Ojasoo Blog Post 3/11/20 1

Journal Entry for Monday, March 9th, 2020

While going through the students’ writing, I noticed that many of the students

were able to complete their letter using all the parts taught in the lesson today. I

also noticed a few of the students did not get as much done as I anticipated. Most

of these students are the students who leave for extra help. If I were to change

anything about this lesson, I would have had those students meet at the back table

to work in a small group. They would have benefited from guided practice and

possibly some sentence starters to get the writing process started. Tomorrow, I

plan on meeting with this group after the lesson. I will work with them at the small

group table while our classroom aid floats around the room supporting the students

who are able to work independently. I will provide them with a few sentence

starters that will help them put some ideas on their page (1b DEMONSTRATING

KNOWLEDGE OF STUDENTS).

This lesson went well. I think writing the students a letter was a great hook that

got them excited to write their own letter (3c Engaging Students in Learning).

The examples I used could have been better. They were small and inside of a book.

Next time I would use the document camera or screen shot and add the samples to

the Activinspire chart so that students can see the pattern or similarities among the

sample letters. I did have to make some adjustments to my plan on the fly and I

feel like I have gotten so much better at that (3e Demonstrating Flexibility and

Responsiveness). One adjustment was made during the turn and talk. Students

were not really engaging in conversations. They turned and said “Thank you for the

chairs” and then they were done. Usually, they have a lot to say. I don’t know if it

was because the question was so broad or if it was because it was Monday, but I
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had to stop their turn and talk to give more guidance. Once I gave them some

direction, such as how does having the seating help us while reading, they were

able to generate many more ideas to add to the body of our letter.

Background and Analysis:

A few weeks ago my mentor teacher participated in a fundraiser called

Donors Choose. This fundraiser helps teachers get money for projects and

materials they need for the classroom. My mentor teacher is piloting Reader’s

Workshop this year and wanted to provide the students with flexible seating to work

in. Through this program, my mentor teacher was able to buy over $600 worth of

different types of seating. This lesson was inspired by the need for students to

write a thank you to those who donated.

In this lesson, students were introduced to letter writing. To get them excited

about the lesson I wrote them a letter on the same paper that they were going to be

using to write their own letter. I started the lesson by having a discussion about

what a letter is and what it is for. I told the students that they will be learning to

write letters today. I also told them that once we learn about the parts of a letter

then we are going to write a thank you letter to the supporters who donated money

to buy our new flexible seating. Next, I introduced a few books that had example

letters. I skimmed through the books to showing the students different types of

letters found inside the book. After sharing few examples from the book I opened

up an interactive chart (created on Activinspire) containing the letter paper that

had labels to introduce heading, greeting, body, closing and signature to the
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students (1d. Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources). We went through

each part of a letter discussing its purpose. I added some of our thoughts to the

chart for the students to reference while working. When we got to the body of the

letter stopped and had the student turn and talk about what to include in the body

of their thank you letters. After about a minute I noticed students were a bit stuck

(Monday morning). There was not much conversation and it seemed like students

were all saying the same thing, “Thank you for the chairs”. I called the group's

attention back to me and scaffolded their thinking by giving them something

specific to think about “How does the special seating helps us during reading”.

Once I gave them a direction the conversations picked up and they were able to

generate more ideas for the body of our letter. I recorded their ideas on the chart

(3a Communicating with Students). At the end of this lesson, I introduced the

writing paper I printed out for the students to write their letters on. The paper I

selected had lines for the students to write the heading, greeting, body, closing, and

signature. Students picked up their paper on the way to their seats and then we

walked through placing the date and greeting. I allowed students to continue to

work on their letters until 5 minutes before they had to leave for special. When the

students stopped, I asked them to stand behind their chair. I then reviewed each

part of the letter asking students to give a thumbs up if they have included that part

in their letter. Once we went through each part, I reminded the students that if

they did not have their thumb up for one of those parts that they will need to add

those parts during tomorrows writing lesson because letters have to have all these

parts.

Although we were going to continue writing these letters the next day some

students did not get as far as I thought they would. Most of those students were
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the ones who leave for extra help for reading and math. As I mentioned in my

reflection, I wish I would have planned to meet with them in a small group after the

first lesson to provide a little more guidance and possibly some sentence starters to

get them started on their body. On Tuesday, I taught the lesson (review of editing)

then asked those students to stay with me so that I could supply them with further

support and sentence starters (1b DEMONSTRATING KNOWLEDGE OF

STUDENTS). All but one of the students were able to complete their letter and

move on to editing and recopying. I sat with that last student the next morning

during breakfast and we planned and wrote together.

As a new teacher it is hard to figure out how much support to give students who

are not in the classroom all day. These students leave for math, phonics, and

reading. They are only with me for writing and science/social studies and many of

the days they leave during the science/social studies block for speech or

occupational therapy. I have found it hard to get to know these students as well

academically as I do the students who stay in the room. This makes it challenging

to find the right amount of support they need to complete an activity or task. I

thought providing a writing paper that had a space for each part of the letter would

have given students enough support to successfully get all the parts of a letter

down. I knew that some of them would possibly require more time to complete

their letter but I did not anticipate their need for further scaffolding getting their

thoughts on paper. I think this was because we had just finished a unit on

nonfiction writing and each of them was able to write a nonfiction chapter book. I

thought they could easily come up with a sentence or two about why we are

thankful for our classroom chairs. My goal is to spend more time considering these

students when planning. It would be helpful to consult their basic skills teacher with
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questions about how to provide them with enough support to successfully complete

activities that I have planned (1d. Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources).