Literacy Lesson in Mrs.

Penrose's 8th Grade Science

Class
Carol Helfenbein

Instructor Dr. Mark Esch

RDG 507 Content Area Literacy
Assignment: Literacy Lesson in my Field Experience
Class
11/11/2014

Carol Helfenbein
RDG 507 Content Area Literacy
Instructor Dr. Mark Esch
11/11/14
Literacy Lesson
Introduction:
I am currently interned at Taylor Junior High in an eighth grade science class. I teach all
class periods Wednesday through Friday and there are about a total of 140 students. My literacy
lesson was a past lesson that I had done with the whole class that my mentor had previously put
together.
Goal and objectives:
The focus on the literacy assignment was to have students practice reading skills and
highlighting skills. The content goal was to distinguish between individual and group traits as
well as dominant and recessive traits in genetics. The students had already been introduced to
dominant and recessive traits a little bit. My goals were for students to understand what group
traits were and what made them different from individual traits. My literacy goals for them were
not specific to any standard; however, I wanted them to learn how to be able to pick out
important information and highlight it. Being able to pick out important information in a long
reading is a skill that is needed to be taught for when students do research projects later on in the
year. Also, if students are used to using highlighters in class, they are able to use them on their
state tests as well.

The text we read was a short article called "You Are What You Inherit." It was chosen
because it covers the science standard, gives examples, and is applicable to different levels of
literacy. It is also one the teacher uses every year. It is directly applicable to what the students
are learning in class as it is about how various traits are specific to groups of species, such as bird
traits and mammal traits, and it also explains how there are individual traits that are specific to
each person or individual and that these traits are inherited from the parents. It ties in how
dominant and recessive genes are what give the individual traits specifically, such as color, size,
and eye shape, to name a few. The students then answered questions in groups that involved the
reading. They had to label which trait was a group trait and which trait was an individual trait.
They also had to predict which hair color trait was dominant and recessive and give their
reasoning why.
Sequencing:
I did this activity for every class and it was the main bulk of the lesson. What was not
finished in class then became homework and was due the next day. The pre-reading part of the
lesson was the bell work and opener where I asked the students what they already knew about
genes and heredity. Several students answered each question when I called on them. I then went
into the reading of the article. I read out loud while modeling highlighting. The students were
expected to follow along and I would pause after each section of highlighting to check on their
participation and progress. I was able to pace appropriately because of my pauses and checks on
the students. I would also pause and explain a word or idea further or give another example
while the students worked on their highlighting and for those a bit slower to keep pace with
everyone else better.

The activity after the reading was to answer questions about group and individual traits
where the students had to think of their own examples of each, and to identify which was a group
trait and which was an individual trait. During these times I would walk around the class and
check up on their understanding and answer questions. They also had to answer questions
related to dominant and recessive genes and to make a prediction, based on what they knew and
had read, whether the hair color on a boy in the packet was the dominant or recessive trait and to
make a prediction of what the alleles of his parents would have to be in order for him to have his
hair color. Most of the students finished the packet. The lesson was closed by a review of what
was just read and the students had to answer questions like "what is a group trait, give an
example" and "how are hybrid alleles written." Students were cold called to answer the
questions.
How the lesson was done:
The article had to be printed for every student and I had to have a key already highlighted
and the activities answered for my use as I was modeling the highlighting and writing down their
answers when we went over the activity. I modeled off of a new packet for each class. It was a
fairly new subject in a new unit so there was not much relating to previous knowledge past the
opening questions and having the students come up with their own examples for the activity.
Securing the students attention was a bit harder as the whole lesson was reading the article, but
the reading of the article was broken up by the activity so it was not read all at once. Walking
around and checking up on the students understanding during the activities helped to keep the
students on task as well as asking them questions to also check their understanding. I prevented
off-task behavior by pacing the reading so that it was not slow enough for students to get bored,
but so fast as to leave them all scrambling to keep up with me. This kept chatter and off-task

behavior to a minimum. I would also check on the progress of the class during the highlighting
by looking up from the paper regularly and would also look for misbehavior. If there was a
problem, normally a quiet word or a look at the offending student would be enough to get them
back on task.
Conclusion:
This lesson worked well as it gave the students a chance to practice highlighting skills
and looking up the information to answer some of the questions. The students seemed to have
started to understand the difference between dominant and recessive traits and how they are
written and they did understand the difference between group and individual traits. If I were to
do it again, on my own, I would have the students read certain sections of it as a group then have
them teach their section to others who had not read that part. Then they would answer the
questions together. They would only be responsible for highlighting their section of the reading
as well. This would have had more transitions between activities and would have kept the
students more interested. It also would have gotten me out from behind the desk more as this
lesson as it was, required me to be behind the desk the majority of the lesson. I would follow up
this lesson with the students making predictions about their own traits and writing them down to
be answered as they learned more about dominant and recessive traits.