Running head: LESSON DEMONSTRATION ANALYSIS

Lesson Plan Demonstration Analysis

Paul Delos Santos
National University

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Abstract

Executing a great lesson requires a lot of practice. Recently, I had the honor of performing a
lesson for this class in my own classroom at Chaparral High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. It
took place in an English 9 Honors class on April 28, 2016. The following paper will outline
classroom demographics, followed by an analysis of the structure of the lesson. The paper
also outlines the Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English techniques used in the
lesson that would assist English Leaners (ELs). The paper also analyzes my general execution of
the lessons with suggested adjustments for future lessons.

LESSON DEMONSTRATION ANALYSIS

It is one thing to plan a lesson and another to properly execute it. I will say when I finally
let loose on the lesson I called Taylor Swift-ing Romeo and Juliet, it turned out to be a fun, but
still flawed lesson. I taught the lesson at my home school, Chaparral High School in Las Vegas,
Nevada in front of a ninth-grade English Honors class. There were 25 students in the class with
four students absent for band activities. The class features no students considered English
Learners, but 13 students speak two languages (Spanish and English). The class lasts 50
minutes and occurred on April 28, 2016.
The structure of the lesson followed what Peter Serdyukov and Mark Ryan call the fivestar lesson plan (Serdyukov and Ryan, 2013, p. 103). It follows the structure: lesson description
goals objectives, materials and tools, procedures and reflective assessment and evaluation
(Serdyukov and Ryan, 2013, p. 105). The lesson itself features basic and advanced activities.
The basic activities in the lesson include answering questions posed by the teacher, while the
independent activities required students to work independently (Serdyukov and Ryan, 2013, p.
109). For example, at the beginning of class, I asked the students to come up with decisions that
they either regretted or were proud of, in order to further build contextualization. This led
naturally into the activity, where students were now required to think about what decisions in
Romeo and Juliet they would be altering. The lessons closure required students to share their
examples with the class, and from there, I assessed whether or not they did the activity correctly.
Many did, changing something as minor Romeo visiting Friar Lawrence before heading to the
Capulet Tomb, adding that the conflict remained intact since Count Paris was still in the tomb.
Others altered the timeline dramatically, keeping certain characters alive in order to heighten
dramatic effect later in the play. I collected all of the students assignments to further assess the
students with an evaluation in the form of a test coming at a later date.

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I attempted to utilize numerous Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English

(SDAIE) methods in my lesson, but, in my mind, it misses the mark. My idea of modeling in
the lesson was in the form of showing a final product of changing a decision in the play. By
showing the Taylor Swift music video for Love Story I attempted to model what it should look
like when the entire play has been altered. The song, which Swift changed the ending to give
the [Romeo and Juliet] the ending they deserved (Roznovsky, 2008), was an example of how
changing one minor detail in the play could have altered the course of it. Ultimately, students
were expected to do something similar, except they were forced to create a new conflict, new
resolution based on shifting one choice in the play. The activity, which asked them to discover a
new conflict and resolution, served as an attempt at bridging to a lesson learned earlier in the
school year and an another example of how people rewrite stories all the time. The attempt to
bridge it back to the earlier lesson of story structure (introduction, rising actions, climax, falling
action and resolution) was required to understand two things: 1) what each of these things mean
and 2) where the each of these points happen in Romeo and Juliet. The purpose: activate and
build on knowledge that students already possess (Lux, 2016). By using bridging, the lesson
also tries to incorporate contextualization through the use of timelines they had created a few
days before to help understand the events in the play and where changes could be made. By
using timelines, it allowed students to make information comprehensible and available for
mental process (Lux, 2016). The lesson does make use of schema building because students
are to create a story map highlighting the change and how it affected the rest of the play. I
designed the lesson to be a gigantic text re-presentation. The students had to present the revised
play in the graphic organizers, highlighting all aspects of the play and how it was affected.
Throughout the activity, students chose different points of the play to revise, bouncing ideas off

LESSON DEMONSTRATION ANALYSIS

of each other through collaboration as the students were sitting in groups. This was a type of
metacognitive development, but it was not as strong as it could have been.
My performance as a teacher in the lesson, by my standards, were not to the best of my
ability. I was not as comfortable for some reason. Whether it was the camera staring at me or just
general discomfort from teaching a lesson for only the second time, I did not feel like I properly
executed methods that would have assisted English Learners. Though I use SDAIE techniques in
the lesson itself, it did not feel as if struggling English Learners would have quickly adapted to
the lesson. With that said, part of it might be caused by the lack of English Learners in the
classroom. I am confident, however, that if a struggling English Learner was in the classroom,
then I would have adjusted accordingly based on my understanding of the students. The highlight
of the lesson, for me, was incorporating Taylor Swift into the lesson. I enjoyed using her music
video as a piece of technology because students know the song, but did not understand the story
behind it. I was able to teach them a seemingly useless piece of information about the song they
heard on the radio before, while tying it back to the core text of our class. This attempt at schema
building, bridging and modeling is something I do regularly because I truly feel that English,
like other subjects, need this type of contextualization to make the content lively. If teachers
continually find ways to stress how the skills used in the classroom can translate to outside of it,
then students will rarely have to wonder why they are learning something.
If I had to change a few things, the first would be to incorporate multiple intelligences.
My revision for the lesson, which I performed in my sixth-period class three hours later, was to
allow students who enjoy drawing to create a comic strip of their revised play. This also served
as an opportunity to incorporate a Plus 1/3 activity. I could, for extra credit, offer students extra
credit to perform it, draw it or write a full play based on the change in the story. This allows the

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students who thought the activity was too simple. Another adjustment I would make is to
incorporate technology for heightened collaboration and real-world skills. With the laptops
available in my class, I would have my students type their responses to help develop a real-world
skill and share the document with others to edit before sending it to me for final grading. This is
an example of how technology can provide both a teaching and learning tool that will support
and enhance your schools curricula (Haley and Austin, 2014, p. 291).
Overall, my lesson, while far from perfect, is a microcosm of my first year of teaching. It
had some high points, but a lot of areas to improve and fix. This is where my over-reflective
mind takes over. I am already finding ways to improve the lesson, make adjustments and am
ready to teach it all over again when I need it. If I take the time to properly plan a lesson, I
believe I can truly become an effective teacher. I just wish I could have seen it on video.

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References

Haley, M. H., & Austin, T. Y. (2014). Content-based second language teaching and learning: An
interactive approach. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Lux, T. (2016). SDAIE and Related Strategies Accessed in TED623 on April 20,2016.
Roznovsky, L. (2008, November 10). Taylor Swift's Fascination With Fairy Tales Comes
Through on New Album. Retrieved April 29, 2016, from
http://www.cmt.com/news/1599049/taylor-swifts-fascination-with-fairy-tales-comesthrough-on-new-album/
Serdyukov, P., & Ryan, M. (2013). The 5-Minute Lesson Plan. Boston: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.