In my last post, I introduced a lesson plan that my literacy professor modeled with my class of preservice social studies teachers. Because my high school class was preparing to do a unit on imperialism, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to stun the world with my teaching skills and the Panama Canal lesson plan.
I knew that I needed to do much more modeling than my professor did for us. As a Bell Ringer, I asked the students to hypothesize what lies, half-lies, exaggerations, rationalizations, and obfuscations were and give an example of each. I highly doubted that any of them would know what an obfuscation was, and I was right. Most of them knew what the other words though, and we worked together to come up with some examples for each. So far, so good.
Next, we watched the video on the Panama Canal. Although it was less than three minutes, the class had zoned out. (This quite possibly had something to do with the fact that for technology reasons, we did not get off to a smooth start.) While it was a good idea to build prior knowledge, it proved to be more of a hindrance to overall learning. The downhill spiral begins.
After we talked about the video for a few minutes, I passed out the background information and we previewed it. We talked about important things that they needed to look for in the argument and what made them important. I modeled the first paragraph and told them to do the rest with their partner as I walked around the room.
My trips around the room were almost disastrous. All but maybe three students had underlined and/or circled almost every sentence, every name, every thing. I would try to ask students questions as to why they thought something was important and was met with blank stares. Time was running short, so I decided that we would probably only get through the autobiography, which was very incorrect.
After 15-20 agonizing minutes of trying to explain to pairs of students what I wanted them to do, we came back together as a class to discuss the background passage. Some students were able to point out important people and events. I wrote the names on the board and asked different students why they thought A, B, C was important. I also told them to think of how these facts could be tied to the original inquiry question, and pointed to it on the board.
The next portion was to have them examine the autobiography. I knew that we would need to model this activity too. I pulled the document up on the promethean board and had one of the students read the first argument out loud. I asked the class to point out key adjectives that really stood out and then asked "why do you think the President chose that word?" and "what image was he trying to portray?" They understood that portion, and I was extremely grateful.
Next, I had them consult with their partner for 30 seconds and try to summarize the few sentences that we had just read and was met with a roomful of blank stares. One kid took a shot in the dark and I wrote his answer on the board. I circled the instructions on the Promethean Board and told them to work in pairs and to try to get through the next 3 or 4 arguments.
As I walked around the room, my head began to spin as I realized that the majority of these students had little to no reading comprehension skills. I tried not to get discouraged, so I began to think about what I needed to do to remedy the situation.
First, in hindsight, I realized that I did not model NEARLY enough for my students. I assumed that because they were sophomores that they should be more than capable of reading a fairly simple passage and be able to tell me what they just read. Incorrect. I also realized that they did not have a firm grasp on several things that I had assumed that they knew. For example, they were doing a unit on Imperialism and I was under the impression that CT had very briefly mentioned Teddy Roosevelt and his role in the acquisition of the canal. This was also an incorrect assumption on my part.
Although I considered this lesson a disaster, there were many things that I was able to take away from it. First, I can never assume that any student I teach has a particular skill. Many may have it, but many may not. It is not my job to blame the students or previous teachers; it is my job to teach them, however basic the skill may seem to me.
Secondly, a teacher can never model enough. Scaffolding is extremely important; it does not have to always be me holding their hands through an assignment. Instead, I need to give them the appropriate tools to eventually perform the task themselves. They may not get it on the first or even second try. I need to work with them until they understand.
Finally, I learned that teaching a lesson as a preservice teacher can put one in an unfortunate position. Because I did not work with the students on a daily basis, I did not know that they had never been taught the skills that I was expecting them to use. In my own class in the future, I will start from the beginning of the year by gradually teaching them how to look for key terms in what they read, how to summarize a passage, and how to look for evidence to support their argument. Fortunately, the beautiful thing about teaching is no matter how badly I feel I may screw up a lesson, I can always go back and try again on something else. Which is exactly what I did....
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