Decker 1 Hannah Decker CEP 804 2 May 2014 Inquiry Unit Section I: Information About Students The inquiry

unit lesson was taught to a high risk second grade class. The class is composed of 13 students ages seven-eight; six boys and seven girls. Of the 13 students there is one male student with an IEP. He is qualified for special education under OHI for ADHD. The student receives services in a kindergarten through third grade resource room for reading, writing, and math. During instruction the student may stare into space, move about the room, or refuse to participate. The student often needs reinforcement and scaffolding from teachers to complete assignments. In addition, assignments may be accommodated for him. Although he is the only student in the class who is qualified for special education, other students are below grade level in reading and math. Four students received possible retention notices at the end of the second marking period. Three of these students also receive reading instruction from the building reading specialist in addition to their classroom instruction. Another student within the classroom is a selective mute and is currently being evaluated for special education. The student communicates with peers and teachers using limited sign language. In addition, there are ESL students in the class. When planning the inquiry unit it was important to take into consideration the characteristics of all of the students in the class in order to meet their individual learning needs. Section II: Planning My Unit The first decision I had to make was to complete the inquiry unit with the entire class or one reading group. After consulting with my mentor teacher about what the unit would entail we determined that the entire class would benefit from the experience. While consulting with my mentor teacher we discussed the different elements and strategies I would teach throughout the unit. Based on our knowledge of the students we decided that I should focus on the pre-reading strategy of predicting. My students have many experiences predicting with fiction books. I thought I could build on their knowledge to teach them predicting using non-fiction features that they had little previous experience. Throughout the unit I could focus on features such as glossaries, tables of context, headings, and captions. I also decided to utilize the strategy of note taking and organizing the collected notes. After planning many of the units elements I thought about how I could divide my students into research groups and what resources I could give them to research. I ultimately decided to group students based on their reading groups. By grouping students by reading groups I could more easily find books that all group members could read. After grouping my students I looked for books and other resources. I began looking for books within our schools reading program Fountas & Pinnell. Using the reading program I was able to find books at each groups reading

Decker 2 level quickly. While I was looking for books at each reading level I was also trying to find a theme to run between all groups. With a unifying theme in mind I discovered that animal books were available at each reading level. The books within the Fountas & Pinnell system were a large determiner of the inquiry unit theme and the animals each group would research. After finding non-fiction books I looked online for an age appropriate website on which students could research their animals. I was able to find the website kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids. I thought the videos, images, and text on the website would be engaging and motivating to students. Next, I consulted the second grade writing Common Core standards. I wanted to ensure that I was aligning the unit not only with my MSU class requirements but with the standards students are expected to meet. By doing so I was able to form an inquiry unit that would introduce students to the type of research and writing they would do in their educational futures. Looking at the Common Core standards reinforced many of my ideas. The standards aligned with my plans to have students write an information paragraph, utilize the writing process, participate in shared research, and create a class website. Finally, I took all of my information and planned all my inquiry unit lesson plans. Throughout the planning of my lessons I looked online for graphic organizers I could use within the unit to support students learning. By planning all of my lessons at once I could ensure that every lesson built on the previous lesson and was working toward the final product. In addition, I could think about the components of each lesson and make sure I was including all of the teaching points I wanted to share with the class. While I planned every lesson ahead of time I understood that I would need to be flexible with lesson components and allotted time. Section III: Planning, Activating, and Building Background Knowledge Day 1: Wednesday April 2nd Whole group gathering of prior knowledge about dolphins o Utilizing graphic organizer What I Already Know Picture walk of the book All About Dolphins based on student prompts Discussed non-fiction text features students noticed throughout the book Modeled making predictions based on pictures and other non-fiction text features o Recorded predictions on the graphic organizer Pre-reading Organizer Divided the class into five groups based on reading level and gave each group their animal books Students completed the graphic organizer What I Already Know Using the non-fiction books students completed the graphic organizer Pre-reading Organizer

Section IV: Teaching Strategies for Gathering, Recording, and Organizing Information

Decker 3 Day 2: Thursday April 3rd Read All About Dolphins aloud Think aloud of the facts I learned about dolphins Class discussion of strategies for remembering all the information learned from reading non-fiction books Discussion of the strategy of note taking Modeled using sticky notes with the strategy of note taking Discussion of what types of information should be recorded during note taking Divided the class into groups with each group receiving animal books, sticky notes, and one piece of large chart paper Groups worked at a table with each member reading, taking notes, and adding their sticky notes to the shared chart paper

Day 3: Monday April 14th Shared teachers chart paper full of sticky notes Modeled writing a paragraph prior to organizing notes Students stopped teacher while she was writing because her paragraph did not make sense Discussion of strategies they could use to help them write organized paragraphs With student assistance modeled organizing sticky notes Created headings for each group of sticky notes Discussed the headings as main ideas and the sticky notes as details Modeled completing a pre-writing graphic organize based on one grouping of sticky notes Class divided into groups and worked together to organize their sticky notes Each student chose a main idea and completed a pre-writing graphic organizer

Section V: Building Additional Background Knowledge Day 4: Tuesday April 15th Students worked on computers Explored their animal using the website kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids Looked at pictures Watched videos Read articles Recorded notes using sticky notes to add to the groups chart paper

Decker 4 Section VI: Drafting, Editing, and Revising Final Products(s) Day 5: Wednesday April 16th Teacher shared a paragraph she had written using her graphic organizer Teacher read aloud the paragraph multiple times Modeled revising and editing the paragraph with student assistance Student revising o Added o Deleted o Changed o Moved sentences Student Editing o Capitalization o Punctuation Discussion of the elements of the paragraph o Topic sentence o Organized details o Conclusion sentence Students worked on completing the writing process with their own informational paragraphs o Rough draft o Revising o Editing Editing checklist o Peer Reflection Peer revising and editing o Final Copy

Day 6: Thursday April 17th Students worked on completing the writing process with their own informational paragraphs o Rough draft o Revising o Editing Editing checklist o Peer Reflection Revising and editing o Final Copy

Decker 5 Day 7: Tuesday April 22nd Students worked on completing the writing process with their own informational paragraphs o Rough draft o Revising o Editing Editing checklist o Peer Reflection Revising and editing o Final Copy

Section VII: Presenting or Publishing Final Product(s)/Assessment and Accountability for Learning Day 8: Wednesday April 23rd Class practiced presenting their information paragraphs on our classs website utilizing the Smartboard Discussed what good presenters do o Stand up straight o Look at their audience o Project their voice o Hold their notes away from their face Discussed what a good audience does o Listen attentively o Show the presenter they are listening Hands to yourself Quiet voice Eyes on the presenter Body facing the presenter o Raise your hand if you have a question Joined Miss. Flints class in their classroom Had juice and cookies Watched Miss. Flints class present their inquiry unit on inventers Presented our classs website to Miss. Flints class

Section VIII: Reflection and Critique of Unit (narrative of strengths, weakness, and next steps) Overall, I am very happy with the success of the inquiry unit. An area of strength that I observed was the level of engagement students demonstrated during the unit. Throughout every lesson

Decker 6 students were excited and engaged. At the begin of the lesson each day students were excited and wanted to know what they were going to do that day to work on their research. During teacher modeling students were actively participating; sharing comments, listening to their peers, and building off of each others ideas. When students got the opportunity to work each day they remained on task. Due to the students engagement there were very little behavioral issues and I was able to focus my energy on ensuring that students were learning different reading and writing strategies. Another area of strength that I saw within the inquiry unit was students working together. Many of the students had previously struggled working with peers to achieve a goal. During the unit students were willing and eager to assist their group members. I observed students showing peers their books, notes, and new facts they had learned. In addition, students were assisting each other with the new learning strategies. Working in groups ensured that students were exposed to information found by other researchers. I believe that students would have been more likely to become frustrated if they had not had a group to lean on for help. In addition, some students may not have been as successful throughout the research process. Throughout the inquiry unit the classroom was actively noisy with students working cooperatively to create their class website. One area of weakness that I would like to improve in the future was the amount of days students were able to work on the inquiry unit. Due to the amount of time it took our class to finish opinion writing and the timing of my internship I had to fit the unit into a short period of time. If I had been able to spend more time with my students and the inquiry unit I would have further developed students understanding of the learning strategies I introduced. Furthermore, I would have supplied the students with more books and websites to explore. I would have also used other resources such as videos or experts for students to consult. If I had been able to stretch the reading and research portion of the unit I may have also been able to stretch the writing portion. With more information students could have worked on writing multiple paragraphs about their animal. Next time I complete an inquiry unit I plan to allow for more time and investigation. The inquiry unit solidified for me the benefit of providing students with a real purpose and audience. Students often mentioned Miss. Flint and thought about her when completing different tasks throughout the unit. I observed students thinking about producing their best work to share with the other class. It was clear that students had their audience in mind as they were working, especially as they were editing and revising their writing. Students were excited about creating a class website that many people could access and having the opportunity to present their work to other teachers and students. Throughout the presentation I was able to reflect on all of the work my students did and could tell that they were proud of themselves. As I move on in my teaching career I hope to continue teaching inquiry units that involve a real purpose and audience.