Graphic Organizers

Artifact 4.1
 Teaching Scenario
As I continued to assume full teaching responsibility in my placement, I
took over writing as one of my teaching subjects. The class was
working through writing an opinion piece in the form of a friendly
letter in order to prepare them for an end-of-cycle assessment. I
assumed teaching responsibility in the middle of this particular unit.
After watching my cooperating teacher teach a few of these lessons,
I felt comfortable enough teaching a lesson where I modeled writing
by using a Think-Aloud and a graphic organizer to support an opinion
with reasons.

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 Writing Calendar
This is the calendar I was
provided with by my
cooperating teacher to provide
the basis for each of my writing
lessons. For this particular
artifact, I was teaching from
Day 8: Supporting Your
Opinion with Reasons.

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 Writing Outline #1
This is the first graphic organizer I completed with
the students. I asked for a student volunteer to
share an opinion, and used it as the basis for my
example. However, when I was modeling how to
support the opinion with reasons, I did not like the
direction the lesson was going, but due to time
constraints, I decided to finish the lesson anyways.
After the lesson, I had a conversation with my
cooperating teacher about the cultural
responsiveness of the examples I used in my
lesson. We agreed that it was not my best lesson,
and that it would be more beneficial to me and the
class to start over with a new lesson on the same
topic the next day.

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 Writing Outline #2
This is the second graphic organizer I
completed with the students. After talking
with my cooperating teacher about the
previous day’s lesson, we both agreed it
would be best for me and the students to
start fresh with a new organizer. On the
second day, I started the lesson by writing
my own opinion, and modeling how to
support that opinion with reasons. This
lesson made more sense to the students
compared to the previous day, and I felt a
lot more comfortable teaching this lesson.

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 Rationale
Some students in this class struggle with writing more than their peers,
so I taught lessons where I modeled writing through a Think-Aloud
and by using a graphic organizer in order to better meet these
students’ needs (4.1). On my first day of teaching on this topic, I
recognized that my examples were not only confusing to students,
but were also not as culturally responsive as they should have been,
so decided to redo my lesson with more culturally-responsive
examples (4.2, 4.6). When I retaught my lesson on the second day, I
modeled for students how to take corrective feedback from a
teacher, and by admitting my own mistakes, I also established
positive leadership in the classroom (4.4).

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 Domain Indicators
• 4.1 Instruction shows evidence of responding to students’
strengths, needs, and development.
• 4.2 The candidate creates a safe, positive environment for all
students. His or her classroom design and conduct
communicate respect and value of all students as they are. (I-3,
IDS 5)
• 4.4 The candidate establishes positive leadership in the
classroom. He or she uses procedures, clear directives and
precorrection, corrective feedback, and positive reinforcement
to promote behavioral, developmental, and academic success.
• 4.6 The candidate designs learning experiences that embrace
diverse intersections of identity to promote positive interactions
among learners.