Jessica Egger

EDLP 6090
Outcome #3
October 3, 2015
Ms. Hendricks has been a teacher at The Colt Street School for 3 years. For
the last three years, The Colt Street School has departmentalized its content areas
and she has been responsible for teaching fifth grade math to four different sections
of students: resource, bilingual, enrichment, and general education. This year, the
Superintendent mandated that teachers become self contained classes, so that no
instructional time is lost in transitioning students from class to class. As well,
student populations will be comingled, so that all student populations are integrated
into the same classes. Although Ms. Hendricks holds a standard license for teaching
grades K-6, she has expressed great concern in delivering quality Language Arts
instruction to her fifth grade students. Her concerns have been magnified because
the students are no longer separated in resource, bilingual, enrichment and general
education tracks. Although she has received professional development in Language
Arts curriculum delivery, she feels that her toolkit is empty. As her Language Arts
Supervisor, she has come to me seeking out strategies to improve her instruction.
We began by laying out the curriculum maps, and assessments that are
provided and mandated by the district. In doing so, she was able to identify three
domains contained within the curriculum: vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. I
also shared the language arts curriculum for the grades both before and after fifth
grade, so that Ms. Hendricks could see how the standard could be unpacked among
grade levels. This helped her to understand the foundational elements that students
should be arriving to fifth grade with, as well as the tasks and skills that sixth grade

language arts will focus on. As well, we began by focusing on the cognitive domain
of learning to improve upon the content knowledge and development of intellectual
skills of the students. Because Mrs. Hendricks now is working with a class that
contains multiple student populations with differing needs, we discussed strategies
necessary to differentiate instruction. Our final area instructional practice focused
on assessments, and how utilizing both formative and summative assessments can
help to guide and mold her instruction.
After we unpacked the standards across grade levels, we discussed the
concept of Backward Planning. Although she was familiar with the concept in
algebraic expression, she didnt realize that the same method could be applied in
developing lessons for language arts. By utilizing both the curriculum maps and the
districts summative assessments, Ms. Hendricks would be able to pinpoint her
instruction with even greater clarity. Within the assessment we identified the skills
being tested at the end of the unit, analyzed the format of the test itself, and
uncovered vocabulary and content that should be pre-taught to students to
optimize a successful outcome. We decided that these elements could be
incorporated into her instruction, so that students would have familiarity with all
aspects within the final assessment.
Next, I shared various instructional strategies for each domain contained with
the language arts curriculum. Firstly, vocabulary instructing can be best
differentiated by offering students variety. I suggested that we create a weekly
spelling menu that students can choose various activities based on interest
throughout the week; one weekly appetizer, one weekly entre, and one weekly
dessert could be chosen by each student. Examples of appetizers include: writing
words 3 xs each, ABC order, sentences for ten words, or draw a picture to represent

the vocabulary word. Examples of entrees that the students could choose include:
writing a story or poem using at least ten words, write a riddle using ten words, go
on a magazine hunt for 10 words, or a journal entry that uses the ten words. Lastly,
students can choose a weekly desert menu choice which could include: create a
word sort, create a word search, or create a word puzzle using online technology
tools. Bilingual students lacking English proficiency could engage in a cognate and
translation activities
Instructional strategies that could be utilized in the area of comprehension
can be differentiated to fit learner needs by interpreting the story or information
through pictorial representations, utilizing DBQs, and for those in need of scaffolding
instruction; using graphic organizers. I provided Ms. Hendricks with a packet of
graphic organizers which could be used in a variety of settings including: Venn
Diagrams, T-Charts, K-W-L charts, sequencing, etc. These will be essential
components in her tool box that can be applied to both narrative and informational
texts.
Lastly, I provided Ms. Hendricks with several tools to aid in her delivering high
quality instruction for the language domain of writing. These included creating cloze
activities for filling in information for bilingual and resource students, maintaining a
writers notebook for necessary vocabulary for a variety of tasks. These tasks vary
within the unit, but the strategies can apply to a range of objectives including
vocabulary needed to compare and contrast or sequence events. For enrichment in
writing, students can begin to create analogies and metaphors or dialogue. I
provided Ms. Hendricks with graphic organizers that can aid students in these
endeavors.

Although we began our discussion by Backward Planning from the summative

assessments, we ended our initial meeting by discussing the importance of daily
formative assessments that can gauge students understanding of whatever is
being taught. Moving forward, Ms. Hendricks will begin implementing these
strategies in her class as formative assessments: K-W-L charts and quick writes.
Quick writes enable students to draw pictures, list key words, and summarize their
learning on a simple form. By utilizing these instructional strategies, I anticipate
that Ms. Hendricks will begin feeling more secure in her delivery of quality
instruction and in her employment of best pedagogical practices. I shared all
information with her through utilizing Google documents, and wrote an overall
synopsis of our meeting and our anticipated next steps. I will continue to check-in
with her, and have her self assess her professional development needs.