Lesson Reflection Day 1

In my unit, students will be practicing a variety of ways to process text while reading the book Tuck Everlasting. They will also be looking at the elements of the fantasy genre.

Today was the first day of the unit and I think that the lesson went very well. I started off my reading the prologue aloud to my students and then together as a class we completed a triple venn diagram to see how the events in the prologue were connected. My students have used venn diagrams before, but I made sure that I reviewed what information went in each space. The students did very well with filling out the venn diagram. I told them that they had to use their books to find details in the text to support their answers. We have asked students to use details from their text before, but that has been something that they forget to do. Today they were able to give me many details from the book and explain why they thought those details were important.

I also read the first chapter aloud to my students. The author used many descriptive words to describe the main setting of the book. While I was reading I asked my students to visualize what the author was describing and draw the setting. A few paragraphs were hard for my students to understand, so I would reread those sentences and talk about them more to help students understand what they author was trying to say. If students were having a hard time drawing their pictures, I had them look back through the chapter to reread the descriptions of the setting. Once the students were finished with their pictures, I had them share their drawings with their partner and explain what details from the book they included in the picture. Some of my students struggle with writing, so they really like being able to draw and explain their ideas instead of having to write them out.

From looking at the drawings that my students made I can see that some of them were able to understand the text and that others still need some help. The author uses many metaphors and some of the students need help with understanding what she is trying to say. But overall their drawings included many of the important details from the text. The venn diagrams had many great details because we did them together as a class. Some of the students have difficulty finding similarities between things. They notice small things like that both characters are girls, but it is hard for them to make bigger connections.

We will be revisiting the venn diagram later to add new details that we have read. So I am going to talk more about trying to find the important connections to help the students who are struggling with that. All throughout the book I am going to be asking students to find descriptive words and to be thinking about how these words help them visualize the story better.

If I were to teach this lesson again one thing I might change would be how I did chapter one. I think I would read the chapter once with students following along in their own books. Then I would have them put their books down and listen to me read the chapter again while they draw the setting. I think that it would be easier for them to find the details of the setting if they had multiple exposures to the text and if they had an opportunity to see and hear the text.