S.

Jillings, 1

Instructional Decision Making

Instructional Decision #1:

In lesson four, the main concept was using point of view in narrative writing. Point of
view can be a very confusing concept, especially for a class full of visual learners. While
teaching this lesson, I initially did not have the role-playing piece in the learning sequence. I was
teaching the lesson by simply explaining that if a narrator was describing another character
looking in a box, the narrator would not know what was in the box. Instead, the only person that
really can see and touch what is in the box is the person looking in it. This example comes from
the read-aloud piece from the mini-lesson and modeling part of the sequence in lesson four. After
reading this aloud, I asked students to brainstorm, talk with each other, and figure out what is
confusing or not quite right about the first paragraph. Students could not pinpoint the problem.
The problem is that the narrator revealed what was in the box as if she were looking in it, but she
was on the other side of the room. No one understood, even when I started asking some guiding
questions. I saw many confused faces, and not much participation. I stopped mid-lesson, because
I knew my students needed a visual. I found a box from the closet and added some miscellaneous
items. I had one student volunteer to sit in the comfy chair. The students love this chair, so I
knew I would get some participation. The student in the chair held the box and was advised not
to show the others or myself what was inside. I stood on the opposite side of the room
mimicking the read-aloud example.
I told them, I am the narrator of this story. I will tell my story out loud, but lets pretend
I am writing it down. The story goes like this, (Students name) sat across the room from me in
the comfy chair that we hardly get the chance to sit in, and he was mysteriously holding a
small box. Everyone wanted to know what was inside the box, including me but he held it close
to him in secrecy. When he looked in the box he saw a tiny, furry bunny rabbit.
The students all looked at me like I was crazy. I asked if I was right, but the student
looked in the box and told us there were pencils, erasers, sticky notes, and other stationary. He
shook his head, giving me a funny look. I reminded them about my story and that I was the
narrator. I asked them to compare my story to the read-aloud example. I asked a guiding
question, What did the narrator and myself do wrong when telling the story, specifically about
the box? Suddenly, I heard many students react with oh! or ah! and everyone was talking to
each other in their pods. I asked them to raise their hand and tell me the answer. Almost
everyones hand went up. Students could explain what was wrong with the piece of writing
regarding point of view. We then moved on to read the second/comparison paragraph, and
students could see how the narrator revealed what was in the box while staying inside the
narrators point of view the narrator added dialog. My students understood the lesson after the
role-playing was implemented. I know this because of the amount of participation, from
observing their conversations and responses, and from their writing pieces in their journals.
 S. Jillings, 2

Instructional Decision #2:

As you can see, lessons three and five are very similar in their titles and learning
sequence. Originally, lesson five was not created or included in my teacher work sample plan.
However, many students were left with misconceptions, after lesson three, about memory
moments being smaller stories with lots of detail. Rather, many students were sharing memoir
type stories, about memories that lasted more than a couple of scenes, told in sequence of events,
but lacking sensory detail and attention to specific memories. I could tell that misconceptions
were still present from reading my students writing pieces from that lesson. Although I spent an
academic support period re-teaching the concept to a large group of students, I felt they needed
some more time spent on this concept. My mentor and I decided to add lesson five to give
students another chance to show what they know about memory moments and adding sensory
details.
During my re-teaching of the concept, I asked students about the watermelon and seed
analogy about writing. Surprisingly, not many students recalled learning about this how the
watermelon is like an autobiography, and the seed is like a memory moment story. My mentor
told me that students should have learned about this in previous grades and that her students
usually come to grade six with this understanding. So, I decided to make this concept clearer in
lesson five discussions. We made the writing prompt less vague and more structured to help
guide them towards memory moment writing. Instead of having them choose any memory and
write about, we thought it would help students if we asked them to focus on an important person
and choose one specific memory with that person and tell the story using sensory details to help
us relive their experience. We provided emphasis on the details and importance on those smaller
memories.
The evidence that students understood this concept better is revealed in their writing and
from observing their discussions and responses during the lesson. The first time students
practiced memory moments, the ratio was four students met and seven students partially met the
memory moment learning objective. Going through it again in lesson five, the results were that
seven students met, and four students partially met the same objective. Although some students
still struggled with the concept, there were three more students that understood it the second time
around.