Read 3226 whole group reflection

During my two-week immersion, the students were working on a unit from RL 2.9
Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from
different cultures. The classroom teacher and I discussed a number of texts that would be
appropriate to use for a lesson and decided on two versions of the Three Little Pigs story. The
lesson I taught was introduced as a discussion where students retold the story of the Three Little
Pigs which they had read as a group the day prior. I began by calling on one student to share
their synopsis and had the students lead the conversation, calling on one another to add any other
pertinent details. I then introduced the text, the True Story of The Three Little Pigs, and asked
them to formulate and articulate their observations based on the front cover illustration.

The students made some wonderful remarks that included, “I think the wolf’s version is
going to about how he wasn’t the bad guy,” and “how he was framed.” The introduction,
including the retelling of the original version and the speculation presented by the students to this
different version of the text, was very fluid and provided the lesson with anticipation and a high
level of engagement from the students. I tried to make the read aloud interesting for the students
by using strong prosody and having students chime in for emphasis on exclamation and the more
dramatic features of the text. As I read, I made sure to pause at preselected stages of the story
which I had marked and ask the students what they noticed that was similar or different about
specific passages.

Following the reading, there was a brief discussion and a turn and talk where I called on
one group of students to share one observation they discussed. I then showed them the Venn
diagram template I had created that they would be working on independently. If I were to change
anything from the lesson it would be here at the guided practice portion of the lesson. Instead of
saying aloud where the compare and contrast information from both texts should be written, I
should have specifically modeled the two student’s observation from the turn and talk discussion
directly onto a blank template. This move would have given the students a more concise set of
expectations and provide clarity for the objective.

The implementation of this method of instruction centers on how effective teachers

explicitly demonstrate skills and strategies for their students. Explicit Strategy Instruction
provides students with the scaffolding necessary to work independently on a specific task. The
students had already been introduced to Venn diagrams and used them on a previous unit of the
lesson, but as I observed and conferred with students during the independent practice, there were
a few who were yet proficient in this skill of recording their answers and observations in the
appropriate spaces. In conclusion, the students all did a wonderful job completing their Venn
diagrams and meeting the objective of the lesson.