Fieldwork

Mini Lesson Observation
Location & Group Size:
The teacher was teaching a mini lesson focusing on a reading workshop, based on the series, “Houndsley and Catina” by James Howe. As stated in “The Literacy Quick Guide” by Fountas and Pinnell, the teacher presented her lesson through a whole group setting of 17, 2nd grade students, while gathered on the rug. In addition, she had her students seated in a semi-circle like fashion, where everyone was able to view her and the SMART Board clearly.
Connection:
It begins with the connection to the character research they’ve done as a class prior. As mentioned by Fountas and Pinnell, when reading a book series, it is important to do one book talk, where everyone can discuss the similarities in the style and/or characters the series has. The teacher presents this idea by first, showing the students the book to refresh their memories. Then, she proceeds by referencing the cover which depicts the consistent main characters throughout the series, Houndsley and Catina. This is followed by her developing the one book talk by taking the main characters and asking the students to have a “talk and turn” with their “face partners” to discuss two traits they’ve discovered about Houndsley and Catina from the past two books read. Partner A would discuss two traits about Houndsley and then, partner B would discuss two traits about Catina.
Teaching Point:
The teacher is consistently pointing out how Houndsley and Catina behave in the same way throughout the series. She is repeatedly reminding the students to look for scenarios that have the same emotional response from previous books. For instance, if Houndsley acts calmly or if Catina acts worried again. Before beginning her activity, the teacher displays a mini diagram on her SMART Board stating how the students should, “Notice the things that are the same across the series.”, followed by a depiction of a stick figure noticing the “boxed problem”. She then proceeds to her activity where she will use the book and read the last chapter, which the students have read. Similarly, to before, the teacher provided directions towards each “face partners” to apply while she reads. These directions included the “silent thumb”, which assists in containing active participation from students while maintaining a brief mini lesson. Partner A will raise their “silent thumb” when Catina expresses repetitive actions and Partner B will raise their “silent thumb” when Houndsley expresses repetitive actions. This activity will emphasize the practice towards looking for similarities between characters in new books presented to them.
I Do:
As the activity proceeded, the teacher noticed that the “silent thumbs” required some framework. In response, she went back to using the “talk and turn” instead to allow her students to practice talking about the character. Therefore, once a repetitive action or response regarding a character arose during the reading, the teacher would break everyone up into their “face partners”. Even she would participate during the “talk and turn”, which can be used to adjust and clarify the teaching point as a formative assessment. During this time, everyone would turn and face their partners and discuss the repetitive action or emotion presented during the reading.

We Do:
The teacher expresses to the students to, “Face partner!”. In which, the students turn to their “face partners” and discuss previous times when Catina would talk when she has gotten nervous. At this time, everyone takes turns between one another to discuss when they recall a time this occurred between previous books read or the one being presented to them.
You Do:
As the teacher wraps up the reading, she ties the lesson of seeing how characters act the same way repeatedly. She proceeds by sending out each student into their own independent reading session. Each book she provided for them consists of a similar character from previous books read who’s named, “Egg”. Along with the same lesson regarding viewing familiar characters acting in repetitive manners. Within this, the teacher utilizes stop and jots to provide the students with exercises while they read and prepare for book clubs individually. The students will access their independent reading books through, myOn, which is a personalized digital library at their fingertips, on their digital devices.
Share:
A share was not provided in this video for this activity.
Strengths:
In analyzing the video watched, I witnessed some strengths presented by the teacher. For starters, she included the book and provided engaging, projected texts in her lesson. This, followed by, as mentioned by Fountas and Pinnell, helping the students think like readers and share their thinking amongst one another, supporting efficient teaching and learning, encouraging analytical thinking, and using precise and explicit language to emphasis understanding. All while keeping her mini lesson well within the 5-minute range. In addition, the teacher provided a good seating formation between her students as she had them in a semi-circle where she and they, can see everything provided.
Weaknesses:
In analyzing the video watched, I witnessed a few weaknesses presented by the teacher. One of them being how she didn’t provide an anchor chart for her students or any writing material for them to joint down notes for themselves. Then, the other weakness being how there wasn’t a “share” portion provided for the class after the activity lesson.
Suggestions:
Given the weaknesses provided, I would recommend a few suggestions. For the anchor charts, I would suggest creating a chart to add next to the diagram steps provided on the SMART Board. On this chart, the teacher can provide the title of the story, the main characters, and the theme of the lesson. For example, in the video, the theme was finding reoccurring actions and/or emotions from previous characters. Then, as the lesson progresses and the students mention key details relating to the theme, the teacher can write it in the chart. In this way, once the lesson is done, the students can look back and review the notes that were discussed on the board. Or referencing independent reading, the teacher can provide a sticky note and writing utensil to each student, so that the students can write down their own personal notes as they read. Nevertheless, for the “share” portion, I would suggest having a “talk and turn” at the rug after independent reading. Seeing how productive the students are during “talk and turn”, once completing their reading, they can meet with their partners and discuss the similarities they found in their own books. Followed by a collaborative discussion with the class as a whole, discussing the different similarities they found in their individual books.

References:
YouTube. (2019, February 3). Mini-Lesson in Reading Workshop. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr2wRR7s0VU.
Fountas, I. C. and Pinnell, G. S. (2018). The Literacy Quick Guide: A Reference Tool for Responsive Literacy Teaching. Heinemann. Portsmouth.