Lauren Gonzaba 10/14/2014 UTL 640E-Haug Reflection #2 Reflection #1 For my first lesson at Round Rock High School, 1 introduced the play, Twelve Angry Men to my English IV seniors. For my second lesson, we finished reading the play as a class while preparing the students for their character analysis essay. To introduce Twelve Angry Men, 1 planned two anticipation activities for the students to complete. The first activity, Choose Your aot —Cury, required the students to read a court case and then choose 12 jury members (from a list of we wo 18 profiles) they would want representing them if they were the boy on trial. The second activity planned was a vocabulary activity that had the students read the opening lines of the play and then defining the seven underlined words within the text using only their context clues and prior knowledge. These specific vocabulary words were important for the students to know, as they would be coming across them frequently throughout the play. The following week, I helped guide the students through reading the play as they began identifying morally ambiguous characters they would like to write about in their character analysis essays. I was a little nervous before my first lesson as I was unsure how much the students would ipate and contribute to our discussion after the Choose Your: Jury activity Once 1 saw that parti the students were excited and immediately engaged in the activity, I began to relax and became more comfortable for the remainder of my tsontad hotice that I had to repeat my instructions a few times throughout the activity, which led to some temporary confusion amongst the groups. I think the students were so eager to start the activity they wet Sad not pay attention once I handed the groups their juror profiles. Next time, instead of giving instructions as I passed out the envelopes with the juror profiles, I will give the directions first, and then give the studentsGonzaba 2 the ir materials. Mrs. Lawrence also suggested I give the instructions in Ten hie I may try Vv 4, prowde om WA +visvall . ‘ia te Also, though | did walk around the room while the students were working on their He for, activity, I could have asked better questions when I stopped by each group. I usually just asked at ‘hem if they need help or which jurors they had already chosen, fut I could have asked them n «this wil text time, since this will allow the students to focus on one thing at a time more critical thinking about why they choose those jurors; pet time I may play Devil's Advocate a littl, The only other aspect I could improve on is strategically positioning myself throughout the room during class discussions. I tended to stay towards the front of the room as I hi called upon students to answer the discussion questions, which resulted in students only ae ‘i a responding to me instead of including the entire class. Mrs. Lawrence suggested I use yi Nee iy 2 f » strategy of moving away from whoever is speaking and standing on the opposite side of the e, ne et 1 we room, so everyone can hear the answer and the discussion is more open. Because the students wy y were so engaged with Choose Your Jury, we were unable to get to the vocabulary activity. Mrs. 8 @ Lawrence said this was nota problem as she did not want to ents Jearing xe ‘al Process just to check another activity off a checklist. oa) ey ° The following week, the students finally began reading Twelve Angry Men, so | first oe observed how Mrs. Lawrence taught the play, then the next day I guided the students through the last two acts. The only part of this lesson Mrs. Lawrence brought to my attention was not oy addressing a group's small side-chatter while the class read the play aloud may have not awterg” noticed the whispers, or maybe it didn’t last long enough to warrant my redirection, but next time oe can go over to the group and ask them to quiet down, if that is what Mrs. Lawrence e expects] Ye Ae ~ en eT For these past two lessons I was especially proud of Mrs. Lawrence’s comments on ni” aX u positive energy and attitude while teaching. She also commented on my great rapport with theane Gonzaba 3 stuclents, nd on how she loved that | was already learning the students* names. ls felt really * ‘good about the diseussion part of the Choose Your Jury activity, especially considering 1 was 2 ' nervous about this part in particular before I began the lesson. Mrs Lawrence liked the pes oP> pach of questions I asked the students to activate their critical thinking skills, @. it is good to knowl i tions were appropriate for this grade level. The students volunteering their recognized whieh qu answers definitely helped my confidence as I lead the discussion, and now I feel more secure With planning other class discussions, since I know they are going to contribute. Similarly with this first Fesson, my seeond lesson went really well as I felt good about my attitude and getti the students engaged with the play. 1 didn’t have the students just sitting and reading at the table, J actually had them get up ana ‘out the play when approprind/ 18 not only broke up the use monotony of wang Gut allowed the students to move around an .d laugh with each other. Reading the play with the students was a very enjoyable experience for me because I could see i vad ik wits iaafenctionexpresion’ how much fun they were having while acting it out. +74 they vipynentuns Cadi >| ee pauded fog ei? ns, I need to Overall, I would say both lessons went very well. Leading into my next leSsor focus on how I am going to deliver instructions to the students to ensure they all hear and understand what to do without any confusion. I could even write down the steps of the instructions onthe board they also havea reference fr them throughout the activity. Also, I ‘am going to start paying closer attention to side-chatter throughout my teachings and redirect them as soon as they start up, so it doesn’t escalate later. As I prepare my next lessons, I will take these areas of improvement into consideration, while also ensuring I continue to accentuate my strengths.