Planning Commentary

Planning Commentary Directions: Respond to the prompts below (no more than singlespaced pages, including prompts) by typing your responses within the brackets following each prompt. Do not delete or alter the prompts; both the prompts and your responses are included in the total page count allowed. Refer to the evidence chart in the handbook to ensure that this document complies with all format specifications. Pages exceeding the maximum will not be scored.

1. Central Focus a. Describe the central focus and purpose for the content you will teach in this learning segment. [The central focus and purpose for the content that I will be teaching in this learning segment is to teach the students what a metaphor is, how authors use them to paint pictures for their readers, how to understand metaphors, and how to write metaphors to create pictures in a readers minds. The parallel central focus is to have students write about something that is meaningful to them to explain what home means to them through metaphors and give them a chance to create a picture of their home for their classmates. Through the use of a mentor text, Uptown by Bryan Collier, we will explore metaphors and then move into writing our own. Uptown is about a young boy living in Harlem and what he sees, hears, feels, tastes and smells each day that creates his home the city of Harlem. Because my class is very diverse (we have students from Iraq, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mexico, Nepal and the United States) I was hoping that it would be a way to have children bring their culture into their writing a way to express sayings, tastes or smells of their culture and family. A way to celebrate their individuality and the rich ideas they each bring to the classroom an avenue for shyer students to tell a little more about themselves.] b. Given the central focus, describe how the standards and learning objectives within your learning segment address

an essential literacy strategy requisite skills reading/writing connections

[For my lesson segment, my essential literacy strategy is using graphic organizers to aide in pre-writing with a requisite skill of using descriptive language. To begin, we started with mentor texts: Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk by Brian P. Cleary, Uptown by Brian Collier and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss I read them aloud throughout the lesson segment so that regardless of reading level, students would have full access to the mentor texts. As standard CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.4 says, they will be able to Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinquishing literal from nonliteral language. And Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meansing of words and phrases in context (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5a) With the mentor texts Uptown and My Many Colored Days, students will see first hand how the author does not literally mean what the text is saying. He/she is creating an image for the reader or calling on a feeling, an emotion. To help my students better understand how we could do this, we will divide the metaphors in Uptown into categories based upon which of our five senses the metaphor draws upon. We will create a five senses graphic organizer together where we will post the metaphors from Uptown in their respective column. This will be the first step to scaffolding the students to use graphic organizers as a pre-writing tool. We will see how a graphic organizer can help us organize information from a book. Next we will discuss what home means. The boy in Uptown vividly describes his home. Home. How it does not have to be a particular place. It can be a person, the smell of your grandmothers cooking, the home you grew up in, your best friend or something
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Planning Commentary a parent always says to you when you get home from school. We will then move from reading, writing and discussing the mentor texts into brainstorming our own ideas about what we consider home. What do we see, smell, taste, hear and feel/touch in our homes? After coming up with a couple ideas as a group, students will work individually to continue to fill our their Home is... 5 senses graphic organizer. Next, using my own Home is... 5 senses graphic organizer I will show an example as to how I can turn my ideas into lines of a Home poem. Students will then be released to work on composing their own Home poems. This fullfills the CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.4 standard which I have listed in my plans with states With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose. My learning objectives align with the standards, my essential literacy strategy and my requisit skill throughout my five lessons. From making sure that students are able to identify and explain how a metaphor compares two things without the use of like or as, to illustrating and describing in their own words what a metaphor means, to generating a list of things they see, hear, feel, smell and taste that describe their home. All these objectives help guide the students to the point where they can use the graphic organizer as a pre-writing tool (essential literacy strategy) and then the final objective which is to turn their ideas from the graphic organizer into a poem of metaphors about their home. The last standard that is included in my lessons is CCSS.ELA.Literacy.RL.3.5 Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems with writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. This standard has been taught throughout my poetry unit and students will continue to use it as we read and talk about Uptown and My Many Colored Days.] c. Explain how your plans build on each other to help students make connections between skills and the essential strategy to comprehend OR compose text in meaningful contexts. [My plans effectively build upon each other by scaffolding the students in what they need to know before they produce their final product. The first three lessons build the foundation of comprehending metaphors so that the students are then able to compose meaningful text in the last two lessons. The first lesson introduces them to what a metaphor is and then uses a mentor text, Uptown, to further illustrate the concept. We will complete a guided graphic organizer where the students write down metaphors that they hear in Uptown as I read it outloud. We will then post them in a 5 senses graphic organizer. From there we will move into our next lesson. We will read a second mentor text, My Many Colored Days, and discuss how our feelings and emotions can be described in colors. From here the students will work in partners to interpret a metaphor. I will read all the metaphors outloud and then they will pick one to work on with a partner illustrate and explain what the metaphor means. It is the first step of releasing them to create their own ideas and interpretation of the given metaphors. From here we will move into students generating their own ideas about their own homes in a five senses graphic organizer. This builds upon the concepts taught in the first lesson how homes can be described in many ways using our five senses. It is here that I will also explain how we will be writing our own Home poems and that in order to do so we need to generate ideas first. In the fourth lesson students will use all the information they have learned so far to write their own metaphors. Again, it will be scaffolded. I will give examples and then students must begin each line of their poems with Home is so the beginning of the metaphor is already set up. They just need to pick a descriptive example of home out of their graphic organizer and complete the sentence. The last lesson is where they receive my feedback on their poems and then write their final draft. The final product will show that not only can they comprehend metaphors but that they can use the essential strategy of using graphic organizers for pre-writing to create meaningful texts of their own.]
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Planning Commentary 2. Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching For each of the prompts below (2ab), describe what you know about your students with respect to the central focus of the learning segment. Consider the variety of learners in your class who may require different strategies/support (e.g., students with IEPs, English language learners, struggling readers, underperforming students or those with gaps in academic knowledge, and/or gifted students). a. Prior academic learning and prerequisite skills related to the central focusWhat do students know, what can they do, and what are they learning to do? [This lesson set comes at the end of our poetry unit so students have already learned how to write cinquain poems, haikus, acrostic poems, and concrete poems. We have discussed and posted lists of adjectives that help us to be more specific and descriptive in our writing. They have learned about various poetic devices (alliteration, onomatopoia, simile, stanza, imagery) and have illustrated and written about the meanings of Langston Hughes poem Poem, Dreams, and If-ing. They have written about how Langston Hughes poems made them feel and what it made them think of. They also practiced comprehension of various haikus by working in partners to read haikus from I Haiku You and Guyku that had two characters. They then created scripts of what the two characters would be saying to each other if they were talking making sure to only express the emotions that were seen in the haiku itself. It was a very effective way to get the students involved in reading and writing about poetry. They then performed the skits they wrote first reading the haiku they picked, identifying the two characters in it and then performing their skit. Thus, in moving into this lesson segment on metaphors, the students are well prepared to comprehend first and then write their own metaphors and poems. ] b. Personal/cultural/community assets related to the central focusWhat do you know about your students everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds and practices, and interests? [My classroom of students is very diverse. We have students from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Nepal, Mexico, Iraq and the United States. Many are used to translating for their parents and still remember how they felt when they first got here and didnt know any English. The school I am at is very diverse overall and really values that diversity. They work to foster it as well. Each year, every classroom is assigned a different country. They study that country all year from the holidays the country celebrates, to how its geography influences its cultures and customs. I wanted to capitilize on the childrens interest in each other and where they have come from. They love to tell personal anecdotes and always have a million questions about my life so I thought that by incorporating a Home poem into the metaphor lessons, the students would be able to share some of their culture and some of themselves and I would be able to share what home is to me as well. I structured the Home poems so that they have to start each line with Home is but how they describe their home through metaphors is completely up to them. I know that my students need specific guidelines to follow and examples or they tend to be unsure and not complete anything. However, I was able to create structure and also freedom in this assigment. It allows for a great deal of individual expression while still accomplishing my learning objectives.] 3. Supporting Students Literacy Learning Respond to prompts 3ac below. As needed, refer to the instructional materials and lesson plans you have included to support your explanations. Use principles from research and/or theory to support your explanations, where appropriate.
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Planning Commentary a. Explain how your understanding of your students prior academic learning and personal/cultural/community assets (from prompts 2ab above) guided your choice or adaptation of learning tasks and materials. [As I was thinking about this question, I realized that my mentor teacher and I both take a very humanistic approach to learning. This approach, developed by Carl Rogers, necessitates a classroom where every student feels safe so that new ideas can be effectively explored and students can take risks without worrying about failure. It places the importance of learning on the teacher and requires them to create a safe, caring environment. I am not entirely sure as to how my teacher created such an environment from the beginning, but I know that students feel comfortable sharing their experiences, ideas and feelings. We always make a point to find someone of value in a comment that a student makes so that they feel they have made a valuable contribution to the learning environment. According to Vygotsky, culture is the main factor that influences human development. Thus, it is vital to take culture into account when developing lessons. In the development of my lessons I searched for a mentor text that had a diversity of characters. I was not able to find one that had many different races of characters but I did find Uptown which is about a young black boy living in Harlem. Reading it provides the chance to show students a role model Bryan Collier who is a black man working as an author and illustrator. In addition, Uptown gives us the chance to talk about how different people eat different things. How the little boy in Uptown eats chicken and waffles and how what they eat is a way they could describe their home. Uptown is also set in the city and my school is an urban school so students were able to connect with what city life is like. I picked My Many Colored Days because my students are very in touch with how they feel and how something might make someone else feel. I thought that by using colors as feelings students would be better able to understand metaphors. I structured the lessons so that students were scaffolded throughout because we have a variety of levels within our classroom and I wanted all students to be successful.] b. Describe and justify why your instructional strategies and planned supports are appropriate for the whole class and students with similar or specific learning needs. Consider students with IEPs, English language learners, struggling readers, underperforming students or those with gaps in academic knowledge, and/or gifted students. [I made sure that my lessons were visual, oral and interactive which allowed for the greatest access of material by all types of learners. I structured the lessons so that all mentor texts (or metaphor cards) are read aloud first so that regardless of reading level, students will be able to interpret and comprehend the material. Because of the visual component of the lessons, my ELLs are able to see the illustrations in the book to help assist their comprehension. We will also stop along the way to discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary. Before asking the students to fill in their own 5 senses graphic organizer I will have scaffolded the task by having them post metaphors from Uptown in a 5 senses graphic organizer and then going through and creating my own graphic organizer of what I hear, see, smell, taste and feel in my own. Only then are students given the graphic organizers to begin to complete on their own. Even then we will brainstorm some ideas as a whole group before sending students to work individually. In terms of meeting the needs of our gifted students, once we get to the point of writing our Home poems they will be able to write other forms of poems as well (cinquain, haiku, acrostic) to further express their ideas after they write their Home poem. Also, due to the nature of the Home poem, they can express their ideas in more detail, use larger vocabulary words, use more sophisticated metaphors or illustrate their poem in greater detail as an extension activity.]
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Planning Commentary c. Describe common developmental approximations or common misconceptions within your literacy central focus and how you will address them. [Most of my students should be in Piagets concrete operations stage which will allow them to start to conceptualize and solve more abstract problems. This would mean that they should be able to understand the abstract qualities of a metaphor. However, since age ranges for operational stages are only a guide, some of my students may have more difficulty grasping the concept of a metahor. If they are still in the preoperational stage, then they may be able to recognize a metaphor but not be able to fully understand what it is or how to create one. However, I think that through the use of Kolbs four stages of learning, I will be able to provide the scaffolding needed for all of my students to gain at least a basic understanding of a metaphor and be able to write a Home poem. Kolbs stages of learning are 1) learning through concrete experiences (Uptown read aloud, metaphor cards), 2) observation and reflection (students will be able to hear metaphors and then listen as we discuss them. Even if they are not ready yet to join the discussion) 3) abstract conceptualization (beginning to come up with metaphors on their own, generating them about our classroom or their home) and 4) active experimentation (creating the 5 senses graphic organizer and then writing their own Home poem through the use of metaphors). Through the use of mentor texts, modeling, scaffolding and working with individual students one-on-one I will be able to ensure that all of my students reach my learning objectives.] 4. Supporting Literacy Development Through Language a. Language Demand: Language Function. Identify one language function essential for students to learn the literacy strategy within your central focus. Listed below are some sample language functions. You may choose one of these or another more appropriate for your learning segment: Analyze Interpret Argue Predict Categorize Compare/contrast Question Retell Describe Summarize Explain

[The language funcation that I will use in my lesson segment is interpreting. As shown by the standards that my lessons meet: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.4 Determine the meaning of words and prhases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from noliteral language and CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5a Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps) my students will need to be able to read or listen to the poem and then interpert what it means. Using the knowledge they have and the skills they have gained over the course of the poetry unit, students will be able to successfully interperet and comprehend the metaphors they are reading or listening to. We have discussed extensively how poets create pictures with words and how sometimes that means that they use language in a nonliteral sense. Metaphor is the last poetic device that we will be covering as they are the most difficult and students needed to be well versed in all the others before beginning to work with metaphors. Interpreting is key to understanding metaphors which is why I have chosen it as the essential language function for this segment, and actually my poetry unit overall.] b. Identify a key learning task from your plans that provides students with opportunities to practice using the language function. In which lesson does the learning task occur? (Give lesson/day number.) [A key learning task that requires my students practice the language function is in Lesson 2, Day 2. It is when I will read various metaphors outloud (specific metaphors are listed in Lesson 2, under materials) from 3 x 5 notecards. Students will then divide into pairs to work on illustrating and writing what the metaphor means. The students will need to use their knowledge
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Planning Commentary of metaphors (maybe even idioms since they are more familiar with them) to interpret what their chosen metaphor means. They will then share their written and illustrated interpretation of the metaphor with their classmates.] c. Additional Language Demands. Given the language function and task identified above, describe the following associated language demands (written or oral) students need to understand and/or use.

Vocabulary or key phrases Plus at least one of the following: Syntax Discourse
Consider the range of students understandings of the language function and other demandswhat do students already know, what are they struggling with, and/or what is new to them? [For this specific set of lessons the vocabulary that the students need to learn are metaphor and imagery. Imagery they learned in a previous lesson in the poetry unit but we might need to review it since metaphors often use imagery. Metaphor will be completely new to them. How the term will be taught is detailed in part d, below. In terms of syntax and discourse, the way that a metaphor is set up will need to be covered. How metaphors compare two things they assign a new characteristic to something. When learning about similes the students learned how you can identify them because they use like or as. We will need to talk about how metaphors are more difficult to identify because they do not use like or as in their comparison. However, they do often use is, has or are in the comparison. It is a sentence structure that the students need to become familiar with and be able to understand.] d. Language Supports. Refer to your lesson plans and instructional materials as needed in your response to the prompt.

Describe the instructional supports (during and/or prior to the learning task) that help
students understand and successfully use the language function and additional language identified in prompts 4ac. [The language function of interpreting will be embeded in student learning throughout the lessons. Each time we discuss what a metaphor means, students are interpreting what they author is trying to say. As they illustrate and explain metaphors they are interpreting the metaphor. As they move into writing their own metaphors they need to think about how their metaphors will be interpreted and if the metaphor makes sense. In terms of vocabulary, for this specific set of lessons the students will learn the meaning of metaphor. However, in order to effectively participate in all the activities and to properly understand the meaning of a metaphor, the students need to understand the previous vocabulary that we have covered (alliteration, imagery, onomatopeoia, poetry, simile, and stanza]. In the writing corner of the classroom, all the poetry vocabulary is posted. Definitions are listed and examples are given either alone or as part of an accomanying poem. To learn metaphor we will read a picture book Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk that explains similes and metaphors. We will then add metaphor to the poety wall and I will accompany the term with the same characters from the book explaining the rules to help the students remember. Then we will discuss common metaphors they might have heard. The sun is a furnace, You are my better half, We are one and any others the students can think of. We
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Planning Commentary will then go into reading Uptown which has a metaphor on each page and will give us ample examples of metaphors. As we read through the first couple pages of Uptown we will stop and identify the two things being compared in the metaphor and what it actually means. All these activities will help to clarify and solidify for the students what a metaphor is and how it is used. One way that we will work on understanding the syntax and discourse of a metaphor is by taking a metaphor and changing it into a simile. Then taking a simile and turing it into a metaphor. This will help the students see how the removal of like or as and then addition of is, has or are makes all the difference in creating a metaphor. Even this will still be difficult for some students which is why the final poem is set up so that every line starts with Home is. It provides the structure so that whatever way the child described their home in their graphic organizer can be easily placed into the sentence frame, and a metaphor can be created. ] 5. Monitoring Student Learning Refer to the assessments you will submit as part of the materials for Task 1. a. Describe how your planned formal and informal assessments will provide direct evidence that students can use the literacy strategy and requisite skills to comprehend or compose text throughout the learning segment. [Throughout the learning segment I planned informal assessments to monitor student understanding. In the beginning stages of the segment, I will have students pull examples of metaphors out of texts (writing down metaphors from Uptown as I read it outloud). Here I will be able to see if students can pick out a metaphor from text that they hear by what they post on the Uptown 5 senses graphic organizer. From there we will move on to interpreting metaphors and illustrating them. Here I will be able to hear the students explanations of their metaphors as they share them and I will be able to collect the note cards and read them later to check for student understanding. With the Home is 5 senses graphic organizer I will be able to check to student understanding along the way as the write things in the columns. I will be able to talk to individual students as I circulate the room and help students who need additional support. For some, they are able to formulate the ideas in their minds and can tell you them but have trouble writing them down because they are afraid they will spell words wrong. I will make sure that I speak with the students this applies to and make sure that I help them spell the words that they need to be spelled in order to complete the task. After the students write their first draft of the Home poem I will write comments on post-it notes and stick them in their notebooks. This will allow them to see what they still need to work on or give them postive feedback. Their final product will be creating a poetry book with the Home poem as the capstone poem. The Home poem is the final poem that the students will be writing and should be the most advanced in terms of the poetic devices it uses and the imagery that it creates for the reader. Students will have about a week to pull together all of their best poems, edit them with an editing partner and then have them checked by a teacher before they write their final draft. I have created an example of all the poems that we wrote together. I illustrated them all and put them in a book with a table of contents and glossary just as I am asking the students to do. In addition, I have created a checklist of everything that needs to be included in the poetry book so that students can check each item off as they do it and will be able to better monitor their own progress. If students fullfill all requirements of the checklist, then they will get all 4s on the accompanying rubric. Thus, the final poetry book will be the only formal assessment that they students will have. However, they will know exactly what is expected of them so that they will be able to succeed.] b. Explain how the design or adaptation of your planned assessments allows students with specific needs to demonstrate their learning.

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Planning Commentary Consider all students, including students with IEPs, English language learners, struggling readers, underperforming students or those with gaps in academic knowledge, and/or gifted students. [Because much of my assesments are informal, I am able to talk to students to determine understanding. This is particularly helpful when assessing the ELLs in the class, my students with or being evaluated for IEPs and the struggling readers. All of these students are stronger orally than they are in writing so it helps to determine their understanding to talk to them. In terms of my gifted students, because I will have ample time to circulate the classroom while students are working, I will be able to check in with them and provide extension activities if necessary. Or suggest more complex ways of thinking about and expressing their ideas in metaphors. My gifted students are also always anxious to help other students so it will provide a chance for them to help others if they finish their work early. Because I have been able to scaffold, model and talk to individual students along the way, I think that all of my students should be able to successfully complete the final poetry book which will include their Home poem.] Citations Lesson 1: Cleary, Brian P. (2011). Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk: What Are Similes and Metaphors? Minneapolis, MN: Millbrook Press. Collier, Bryan (2004). Uptown. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Lesson 2: Seuss, Dr. (1998). My Many Colored Days. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc. Metaphors used for 3 x 5 note cards. Obtained from http://www.k12reader.com The teeth of the crocodile are little white knives. The crab was a dancing pair of scissors, clicking across the sand. Her long hair is an ocean of waves. Her diary was her best friend, guarding her secrets quietly. Referenced in Planning Commentary 2. Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching: Snyder, Betsy E. (2012). I Haiku You. New York: Random House Childrens Books. Raczka, Bob (2010). Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys. New York: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.

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