Written Commentary #03041147
Instructional Context
This section of English I Honors consists of sixteen girls and six freshmen boys (ages 14-15). Demographically, this class consists of one Asian female, one Hispanic female, two Caucasian females, twelve African American females and six African American boys. Because these students come from many middle schools, they do not know each other, therefore they need continuity, consistency and a set routine in their classes in order to help them be successful. We adhere to a modified block schedule which consists of a 110-minute class every other day. The district-mandated curriculum (which adheres to Common Core and TN Dept. of Ed. Standards) requires a “cold read (and annotation) and a cold write (response based on a prompt)” of a nonfiction article called “The Sumatran Rainforest.” From this “pretest” I was able to conclude that there are a wide range of abilities in this class and I was able to pinpoint students who struggled with this assignment. These are my text/text samples. After their first read/write of this article, I presented three rhetorical devices: ethos, pathos, and logos; then we did a close reading and annotation of the article using a gradual release method (I do, we do, they do, you do). Their first draft became a rough draft, then they edited it, …show more content…
The second time through the article, we read it aloud and she indicated those marks with pencil. Most of the highlighted information was circled in pencil as well, which indicates to me that she had a high level of comprehension on her first read (text to text). The same conclusion can be drawn from her non-text material. She was able to fill in 11 of the 13 blanks on the outline as she watched the CNN video on deforestation. The class average was 9 of 13, so we watched it again and she (as well as the class) was able to fill in all 13
Instructional Context
This section of English I Honors consists of sixteen girls and six freshmen boys (ages 14-15). Demographically, this class consists of one Asian female, one Hispanic female, two Caucasian females, twelve African American females and six African American boys. Because these students come from many middle schools, they do not know each other, therefore they need continuity, consistency and a set routine in their classes in order to help them be successful. We adhere to a modified block schedule which consists of a 110-minute class every other day. The district-mandated curriculum (which adheres to Common Core and TN Dept. of Ed. Standards) requires a “cold read (and annotation) and a cold write (response based on a prompt)” of a nonfiction article called “The Sumatran Rainforest.” From this “pretest” I was able to conclude that there are a wide range of abilities in this class and I was able to pinpoint students who struggled with this assignment. These are my text/text samples. After their first read/write of this article, I presented three rhetorical devices: ethos, pathos, and logos; then we did a close reading and annotation of the article using a gradual release method (I do, we do, they do, you do). Their first draft became a rough draft, then they edited it, …show more content…
The second time through the article, we read it aloud and she indicated those marks with pencil. Most of the highlighted information was circled in pencil as well, which indicates to me that she had a high level of comprehension on her first read (text to text). The same conclusion can be drawn from her non-text material. She was able to fill in 11 of the 13 blanks on the outline as she watched the CNN video on deforestation. The class average was 9 of 13, so we watched it again and she (as well as the class) was able to fill in all 13