Your name: _______________________________

CLASS OBSERVATION
Name of instructor

__Adrienne Brandenburg____________

Date

10/21/2014_______________

Language

Spanish___________________

Level

Level 4 escritura y literatura____________________

Main objective: _Writing a paragraph using personal evidence and textual evidence
Did the instructor write anything on the board at the beginning of the lesson?
She wrote the learning target which was I can write a paragraph using personal evidence
and textual evidence and also the plan of the day which was Dia de Catchup: *Guia de
studio * Parafos en google docs *Conneciones *Lees y diario
Phases
Activities and Objectives
1. Opening Phase
Intro

T / S role

Approx. Time

Teacher

10 minutes

Teacher

15 minutes

Teacher

7 minutes

When we first came into the class, the teacher

asked students about their weekends. Students
raised their hands and talked about their
weekends in Spanish. Next she explained that
they have two exams coming up and that this
class was going to prepare them for the test. Next
she explained the plan of the day to them
Review or
warm-up

For the warmup, Ms. Brandenburg reviewed the essay

outline with the students. She created a hamburger
outline for how their essays were supposed to be written.
She asked many guiding questions to help her students
come up with the different components of the essay. After
each component, she would explain why it is important and
different examples of how they could do this. This is what
it looked like:
ORACION PRINCIPAL
EVIDENCIA DEL TEXTO
EVIDENCIA PERSONAL
CONCLUSION

Transition

Explained how the essays would be graded and

then put on the board directions for what the
students were supposed to be doing for the rest of
class. The directions were 1.) correciones en la
prueba de leer con pluma 2.) terminar de escribir
los 2 parafos en google docs con correciones y los
colores 3.) Leer 4.) diario

2. Main Phase
Sub-objective 1 (2, 3,
etc.)

(Student 45 minutes)
1 : Today was a catch-up
day because many students
were behind schedule or
absent. MS. Bradenburg
wanted to give them a day
where they could look at
the corrections of their
first essay, write two more
paragraphs for the essay,
and then have a peer edit
their paper. This was the
main part of class. The
students received their
corrected essays back and
then started writing their
new paragraphs on their
own laptops. While
writing their papers, they
had to highlight the
different parts of their
essay to the corresponding
components that they
wrote down in their notes.
While this was happening,
Ms. Bradenburg was
walking around answering
questions, guiding
students, and giving
feedback.

Transitions

She chose one person from

each table to put back
markers and books
3. Closure Phase
Final objective(s)

(Teacher/student 4
minutes)
Reviewed the importance
of personal evidence and
textual evidence and asked
the students to tell her the
difference between them
Preview

(Student 20 minutes)
2: After students
finished correcting their
essays and writing new
paragraphs with
highlights, they were
instructed to read their
novels. They were
allowed to select which
book they wanted to
read in Spanish. After
they were done reading
for 15 minutes or to the
point where they needed
to be, they went onto
google docs and starting
writing their journal
entry for the book. The
journal prompt for today
was Diario #5
convenceme que yo
debo o que no debo leer
este libro y porque
(necesito 8 oraciones)
After finishing all their
work, students were
allowed to work on
other homework or to
socialize

(Teacher 3

minutes)
Reminded students that
they were going to have a
test on the components of
the essay and to study their
notes

II. COMMENTS (25 points):

Make short comments about the lesson plan on:
a) Allocation of time for four (listening, speaking, writing, reading) skills (i.e., were the four
skills addressed? How? How much time? Etc.) and the five national standards
(communications, cultures, connections, communities, comparisons).
b) Allocation of time for student vs. teacher talk (i.e.., Do you feel students had adequate
time to speak? How? Etc.)
c) Allocation of time for personalized, communicative activities vs. manipulative practice.
Please mention any aspects of the lesson you felt were particularly good, as well as areas
where you would have done a particular activity differently, explaining your rationale where
possible.

a.) The beginning of the class was the main time that she used for speaking and
listening. She talked with her students about the weekend and what was going on
in school. This was only done in the first 20 minutes of class. Next she explained
to her students the different components of the essay which students had to listen
to and write down. Most of the class was spent writing their essays and reading
their novels which they worked on mostly individually. This took about 45
minutes. For the national standards, I observed her incorporating communication
and comparisons. For communication, the students were talking about their
weekends to each other and to their teacher. For comparisons, Ms. Bradenburg,
for a little bit, compared the writing style of Spanish writers to that of English
writers.
b.) I feel that since this was a work day, most of the time was student centered. The
students knew what their responsibilities were and knew what they needed to
work on. They guided and paced themselves and mostly worked independently.
The beginning of class was teacher-centered though since she was explaining a
new component of essay writing. She did not just lecture at her students though;
she asked a lot of guiding questions to help the students fill out the outline of an
essay structure with her. The students were very involved with writing the
formula of the essay. Students were not able to speak very long since they were
just answering questions and not having discussions, but the main focus of this
class was their writing.
c.) Almost all of this class was personalized activities since the students were able to
work on what they needed to get done. There were no grammar or vocabulary
drills since the students are at a very high level of Spanish. The students are using
higher level thinking skills to develop their essays and not doing little vocabulary
activities or grammar lessons. The only lesson was on the outline of the essay.
I feel that this was a class that was very productive and allowed the students to have a lot
of freedom. Since this is a writing class, I understand why the teacher did not have many
communication activities. Ms. Bradenburg said that in other classes they have
discussions about the topics they are writing about, but since this was a work day, they
were not communicating orally very much. If I could have changed anything, I would

have somehow given all the students laptops. Some students forgot to bring the laptops
that PHS gave them so they were not as productive
E.) For this class, technology was a very important aspect. Even though writing an essay
is not thought of as a very high-tech activity, many different technologies were used for
this assignment. First of all, Ms. Bradenburg used the doc-cam to show a visual of the
hamburger essay outline. This was more efficient than drawing it on the board because
she could write more and smaller in less than it would have taken writing on the board.
She also used the SMART board to display her What you should be doing and the
diario while students worked. Finally, she had her students writing in google docs so
their peers could proofread their papers and so that she could evaluate the essays more
easily. Each student is supposed to have a laptop so writing on google docs is possible.
They also wrote their diary entries in a google blog so their classmates could comment on
them. The only downfall to using technology was that some students forgot to bring their
laptops. This slowed some students down and they were not able to do peer editing or
highlighting components as easily.
I) One aspect of this class that I thought was very unique was the relaxed atmosphere.
Ms. Bradenburg had a very informal and fun relationship with her students. They
respected her enough, and she trusted them enough where they could joke around with
each other and have the freedom of choosing where to sit in the classroom. The students
were constantly telling jokes and the class was always laughing. When Ms. Bradenburg
was teaching about the components of the essay writing, her students make comments or
answered questions without raising their hands. Her lesson was almost like a discussion
where her students felt safe to share their ideas. I really enjoyed the culture of this
classroom and how both productivity and fun could be practiced.