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Embedded Signature Assignment for Dear Mr. Blueberry
Part I: Evaluation of the Learning Objectives
A) The Dear Mr. Blueberry lesson plan sets up how to write a letter by
introducing a fictional book about letter writing. Before and after reading the
book, the children will be shown an example of a letter with all of the parts of the
letter labeled. After reading the book, we will review the parts over again. Then
the children will write a letter to their teacher, just as the girl in the story wrote
letters back and forth to her teacher. In this letter, the children will be required to
include all the parts of the letter that we just learned. The objective for this lesson
is: “After reading Dear Mr. Blueberry, the students will study the parts of a letter
and then demonstrate their knowledge in letter writing by applying letter writing
skills in a letter to the teacher.” An instructional objective is defined as a clear
statement of what students are intended to learn through instruction. This
objective clearly meets an instructional objective. These goals are also related to
the California Content Standards. In terms of shortterm goals, the student is
learning how to write a letter in class. In terms of longterm goals, the student is
learning how to print legibly, space letters, words, and sentences appropriately.
They are also learning how to write with a focus and how to write in different
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forms. This type of writing is teaching them how to write to an audience. These
longterm goals are all goals that are needed for the future. In terms of listening
during the reading, the shortterm goal is to notice the different parts of the letter
and to understand the meaning in the story. In terms of longterm goals, the
student is learning how to listen attentively and how to pull and apply aspects of
a book to their own life.
In the objective listed within the lesson, the instructional objective and the
cognitive objective are clearly written. The instructional objective states the
student will learn how to write a letter. The cognitive objective in the lesson plan
states the student will have knowledge and application in letter writing. Even
though it is not stated in the objective, I believe the students will also have
comprehension of the objective. These objectives are based off of the Bloom’s
taxonomy of the cognitive domain. In the objective in the lesson plan, the
behavioral objective is not clearly addressed. It does state the condition and the
observable student behavior, but it does not address the criteria that is
acceptable. Although this is not addressed in the objective, it is addressed later in
the lesson. Later in the lesson, the teacher tells the students that they need to
include all of the parts of the letter in order to receive credit. There is also a
grading table to assess how to grade the letter but it is not given to the students.
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This is an area that needs more work in the lesson.
Overall these objectives are measurable. The assessment is criterion
referenced. This means that the assignment will be graded based on the given
criteria. The given criteria in this lesson are listening/behavior and writing. In
the lesson, the grading scale lists what is required to receive a certain grade. The
passing grade is a 3 out of 4. The writing is very clear to grade because it is very
objective and formal. The listening/behavior is a harder to grade because it is
more subjective and informal.
B) I think that the instruction in the lesson supports the students’
attainment of the objective because it is scaffolded well. I think that the students
are attaining the objectives because they are following the Bloom’s Taxonomy of
the cognitive domain. First, they are obtaining knowledge. They are being told
what the parts of a letter are. The example is put on the doc cam with the labeled
parts. In order to reinforce and memorize these parts, they are going to quiz a
partner. Another way to reinforce this knowledge is to also read the book Dear
Mr. Blueberry. In the book, the children will pair share and identify the different
parts. The next level of learning is comprehension. At this level, comprehension
means understanding the material being communicated. The book Dear Mr.
Blueberry is an example of how to comprehend the material. Each page in the
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book shows an example of a letter. The children gain another resource of the
knowledge that they just learned in order to comprehend the material better.
Lastly, the children are able to apply what they have learned. They do this by
writing a letter to the teacher. In this letter, they will be using the general concept
of what they just learned to solve this problem. For their very first lesson on letter
writing, they have already reached the 3rd out of 6 levels in the cognitive domain.
I think that this is successful in introducing letter writing. There should be at
least one more lesson on letter writing so that the children can reach analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation. But for the first lesson on letter writing in 1st grade, I
think the students are meeting the objectives. The students are meeting the
requirements that I am asking for this lesson.
C) I think that this criterionreferenced assessment assesses the students
well. I do not think a normreferenced assessment would be appropriate because
the children should not be compared. The point of the lesson is to attain the
objectives. The objectives are to learn the criteria and the material. If the students
obtain knowledge, comprehension, and application of the material, they are
achieving the objectives. I think that more criteria could be added to the grading
process. A higher point scale could make the grading more accurate but I made
the point scale a four point scale so it would be easier to grade. Considering that I
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have to read all of the letters and I would like to write back to them just as the
student and teacher did in Dear Mr. Blueberry, I think that this 4point scale is the
most appropriate in terms of grading. The criteria in the lesson allows me to
clearly assess whether the students have learned the material. In order to
differentiate instruction to students who are ELL, I could bring in letters written
in that child’s native language. They could then identify the parts of letter in that
language. By doing this, the child can read through an example of a letter that
they can better relate to. For students who might struggle with writing, I could
have them take different colored markers and circle the different parts of the
letter to identify the letters. For students who write faster, I could have them read
through another book about writing. For example, they could read or even look
through the book Diary of a Worm and compare the differences between Dear Mr.
Blueberry (letters) and Diary of a Worm (Diary). If students finished early and
reached this last differentiated instruction assignment, they could receive extra
credit.
Part II: Implied Objectives
A) At this grade level, the students are at ages 6 and 7. According to
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, children are gradually developing the
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use of language and the ability to think in symbolic forms. They are able to
logically think operations through in one direction. But they also have difficulty
seeing another person’s point of view. These are characteristic of the
preoperational phase.
This lesson utilizes many of the findings from Vygotsky. Vygotsky studied
how children observe skills from their parents. In Western cultures, children talk
about how to obtain these skills. We now call this scaffolding. Scaffolding is a
support for learning and problemsolving. The support can be in the form of
clues, reminders, encouragement, examples, and basically anything that allows
the student to learn. Scaffolding goes hand in hand with assisted learning.
Assisted learning is guided participation in the classroom that gradually
develops into independence. Some examples of assisted learning are procedural
facilitators, modeling use of facilitators, providing prompts, and providing
checklists.
Most importantly, this lesson about writing uses lots of assisted learning.
There are lots of forms of scaffolding that lead up to the independent learning.
For example, this lesson uses procedural facilitators. Procedural facilitators
provide a scaffold to help students learn implicit skills. Teachers help the
students figure out a procedure to help solve the problem. In this lesson, the
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teacher uses procedural faciltators to show students what order to write each part
of the letter. In the lesson, we go over how we start at the top and we work our
way down to the end of the letter. This lesson also models facilitators. This is
another form of assisted learning. Modeling shows an example of what should be
done. In this lesson, a sample letter is put on the web cam for the students to look
at as they write their letter. The book Dear Mr. Blueberry also provides many
examples of letters. There are several models in this lesson for the students to
look at and use as an example of what to do. Lastly, this lesson provides a
checklist of what the students should include in their letter. The students know
that they must include all the elements of the letter. That includes the date, the
opening, the body, the closing, the signature, and the post script. If they use all of
these elements, they can apply this as a checklist to their independent work. The
lesson uses many scaffolds to work up to independent learning. At the end of the
lesson, students are required to independently write their own letter. After the
lesson, the students are required to write in letter format in their journals. These
are all ways in which this lesson scaffolds in order for the students to be able to
independently work on these skills.
B) The assisted learning concept could be used to extend this lesson even
further than it already has. For example, the teacher could provide a halfdone
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example. A halfdone example gives students an example of the problem and has
them finish the remaining work. This teaches students how to ultimately solve
problems on their own. I could provide a sample letter with lines to label the
parts. The students could then label the parts of the letter. I could also provide a
sample letter with missing sections. For example, the closing could be missing. In
the closing, they could write “Sincerely” or “Love” or “Best Wishes.” By doing
this, they could learn how there are different answers for the closing.
Another way to extend this lesson with the assisted learning concept
would be to use reciprocal teaching. Reciprocal teaching has the teacher and
students rotate the role of the teacher. The teacher provides support to students
as they learn to lead discussion and ask their own questions. I could use this
concept by having students come up to the doc cam with their finished letters.
They could then read their letter to the class. Then I would ask them to identify
the different parts of their letter to the class.
Lastly, I could extend this lesson with the assisted learning concept by
anticipating difficult areas. I would think that many students would have
difficulty writing the body. Many students might get stuck at this part because
they wouldn’t know what to write to the teacher. At this point, we could
brainstorm different topics to write about. Rather than going to several
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individual students and brainstorming with them, I could spend a few minutes
with the whole class and ensure that every student will have a topic to write
about.
Part III: Facilitating Students’ Engagement
A) In this lesson, students’ level of engagement is due to their selfefficacy.
Selfefficacy is concerned with judgments of personal capabilities. This is
different from selfesteem because selfesteem is concerned with judgments of
self worth. There are several sources that contribute to selfefficacy. Mastery
experiences are the most powerful source because they are our own direct
experiences. Our own successes contribute to a higher rate of efficacy. If I let the
students know that a few really good examples will be put on the doc cam, many
of the students will be more engaged. They will want to present their letter to the
rest of the class.
Modeling also contributes to selfefficacy. Modeling can affect the
behavior, thinking, and emotions that happen through observing another person.
Because I will model several examples in the book and I will model a sample
letter that I have written, there will be many examples to help the students
succeed. While they are writing the letter, I will leave the model on the doc cam
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so the students can quickly refer to the model when needed.
Also, social persuasion can improve selfefficacy. Social persuasion can be
a “pep talk” or specific performance feedback. After the students have written
their letter to me, I will respond with a small letter back to them. In the letter, I
will list the positives of their letter. This will provide an example of success for
the future.
Lastly, vicarious experiences motivate selfefficacy by modeling an
example of accomplishments. If one student reads his/her letter out loud, then
someone else can identify with this letter. Students can compare their letters to
the letters being read aloud. If their letters are similar, they will know that they
wrote a successful letter. This will give them a high level of selfefficacy. This self
efficacy will give them a better sense of accomplishment in letter writing.
B) There are many reasons that student might not feel confident going into
this lesson. Many students might feel like they are not good writers. They might
have a preconceived notion that this is where they struggle. If they feel this way,
they will not be motivated to write. In this case, I will have to encourage
motivation. Some students might also feel nervous to write because they do not
know what to write about. Brainstorming with the class can help to solve this
problem. Several others might be nervous about spelling words wrong. In this
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case, students can use their common word dictionary that they have compiled.
In order to facilitate high efficacy, I could have a few of the students read
their letters out loud to the class. In my class, I would have an “Author’s Chair.”
This chair would be a big rocking chair that the student’s could sit in when
reading their papers. The “Author’s chair” would be used for most writing
assignments. After every writing assignment, I would read through everyone’s
paper. I would pick 35 writings that were written well. I would always try to
make sure that everyone got a chance to get up and read throughout the school
year. This would help students feel like they have successfully accomplished a
particular task. This would help build selfefficacy and motivation.
If I had some ELL students, I would provide many examples of writing
within their native language. This might build selfefficacy in order to promote
writing regardless if it is written in English or another language. This might also
give them a reason to write a letter to someone in their family who might live in
another country. If the ELL student was very limited in writing in English, I
might allow them to do additional assignment for extra credit written in their
native language. The letter would have to include all the different parts of the
letter in that language. The ELL student could then present this letter to the class.
This letter might be special to them because they can write to someone who lives
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far away. Another letter might be written back to them. This provides arousal and
thus promotes selfefficacy.
Another idea might be to model several letters from previous times. I
could bring in some realia letters from the IMC. Then I could bring in some
emails to show letters written in the current times. This would provide more
modeling for the students. I could show how people use to have pen pals before
they talked on the phone or used the internet to communicate. I would ask
another 1st grade teacher if we could team up and pair the kids into pen pals. The
students would write emails back and forth to each other. The email must
include all the parts of the letter. In each email, the students would have to
compliment the other student about their letter. They could build more self
efficacy while making a new friend in a different class. More students would be
encouraged to write if they were making new friends, receiving a response, and
receiving a compliment.
These are all ways in which students could continue the lesson and build
more selfefficacy. Selfefficacy is very important in encouraging students to learn
and encouraging students to want to learn. Selfefficacy will build higher
motivation and thus make the classroom a more positive environment.