOLOM George scored low, His weakest were comprehension having a score of 2 and grammar having a score of 2 as well. He fell in between within the three other categories. George had a total of 14 points. Before even giving the SOLOM I knew that George would not do good in comprehension and grammar because this is where he struggles the most. He need to work on different reading techniques, reading slowly and analyzing whatever he reads prior to reading. With the prior help and the continuation of him receiving one to one, he should improve.

Writing Assignment and Lesson Plan:

Ms. Gigante and I decided that for the writing assignment and lesson plan we should concentrate on comprehension and writing skills because this is where George has a very difficult time.  Having him use vocabulary words that are given for the week and taking his time writing, and reading so he can have good results moving forward.  I choose for George to write a creative story on Super Power because he enjoys everything that has an action or magic power. He is really looking forward to the fairy tale lesson the school has every year. My goal for the lesson was to allow him to be creative and comprehend his own story.

Summary of Teacher Interview:

Interviewing the teacher on the questions was difficult because there are no ENL students, they just recently gained a program for future students, which I believe that would be foreign language in this school district.  However with her background and extensive experience in special education and working with ENL students in her previous school her main suggestions was always being open minded and being aware that everyone learns differently. When keeping this is mind you plan ahead she mentioned, and set your students up for success and not failure. She also mentioned to work with parents, other teacher in your grade, and any of faculty members that plays a part in the student’s life or school overall.  When doing this you can have a open mind, see how to run your classroom in different way and continue learning as an educator. She loves the fact that having ENL students and special needs you can be even more creative. Sometimes it can be fun because everyone learns with creativity and no one feels left out.  From this course I’ve learned that being creative meets the needs of most students and your goal is to meet the needs for all students.

Reflection:

Overall my experience at this school has been AMAZING, I’ve never been to a school where they treat you as a teacher and not just as an observer. The teacher has let me do everything you can think about to even teaching and leading the class on some occasions. I appreciate her for this because she has taken away my little nerves and I have learned even more with this experience. The school even let me complete more than 30 hours and have welcome me to stay until June. I took the offer because why not have more experience and I’m very content with the school myself. What made it difficult was juggling starting work at 7:30 am- 9 then make it to the school at 9:20 till 12 to leave and go back to work. These sacrifices just make me want to push to do better for my future students and myself. 

 However I wasn’t able to work with an ELL student during this semester but that is okay, in the past I’ve had experience with ELL student and at that I used to be an ELL student myself. I did find the questions and rubric challenging because I did not have that EL L student. I think in the future we have to be open minded that not all schools and district have these students. 

When working with George he gave me a run for my money, I had to learn how to have patience with him, be stern, and help him stay focus. He has come a long way with me that now he enjoys working with me and we have seen progress. I however think its because I was giving him that one to one attention he needs. Even though his parents think otherwise I’m glad I was there and was able to make some difference in is life.