Cal State Assignment Template Reflection
Having worked on my three week unit plan for the days leading up to reading the Cal State Assignment Template, I naturally started applying the suggestions to my own lesson. So far, my lesson does a better job at "exploring key concepts" than "getting ready to read." While I have a good foundation of generating understanding of key concepts of The Great Gatsby through providing background knowledge, I could improve the personal connections involved in "getting ready to read." This is important to make the text more relevant and relatable to students, and this will make the unit more engaging.
Day one’s exit ticket is an anticipation worksheet. This allows students to make predictions about the text using what they have as a basis of knowledge. This is another way to engage readers because once they begin reading, they will compare their predictions to the actual outcomes in the text.
Another element that I was glad to see that Cal State recommended that I had already included was vocabulary. In my high school experience, vocabulary was not given the importance it deserved. It was assumed that everyone knew how to use a dictionary or the internet to understand a word’s meaning, and most of us did, but that doesn’t mean that we were using those skills. Often I would skim over the unfamiliar word and keep going. In my lesson, I plan on highlighting specific, important words and giving students an opportunity to predict what they mean through context, and then, compare with a dictionary definition.
I really appreciated the section on “annotating and questioning the text.” I have this written into my weekly plan, but to be honest, I had no idea where to start teaching this. Close reading was initially such a hard thing for me to grasp as a student. Most students are naturally thinking this way, but it is hard for them to put those quick thoughts on paper, so they can be useful in learning and discussion. The Cal State text focuses on reading informational texts, but its tips and the rubric in Appendix F can definitely be adapted to my literature unit.
Day one’s exit ticket is an anticipation worksheet. This allows students to make predictions about the text using what they have as a basis of knowledge. This is another way to engage readers because once they begin reading, they will compare their predictions to the actual outcomes in the text.
Another element that I was glad to see that Cal State recommended that I had already included was vocabulary. In my high school experience, vocabulary was not given the importance it deserved. It was assumed that everyone knew how to use a dictionary or the internet to understand a word’s meaning, and most of us did, but that doesn’t mean that we were using those skills. Often I would skim over the unfamiliar word and keep going. In my lesson, I plan on highlighting specific, important words and giving students an opportunity to predict what they mean through context, and then, compare with a dictionary definition.
I really appreciated the section on “annotating and questioning the text.” I have this written into my weekly plan, but to be honest, I had no idea where to start teaching this. Close reading was initially such a hard thing for me to grasp as a student. Most students are naturally thinking this way, but it is hard for them to put those quick thoughts on paper, so they can be useful in learning and discussion. The Cal State text focuses on reading informational texts, but its tips and the rubric in Appendix F can definitely be adapted to my literature unit.
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