Claire Bowman

March 14th, 2019

Student Teaching Portfolio

ADEPT 4.0 Pre-Conference Reflection

My ADEPT 4.0 lesson will be an introductory ELA lesson for the upcoming

Communications unit. The focus of this unit will be how the author uses figurative language and

other creative elements to communicate meaning to the reader. The focus of my introductory

lesson will be identifying what it means to communicate and the comparison of text that feature

figurative language and ones that do not with an arts integration activity.

The lesson plan includes an introductory read aloud of Deborah Ruddell’s ​A Whiff of Pine

and a Hint of Skunk, d​ uring which we will first analyze the illustration and discuss what we think

it means as a class and then read the corresponding text and discuss how the meaning we pulled

changed based on the author’s word choice. We will then discuss what it means to communicate

and I will introduce the new ELA unit to the class. Next, we will move into an arts integrated

illustration activity. For this activity, I created a sheet that had two versions of the same short

story, one rich with figurative language and detail, and one with very little detail or figurative

language. Each text has a space below for the students to illustrate what they see in their heads

after reading the text. I will have the pieces of paper folded in half, so that the students can only

see the one version at a time, and I will read each portion out loud to the class so that those who

are struggling readers can follow along and understand better. After both text have been read and

illustrated, the students will be given time to discuss why they illustrated the text the way they
did and what changed the second time and why. We will then close as a class by reviewing what

we learned and the students will glue their illustration sheets into their ELA notebooks.

The pre conference was helpful for me, and left me feeling confident about my lesson.

Dr. Miller ensured me that the lesson was ready and even gave me the suggestion of using a

digital timer on the board for the illustration time, that way students would be aware of how

much time they had. During the conference, we discussed any behavior issues that I foresaw and

how I could handle them if they occured, this was helpful for me to really think through not just

the content of my lesson, but the behavior management side as well.