Field Observation #2 - Domain #4

TC NAME:  Sheila Lowe

RICA Domain 4:  Vocabulary, Academic Language, and Background Knowledge

RICA Competency 11:  Instruction and Assessment

Grade Level:  4th grade

An Additional Descriptors: This project took the class a week to complete.  From my tutoring teacher, Mrs. Wickman

Instruction:  
For this lesson the students read the story "Grandfather's Journey" from their California Reading books.  Mrs. Wickman, my tutoring teacher, gave them all a graphic organizer to fill in as they read.  The story was about a man's grandfather's travels to America and back to Japan again.  The students learned about the Japanese way of writing poetry, haiku, from examples in their text.  Students were to write their own haiku based on something from the story, then type them up on the classroom computers.  This activity caused the students to be creative and to carefully consider what word would fit into their poem, which in turn also expanded their vocabulary.  Since origami is Japanese paper folding the students were shown how to fold their paper into the shape of an owl.  They then pasted it on some black construction paper and pasted their haiku underneath the owls.

Instructional Setting:  

Mrs Wickman has a literacy wall in her room above the computers.  This is where she displays the story that they students are working on for the week.  On this wall she has a picture of the story, the theme they are following, the genre and the definition of the genre, and their strategic focus. The students copy this information down onto their graphic organizers, which are then used as they read the story to take notes on.