The lesson plans that are included in this portfolio are some of the most thought-through

and learner-centered lesson plans that I have been required to compose. By using Fisher and
Freys text to guide my initial writing and current analysis of these plans, I have identified four
subjects from this text that are present throughout these lesson plans. These topics include
cognitive strategies, shifting the responsibility from teacher to student, metacognition, and
modeling of instruction.
Each lesson contains several cognitive strategies that are designed to reinforce student
thinking and organized thought processing. The strategies that I found present within the lessons
include, the use of graphic organizers, vocabulary journaling, analogy generation, peer
instruction, jigsaw, and think-pair-sharing. The most commonly used strategy being the usage of
graphic organizers. I feel that I included this strategy the most frequently because of the
organization of thinking that it allows for. By having students organize how they think about a
topic, as well as having a visual aid to physically view that thinking process and reflect upon it,
they begin to build a deeper understanding of the topic itself. When using graphic organizers
frequently, however, it is important to make sure that they are being used to deepen the thinking
process and boost the metacognition that is happening, rather than simply being a plug-andchug tool that is only used for simply memorization.
Metacognition can be seen within these lessons, both by the use of graphic organizers,
and by higher order thinking questions that exist within the lessons. I found the Modified Lesson
Plan to be a particularly good example of the existence of metacognition. It is not explicitly
stated throughout the lesson, but with careful usage of productive thinking questions, students
begin to think about the way they think when reading the play Oedipus the King. Questions such
as, How does translating a text into the dialect of your own usage change how you understand

the text? allow for deeper thinking about how the students first understood the text, and then
how they understood the text after translating it into language that they find familiar. Similarly,
asking students, How did translating a text affect your understanding of it? causes students to
think about the translation process and how they thought through the words that they had to
change and the comprehension of the piece itself, as well as what about that process influenced
their deeper understanding.
By allowing students to translate an ancient text into words that they find familiar,
I am shifting that responsibility from myself, to them. This can also be found within the
Interdisciplinary Lesson Plan where I allow students to rewrite their own instructions for a
scientific experiment. By giving up the responsibility of creating these instructions, I push that
onto my students which inspires a greater desire for them to formulate work that they can be
proud of and that anyone can understand. I believe that when a teacher holds all of the
responsibility for a students knowledge, the students may begin to grow dependent on me and
will lose their inspiration to gain and build their own knowledge, as well as view themselves as a
knowledgeable source. This is why I feel that allowing students to have some responsibility over
their learning process is important and beneficial, and why I include it in my lesson plans.
The last aspect that I found present in all of my lesson plans is the modeling of
instruction. This is quite a simple strategy to include in any lesson, but is important in the way
that students understand a process or skill. In the Comprehension Lesson Plan I model how to
annotate a text before I leave my students to annotate on their own. If I were to only explain how
to annotate, without actually modeling the process, I feel that the class would be left with
questions. Modeling allows students to view how a process is done so that they may follow and
perform the process accurately and productively.

I am quite proud of the work that I have completed throughout this course and will
continue to keep what I have learned in my mind while designing future lesson plans. By being
thoughtful in strategy choice and diligent in ensuring that thinking happens each step of the
lesson, I feel that I can design lessons that not only teach my students what they are required to
learn, and what I am required to teach, but also give them thinking skills that they may maintain
and perform throughout their academic careers.