Reflection

Throughout my guided lead teaching, I learned a lot as a teacher and got to know my reading group students faster than I expected. The first day of my guided lead teaching was the third time that we met as a reading group. So I tried to remember their names and match their names with their faces before I actually teach my lesson because I did not know half of my reading group students’ name. Unfortunately, I couldn’t memorize all the names by the time I teach my first lesson and I was very frustrated because I could not call on students.
I decided to do quick write at the beginning of every lesson. The first day’s topic was writing about their favorite book or a movie. The purpose of this topic was that I wanted to naturally lead them to talk about the elements of literacy (characters, plot, setting, characters, and theme) by sharing their favorite the book/movie. When I asked students to share their quick write, many students raised their hand which was very exciting for me and also for them because they wanted to share their favorite book/movie and I could see that students are engaged in the lesson so far. After sharing several students’ quick write, I asked if they know anything about fable because that was my unit topic because I wanted to have little discussion on what is fable and what are some famous fables that they have heard before. However, it was absolutely silent when I asked them what fable is. Then, I thought it was the vocabulary that they did not understand, so I asked if they heard of the story of The Tortoise and The Hare because this story is the most common fable but again nobody knew what it was. My MT and I were very surprised that students did not know much about it. So instead of discussion, I ended up explain what a fable is. I realized that lesson plans are really a plan. It is to help me plan and think ahead before I actually teach. On the first day of teaching I learned that I never can expect what will happen in the class.
On the second day of teaching, I read a story from South Korea which was a folktale but it had a lesson in the story so I decided to use it. Students did not have much knowledge about South Korea which I assumed. First I used a globe to show where South Korea was located and told them how long the flight duration is. Students could not believe how long the flight is and was amazed by the fact that planes are going over the Pacific Ocean. I gave them a chance to ask any questions that they have about South Korea and I was so glad that almost everyone’s hand was up. I think it was a great way to introduce South Korea very briefly and read a story from South Korea which was very suit for the lesson. After reading the book, students had to fill in the literacy chart which they have to identify title, characters, theme, and setting of the story. I noticed that most students could tell me the message from story but they cannot make it as a general statement. For example, the moral of the story was greediness will be punished and hardworking will be awarded but students are being too specific to the story and said the lesson was the old greedy man became a baby because he drank too much magic spring water. So I had to explain that I need to tell them moral of the story should be general so that it can apply to other situations. After reading Korean folktales, I was going to give them very short fable to read with a partner but we ran out of time. However, I did not think students were ready to read themselves and trying to find out the theme of the story anyways, so I thought it was okay to skip the last activity.
On third day, we read Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters and students were very engaged in the story. With this story, after reading a page, I stopped and ask them questions such as what happened in this page? What did you think will happen next etc. Stop and ask questions was working well because students were guessing what will happen next and re-telling the story of each page in their own words. I knew that most of my students comprehended the story because after reading the book, students could answer comprehension questions about the story. However, they could not find the moral of the story. Students are saying that like mean sister was very mean in the story or the nicer daughter became a queen. So if I could teach this same lesson again, I would maybe give them a moral of the story first before we read the fable or a book. Then, students can see how the moral applied in the story and maybe connect that moral to other situations. Apparently it was too hard for students to identify the moral of the story after doing several times. Half of my students’ quick write, it is very hard to read and cannot spell the basic words. For one fable, students took turns to read and it took longer than I thought to finish the story because they could not read well and couldn’t recognize words or decode words. The hardest part was that sometimes students who are in special education joined our class and sometimes they came to the class in the middle of a lesson. That was very disturbing other students and my MT and I could never quite figurate out when they are with us and when they are not.