Sunteți pe pagina 1din 5

Professional Book Project

Allie Hughes

Part 1:

1. Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Rothenberg, C. (2008). Content-Area Conversations: How to
Plan Discussion-Based Lessons for Diverse Language Learners. . Alexandria, VA:
ASCD.

2.
Content-Area Conversations: How to Plan Discussion-Based Lessons for
Diverse Language Learners discusses many different activities to promote healthy
discussions in the classroom. The book starts from identifying exactly why
classroom talk is important and moves into how to promote a healthy space to
foster academic talk. Fisher, Frey, and Rothenberg identify the talk in an average
classroom and the differences in students that may affect how a discussion will take
place. After analyzing a variety of factors that work with classroom discussions, the
authors describe many different procedures and assessments that promote
classroom discussions. With my TESOL minor, while reading this book I often
thought of how this would work in an ESL classroom. I thought that a lot of the
ideas, activities, and preparations would work extremely well in a diverse classroom
of speakers. Currently, I do not have a high ESL population in my internship class,
but I do have a diverse group of students. The authors list a couple of ways to set
up a classroom conversation. They start from the preparations or Setting the
Stage. Afterwards, the discussion of what to do if no one talks and how to make
sure that student talk is productive is discussed. All of the strategies listed in the
book are useless if the discussion isnt productive or if the students arent making
progress. The idea of repetition and scaffolded instruction is heavily highlighted
because that is how students will begin to engage in these sophisticated
discussions. The skills in this book can be taught and exhibited in my own classroom
and that is why I truly enjoyed reading this novel. Every page was full of many
activities that could work or be slightly altered to work in any classroom, whether
there are diverse language learners or not.
Since this book heavily focuses on classroom conversations for diverse
learners, it directly relates to my dialogic teaching stance. Discussions are great in
classrooms if they are run successfully. This book provides ideas on many different
conversational activities that can work within a classroom. WHile reading it, I was
unaware of how many activities I have already done from this novel and also how
much I began doing without even noticing. The basic ideas of assessments,
classroom management, and student-talk all fit into my teaching stance. Most of the
ideas presented in this novel are there to help with English Language Learners. THis
is great because so many classes now a days have ELLs in the discussions.
3.
Promoting Talk Through Visual Support
I have learned that simply talking about how classroom conversations should be
does not directly help students. After spending a lot of time in a 9th and 10th grade
classroom, I have come to the realization that many students are visual learners.
Reading this book has supported my ideas. The authors discuss that posting visuals
in the classroom that support and reflect the current learning, key concepts, and
vocabs can positively assist the conversations in the class. Students will always
have something to look back to while small or large group discussions are taking
place. Adding sentence structures and starters throughout the room will help ELLs
to gather and present their thoughts in an educational manner. Another thing I
really enjoyed reading about was seating chart arrangements. As teachers, we
should be arranging our seats that promotes student talk and incorporating flexible
seating arrangements. Students should be facing each other in order to directly
promote this kind of classroom talk.

Strategies for building community


The first day of class is extremely important. Students will walk into the class and
see exactly how the classroom will run and how the teacher supports that classroom
environment. There are many first day of school activities, but these activities
should promote discussion. Learning about your classmates is a small step that will
result in students celebrating, encouraging, and supporting each other. The authors
explain that dedicating a time to build a climate of respect and collaboration will
affect how future classroom discussions will pan out. An example that the novel
provided was making the first day of school and small interview activity. Students
will pair up and learn about their classmates by asking questions and afterwards
presenting a brief introduction to the class about their partner. I found that not only
does this promote classroom community, but it also tackles the speaking and
presentation skills that are needed for a successful classroom discussion.

What to do if no one/everyone talks


As teachers, we understand that a classroom discussion may have a downfall of
absolutely no one talking. The authors of this book address the silence of a
classroom discussion and the opposite of a loud classroom discussion. The main
idea that is explained relating to silent classroom discussions is silence. It is ironic
that the best tool when faced with silence is silence. However, when learners
understand that youre willing to create space for them to think, they il reward you
with extended responses that are richer and more complex. (145). Students
respect when they are given time to think and will most likely share out more
personal and educated answers when given the time. I plan to do this in upcoming
discussions. Rather than scrapping the discussion and jumping in as the teacher, I
think it will be beneficial for the students when they are forced to come up with
more topics to talk about.
Contrary to what was previously stated, there are also times when there is an
abundance of student talk. THere are many different strategies to use to help
navigate this issue. In Content-Area Discussions, the authors mention that
identifying the different noise levels will help when describing the noise levels
appropriate for that lesson. With ELLs, the authors propose a noise meter. This can
be found online and presented on the smartboard. It will give a real time example of
how loud the class is talking. ANother example that I truly enjoyed and plan to use
in the future is using a lamp with a dimmer. Explaining that when the lamp is
dimmed all the way, that is a quiet discussion. If the lamp is at its brightest stage,
that means that there is no noise limit and open for discussions. THis is something
that ELLs can see and relate to something when discussing. Ideally, drawing
students attention to the sound limits and the sound volumes in the classroom will
help with the noise levels.

Part 2:

# of Days 1

Prior Knowledge Students will already know some rhetorical devices and
have analyzed a speech for these devices

Essential Questions How do artists use rhetorical devices in songs?


Why do artists use rhetorical devices in songs?
How can discussing with peers assist student learning?

Lesson Objectives SWBAT recognize different literary devices found in


literature, music, and poetry.
SWBAT interpret song lyrics to construct an understanding
of their true meanings.
SWBAT understand WHY artists use rhetorical devices in
their songs and how this affects the audience.
SWBAT prove their mastery by connecting what they know
to additional popular songs
SWBAT interpret song lyrics both objectively and
subjectively

Lesson Assessment Participation (individual and groups), worksheet, and exit


slip

Materials Needed Prezi, Firework handout, Student composition notebooks

Time Learning Task Methods or Procedures

5 Journal Prompt Journal Prompt: What is your favorite


song? Why? Who is the artist? Is
there a certain type of music you
enjoy more than others?

10 min Small group Inside Outside Students will help move the desks
Circles out of the way.
Number the students into two
groups, 1 & 2
Students will form two circles.
- Ones on the inside and
twos on the outside
Students will present their
information from the journal, listen to
their partners, and then ask
questions.

10 min Prezi review Prezi review of different rhetorical


devices and how they are present in
song lyrics.

5 min Katy Perry video & directions Show the Firework music video and
ask students to follow along on their
worksheet to the lyrics.
- Remind students to
start listening for rhetorical
devices

20 min Individual and group work - Students will first work individually
and identify the rhetorical devices
- After 5-10 minutes, students will
turn to people around them and
discuss what they found
- Students must answer the
questions WHY?
- Present sentence starters in the
front of the board, Katy Perry used
_____ to promote _____
Katy Perry used ________ in this
section of her song because______
The rhetorical device of _______ is
used often in Katy Perrys song
because she was hoping to achieve
_______

10 min Full class discussion As a class, we will work together to


identify all of the rhetorical devices
present.
- Ask for volunteers from
students
- Full classroom
discussion
Rest of Independent work // Exit Slip - Students will use their journal
class prompt and look up the lyrics of their
favorite songs.
- Students need to identify how many
rhetorical devices are in their songs!
- After the identification, students will
work in small groups to present their
findings and discuss why each song
uses the rhetorical devices that it
did.

In the novel, the authors present Inside/Outside Circles. This strategy requires
student movement, student discussion, and thinking through multiple
conversations. I decided to try this in my lesson as an opening to a larger lesson. I
hoped that by inviting students to talk with their peers in the class would assist
them in group discussions later on in the lesson. Providing students with a way to
talk to a variety of students on varying discussion topics would help promote a
healthy conversational classroom. The novel suggests that a teacher poses a
question to the students and gives students time to answer the question in their
partners. I slightly altered this and gave the students their questions in the journal
prompt and had them write their answers on a notecard. I hoped that this would
provide students with more to talk about and have something to go back to if the
conversation was dying out before the allotted time. For the time provided, students
were to talk about their favorite songs, genre, artists, and why.

I believe that it went fairly well. I think that some students were still off task towards
the end of the time. I think when I do this activity again, I will use a set timer in
front of the classroom. Rather than me being the timer for the students, they will
have something to look up to during their conversations. The positives truly
outweighed the negatives. Students did exceptionally well throughout the rest of
the classroom conversations. Later on in the lesson plan, students had to talk to
other students around them about their song. I heard students shouting across the
room, remembering what song that person described to them, and helping them
identify rhetorical devices.

I want to continue using this inside/outside circle discussion as a way to tackle


essential questions from the book. I wont give students the opportunity to write
down their thoughts first because I think that there could be more authentic
discussions this way. Also, I want to change the questions at each rotation. I noticed
that students were almost bored with telling the same story of their favorite song
over and over again. By changing the questions, I think this will directly address
that issue.

S-ar putea să vă placă și