Record- During my advanced practicum experience I had the opportunity to teach a writing

lesson where I had students recall a memory and write about it in detail. For this lesson we
read Big Mamas, a story about the authors memories of visiting his grandmother when he was
young so that students could be inspired by the story and his memories to spark an idea of their
own. I modeled a picture and writing a few sentences to the class and after students drew a
picture of their memory and wrote a few sentences about what their memory is. In Tch and Lrn
333 we have to attend two cultural events over the semester and then write a reflection about
the event we attended. For one of my cultural events I attended a SWEA meeting that had
guest speakers who were ELL students at one point or even had children who were ELL students
in the local elementary schools. The guest speakers rotated through three different small
groups to share their own stories or their family’s experiences with learning English and moving
to the United States.
Reflect- Looking back on this lesson, I wish that I would have had students share what they
drew and wrote about with the whole class or even just in pairs. By having students share I
could have helped students get to know one another better, make connections and hear about
experiences that might be different from their own. Having the students draw a picture before
writing about their memory helped them to have a visual to reference back to while writing.
This proved to be helpful for our ELL student as he was able to share his memory with me
through his illustration before we worked together to write sentences describing what he drew
resulting in me being able to guide him more effectively. Reflecting on my interactions with
English language learners at the cultural event for Tch and Lrn 333 I am reminded of how
important it is to be accommodating and understanding of every students’ unique situations.
Analyze- This writing lesson relates to competency 4.K because it gave students an opportunity
to share a life experience through their writing which allowed me insight into their life and
values outside of school. With this knowledge of my students I can then better relate to each
one of them by knowing more about their lives and even make accommodations when needed.
My 333 Cultural Event Reflection demonstrates how I have met competency 4.K because this
assignment allowed me to hear the experiences of ELLs and what impacted it both in the school
system and out in the community. There was one couple who shared about their sons’
adjusting to life in the United States who were four and seven. They shared about the seven
year old’s experiences at school as he would code switch between English and his native
language of Persian, which the family shared they solely speak at home and their sons are
receiving Persian lessons over facetime, and how it was difficult to connect with the teacher as
she was not very understanding of why he would speak English well in conversation but would
mix together English and Persian words in his writing. Code switching is a normal occurrence
when a student is learning two languages at the same time which the teacher should have been
understanding of.
Act- Going forward it is important that I always listen and work with families to try to better
understand their unique circumstances so that I can best serve them and their student in my
classroom. Learning directly from my students and their families each year will is imperative as
it will allow me to best accommodate their specific needs and mitigate any factors that may be
making things harder than they should be.