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Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.
As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change
Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,
Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,
Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.
Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.
Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.
Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture


Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.
She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.
Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter
Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.
As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award


Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”


School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.
Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.
Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.
Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home


Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin


Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited


On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride
Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.
Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.
Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.
Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home


Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.
I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home


Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio


Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.
* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament


During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.
Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.
Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.
Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home


Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home


Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports
For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.
Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.
She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.
Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.
I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann
eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann
eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.
The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.
In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others


At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change
Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.
Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.
Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.
Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.
During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.
Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.
As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations
Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,


I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.
Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,
I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.
Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.

The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.

In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.
Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others

At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.
She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change

Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.
Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.
I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann
eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.

Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.

Sincerely,

Elisha Ann
eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride


Narrative Reports

For our Curriculum and Methods Seminar, we were assigned to reflect and write 5 Narrative Reports. I
enjoyed reflecting about individual students' personalities, strengths, and needs as a learner in our
classroom. I feel that the skill of writing these narrative reports will greatly aid me as a future teacher.
Here, I have included 3 representative Narrative Reports. The first is a learner narrative, the second is a
sample parent letter, and the third is a sample recommedation for an award.

* Please note that pseudonyms were used for all student names.

Elise’s Learner Narrative: “I like reading, but I don’t like chatter.”

School/Classroom/ Background

Elise attends the fourth grade at Wallingford Elementary School, which is located in the Pennsylvania
town of Wallingford, a predominantly upper-middle class community. According to the school’s website,
“ ‘Just the facts’ does not cut it here. Students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
As a result they gain a wealth of skills, vast amounts of knowledge, and a genuine life-long love for
learning.” There are opportunities for students to pursue their interests through before and after school
activities such as French or Spanish Club, and numerous in-school enrichment activities such as the
Global Warming Group, instrument lessons, Student Council, or Math Olympiad. Children participate in
these activities based on personal interest, and are expected to balance both extracurricular activities
and academic curriculum. Some activities involve parent support, and parents are usually actively
engaged with the students either through the home or school, or both. The school also seems to strive
to provide an environment where individual attention is given to all those who need it, especially
through their enrichment, IST, and IEP programs.
The most striking sign in Elise’s classroom is a banner in the back of the classroom that states “What will
you learn today? What will you teach today?” This particular classroom seemed to encourage an
atmosphere where students were invited to share their learning and bring in personal interests. The
desks were grouped in clusters, with about 4 to 5 desks in each group. Student-crafted, paper-maché
globes hung from the ceilings, and carefully made snowflakes spotted the windows. On the board, the
“Do Now” was placed at the far left and the daily schedule was placed at the far right. In the back of the
room, charts of contractions lined the blackboard, remnants of when students performed “grammar
surgery” on words with the “contractionitis” disease. Several poster size board games were propped up
on the blackboard, which served as visual aids for students’ Book Share projects.

According to the fourth grade teachers in the school, fourth grade was as an academic leap for many
students. Fourth grade was when school became more “academic”, meaning students started to be held
more accountable to their learning by taking tests, student’s responsibility for homework increased
relative to earlier grades, and paragraph and essay writing became an important part of their success in
all content areas.

According to previous teachers, Elise had thrived in earlier classrooms, because of her independence;
desire to do well in school, and her general love of reading.

Physical presence and gesture

Upon entering the classroom for the first time, I did not notice Elise right away. She seemed quietly
engaged at her desk. She was not talking to other students, but she was moving her pencil across a piece
of paper.

During discussions of literature, picture books, and reading, Elise often raised her hand to provide her
insight on whatever was being read. She seemed to have a keen sense for drawing themes and trends in
literature, and often made personal connections to text. While her voice was often soft in volume, Elise
often raised her hand during class discussions.
In age, she was younger than most the students in the classroom, and she was physically petite relative
to other fourth grade girls in the classroom. She had curly brown hair and braces. While her actions
sometimes reflected her petite physique, she was more often enthusiastically engaged in dancing,
playing four square during recess, or excitedly talking to a friend about a variety of topics such as her
new stuffed animal, or the literature club she participated in.

Disposition and temperament

During most classroom activities, Elise strived to listen and engage in learning. Sometimes when she did
not understand a concept and would repeatedly ask questions, she became physically pink in the face.
On several occasions, she raised her hand during math, to comment that she could not hear the teacher
because of other students talking, and also seemed pink in the face. She would also take the initiative to
close the classroom door when there was some distractions in the hallway. In her perception, she
seemed to work best in a quiet environment, evidenced by her disposition to be uncomfortable in a
chatty instructional environment.

Her temperament often seemed mild, but as with most people, she was upset when things she cared
about did go to her advantage. For example, she was upset when she did not win the class vote to be
the Student Council representative, and when she was not picked to be the princess in the play, after
auditioning, and practicing independently for several recesses. This was seen through her deflated affect
during math, as in she did not talk much, participate, and she also told the teacher that she was eager to
go home and take a nap before doing her homework. Her parents had also mentioned that Elise had
seemed upset at home when she was not selected for participation on these two occasions. Elise had a
strong desire to participate in several public speaking related activities, but became upset when she was
not selected.

Connections and interactions with others


At least verbally, Elise insightfully articulated her self awareness, and the existence of a “theory of
mind”, the awareness that others have different ways of thinking from one’s own, which enabled her to
internalize the perspectives of other people. Similar to her ability to draw themes from and across text,
she deftly drew inferences about social situations as well. When the class was having a discussion about
the new lunch program, some of the students began to talk about the supposed inefficiency of the lunch
ladies. Elise raised her hand to say that the lunch ladies worked hard all day to prepare and serve the
food. She took on another perspective. Also, Elise would usually be the first person to volunteer to
include another individual in their group, or to help another student clean the floor. She would often
seek ways to positively interact with other people.

Strong interests and preferences

One of interests, which showed through her school work and her life outside the classroom, is her
interest in animals. She would often bring “webkins” to school, which are a brand of stuffed animal
collectibles. She claimed that she had a very large collection of these webkins stuffed animals at home.
She would usually bring in a different one everyday, and take it out to recess. Sometimes, other girls
would bring their webkins too, and they would all go out to recess to play with their webkins. This was a
way of socially interacting with other girls in the class, another activity Elise enjoyed.

Her interest in animals extended to her reading selection as well. Towards the beginning of the year, she
began to read a book series having to do with a animal main character named “pee wee”. She
mentioned that the groundhogs were “cute” and “adorable”, and that book was “so good I read it in one
day”. Her enthusiasm about the book sparked the interest of another girl in the classroom to read the
Pee wee series as well. On subsequent trips to the library, she borrowed informational books about
ground hogs, because she wanted to know more about Pee wee. Furthermore, for her Book Share
project, she chose to use the Pee wee chapter book.

As noted, Elise displayed a love for reading. She actively sought out books she took interest in, as she did
with the Pee wee series. She also seemed to enjoy listening to the read alouds of Cripsin and Bunnicula,
and often made thoughtful predictions, although she enjoyed coloring during the read aloud time as
well. Because of her explicit love of reading and ability to verbally discuss and interpret text she read,
the teacher selected Elise to be the class representative to eat and talk with Jame Howe (author of
Bunnicula), the visiting author to the school. The teacher believed she would appreciate the experience,
which, afterwards, she said she thoroughly enjoyed.

As an extracurricular activity, Elise also plays violin. She misses some class time every week in order to
participate in violin lessons. She also enjoys most types of performance-related arts. She often mentions
that she loves dancing and acting, which is why she wanted the princess role in the play. When the class
would practice for their play in Music class, she would eagerly practice the dance and song in recess and
show the teacher. Although she didn’t seem to project her voice during presentations and play
auditions, she enunciated and created an engaging tape recording of a fable. Working in groups, student
each took on a role in a fable, and she performed well in this situation. Her interests seem to span, but
her emphasis on acting, reading, and animals, surfaced often in the classroom environment.

Modes of thinking and learning

Elise seemed to thrive in many types of learning situations and environments. She also articulated what
type of situations worked well for her, and which situations she struggled with. Evidenced by her
willingness to participate in discussion and interest in reading, Elise enjoyed literature and most
activities that involved literature. She would be eager to start an activity, and would usually be ones of
the first to finish. For instance, for the fairy tale finale project, she expressed immediate interest in
choosing a book, and came up to the teacher to discuss her book selection. She subsequently wrote the
paragraph, finished first in the class, and asked the teacher to look over her work. She said she wanted
to get to the finished product, a 3D triorama.

She also shows the ability to think across content areas and apply concepts to different areas of
learning. For the fairy tale project, all students created a triorama as their final product. Elise took the
idea one step further, and was inspired to create a large, poster size, triorama as the visual aid in her
Book Share project. Although the Book Share project was entirely a home based project, she brought in
ideas from inside the classroom to work on projects at home. Once she initiated her idea, the teacher
supported her in making the triorama.

Her ability to draw themes in literature and connect them to other activities in class also remains as one
of her strengths. When discussing themes about Crispin, she pointed out the theme about friendship
that no other student had mentioned yet. During a separate discussion about the book Everybody Needs
A Rock, she interpreted the same theme about friendship and mentioned that it was similar to the
theme of Crispin. Then, she connected this to her life by saying that “no matter how big or small
someone is, everybody needs a friend”. Likewise, she would mention connections in Social Studies about
how geometry concepts were present in castle formations.

She also thrives in hands-on activities (as do most fourth graders). She enjoyed doing role plays during a
lesson by the counselor about bullying, and mentioned that her favorite language arts lesson was the
interactive contractions lesson, in which students actively cut slips of paper to create contractions. Her
interest in dancing and acting also helped her to represent her learning, often being the first to
volunteer for acting roles.

Elise also advocates for working environments that will help her to learn her best. She has raised her
hand to say that the class is too loud or that she cannot hear the teacher during math. When she is
absent, she often becomes worried that she does not understand the lesson, and expresses her concern
to the teacher. It is then that she receives the extra help she needs. When the classroom becomes
inaccessible because of the noise level, which she voices more often than other students, she will close
the door, or even show physical signs of discomfort (i.e. flushed face, or putting her hands against her
ears). She also strives to keep herself organized, but often caught up in volunteering to help the teacher
pass out papers, completing each and every assignment, and starting various drawing project on her
desk, she mentions that has trouble keeping her desk organized. She also has claimed that she has
trouble remembering to bring homework in. This awareness has helped her improved her organization,
but sometimes she is still reminded to clear her desk, before copying homework. It is a skill in progress.

Recommendations

Academically, Elise is at the top of the class, and continues to contribute great things to the class. She
seems to work well in quieter environments and when given explicit instructions, but with room for her
creativity (such as the triorama in her Book Share project). Perhaps she should be given permission to
work in quieter environments if she finds the classroom to be too loud for her. She should also be
guided to look for ways to cope with louder environments, such as quietly asking neighbors to quiet
down, or mentally concentrating on her work, rather than the loudness, or even to partake in the
chatter, to see where her threshold could change
Her confidence and love for reading should continue to be engendered. She should be encouraged to
continue to make connections across literature, content areas, and in her life. Thereby, she will deepen
her critical thinking skills and expand perspectives in many areas. The ability to draw insightful themes
and perspective-take will only prove to be a useful skill for her future.

Developing organizational skills is always a process, which Elise will eventually accomplish. Elise is at
proximal zone of development where she seems to be able to successfully organize her belongings, and
homework, when she is reminded. She seems to internalize these reminders, and apply them to her
work. It might help to integrate her interest in reading to increase her organization skills. For example,
she could create a chart of her reading choices, in which she must remember to record her book ors her
amount of time she has read. It would help her to keep track of one thing in her life, which could have
an incentive at the end such as a free book. This is merely an idea. Overall, her awareness should be the
stepping stone to make great leaps in her learning throughout the year and beyond.

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Parent Letter

Dear Mrs. Annis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to share my observations and thoughts about
Karen’s progress this year. Overall, I have been enjoying Karen a lot this year. I appreciate her vivid
imagination and ability to enjoy literature. For example, I have been reading Bunnicula out loud to the
class, and she constantly makes relevant connections to and accurate predictions about the story. She
seems to thrive on reading literature that she is interested in such as when we read fables in class. I
observed her reading these fables even during recess, and she initiated a discussion with me about her
favorite fable. Afterwards, she wrote an amazing fable for the writing assignment. We did an oral pre-
writing one on one, and I also know that she received support from home. She seems to benefit from
verbalizing her creative, witty ideas. On this end, I would love to hear how and what she reads at home,
so that I can try to integrate more of her interest in literature to help her to grow in other areas.

I know you have mentioned to me that you have been concerned about Karen’s motivation and her
attitude about schoolwork. From my observations, her attitude seems to prevent her from
accomplishing her best work in certain situations. For example, in math, she seems to grasp the
concepts but seems to get “stuck” when the class is assigned to do things she considers “school work”.
During writing, she follows a similar trend. She is a creative thinker that verbally develops detailed and
in-depth ideas, but seems to withdraw when she is given the task to formally write it down. I usually talk
to her individually, affirm her ability, encourage her to finish her work, and then provide one on one
instructional time. Sometimes, she replies that she just wants to go home and that school is torture. I
find this language inconsistent with her enthusiasm for many school activities she often flourishes in
such as reading or her flute lessons. The reading specialist has also mentioned that during their Word
Study group, her unengaged attitude seems to distract her concentration and willingness to learn. I have
also given her extra time for science and math tests, even when she verbally and facially expresses that
she does not “want to take the test”, because I feel that she understands the materials and should have
the opportunity to show that. I verbalize my faith in her ability; it is then that she finishes the test.

I am hoping to collaborate with you about other ways to maximize Karen’s potential. I believe she has a
lot of room to grow, because I have seen her potential through her fable writing piece and enthusiasm
in certain areas of school. I am confident that Karen is an intelligent and creative girl that is seeking ways
to express herself in the classroom. I would like to her help her to channel her motivation to many areas
of school, and encourage her to see the integration of the social activities she enjoys with the academic
“school work” she sometimes withdraws from. Likewise, I have encouraged her to present her Spanish
word of the day, because she seems to love learning Spanish and sharing with the class.

As her teacher, I believe it is important to engage students in meaningful curriculum. If Karen does not
seem engaged in certain circumstances, I feel I have room to learn and grow with her. As her parents, I
believe that you are her first teachers. You know her best. I would be very interested in your ideas to
help Karen enjoy and excel in her 4 th grade experience.

Thanks for all your time and support. Please feel free to contact me through email or phone, and I look
forward to our future conversations.
Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Recommendation for an Award

Recommendation for Nick Oberlin

Best Student of Science Award

Dear Committee,

I am writing on behalf of Nick Oberlin, a student in my 4 th grade class, who has been nominated for the
Best Student of Science Award. I will first say that Nick’s most prominent strength is his well developed
interest in science that allows him to think critically about science and research his science interests
even outside of the classroom.
Nick shows a sophisticated control over all the science, content knowledge that we cover in the
classroom. During lessons, he has drawn on background knowledge such as when he shared a definition
of canyon and drew on his trip to the Grand Canyon. From my observations, he often makes connections
as well during the experiments, such as when he pointed each part of the stream we had studied on a
diagram to the actual parts in their stream formations in their land and water models. He has shown
that he can accurately apply the concepts learned during the lesson directly to the land and water
models. His content knowledge is also evident by his performances on tests. For the land and water unit,
he received a 105% (5% extra credit), which was the highest grade in his class.

Evermore, he shows an eagerness to learn. When it is time for science, he is one of the first students to
transition quickly and follows instructions. When students were asked to write down their favorite part
of the week, he wrote down “science experiments” and “I wish we could do more experiments”. During
group work, he will often lead his group to follow the instructions of the experiment, and offer to clean
the water spills, because he feels that will move the group forward. He makes inferences about the
experiments when the class shares experiment results. For instance he concluded that land affects
water when rocks or hills change the stream path by creating curves. He articulated both the
observation and implication of the experiment.

He not only consistently shows understanding of all the science concepts, but because his interest
extends beyond the lesson, he will often do independent projects outside of class. Furthermore, he
shares his newfound knowledge or interest with the class, which enhances the class’ knowledge about
science too. Once, after reading a book about tornadoes, he put together a PowerPoint presentation
with his younger brother to present facts and “safety tips” about tornadoes. He presented this to the
class, and even created a tornado model from a soda bottle. When he has a question during class, I
often prompt him to pursue it because the scope of the lesson usually does not fulfill his curiosity. When
learning about tributaries, he asked the question, “what is the opposite of a tributary, detributary?”. He
makes sense of the term and thinks beyond the definition. He looked up the definition on the google,
and later shared that it was “distributary”. I feel he shows his desire to pursue science, which reveals
more about Nick than just test grades. This differentiates a good science student from a scientist, one
who actively pursues his hypothesis and research questions. Nick is both.

Therefore, I highly recommend Nick Oberlin for the Best Student of Science Award, because I strongly
believe that his enthusiasm for and knowledge of science will lead him to accomplish great things both
in science and other areas of his academics. Thank you and please feel free to contact me with
questions, concerns, or any other inquiries.
Sincerely,

Elisha Ann

eann1@swarthmore.edu

Narrative Reports Reflections Home

Elisha Ann's Student Teaching Portfolio

Reflections

Narrative Reports Observations Theory of Instruction Revisited

On being Explicit A 3 Minute Train Ride

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