1

Runninghead: OBSERVATION 5 SUBJECT MATTER (TEACHER TAUGHT LESSON)

Observation 5

Karina Diaz

Raritan Valley Community College

Professor Kimberly Schirner

November 27, 2019

 2
OBSERVATION 5 SUBJECT MATTER (TEACHER TAUGHT LESSON)
EDUC-230-02 EDUCATION FIELD EXPERIENCE

I. OBSERVATION # 5:
Writing Lesson Observation (teacher-taught lesson)

II. Grade Level and Subject Area:

Second Grade

III. Setting:
Classroom type is inclusive general education, in a second and third grade elementary
school, located in an urban area. The classroom has two teachers and an aide. About one
third of the class are special needs. There are twenty-one students in total with twelve
boys and nine girls, ranging from the ages seven and eight.

IV. Pre-Observation:
Writing is an important form of communication and a key part of education. In a
second grade class I expect to see kids writing skills constantly improving. A great way
for students to improve their writing skills is when they begin to journal. Students in this
grade level should having a writing journal where they will be able to free write.
Teachers should encourage journaling because it is great way for students to express their
thoughts and ideas and working on their writing skills at the same time (Oxford Learning,
2016).
Second grader are energetic and have an endless imagination and the point of
writing is to allow students to express themselves and venture out into new worlds. The
teacher should keep the importance of writing fresh and engaging so that kids respond
well and are able to grasp the learning material. Studies at a university suggest
innovative ways to spark young writing students. Students will be wiring letters because
learning to write letters early in life allows students to practice penmanship, learn how to
format letters, and able to describe recall events in their life. Also, second graders should
be writing autobiographies which allows students to write a first-person story about
anything they wish to tell. Teacher should be encouraged to have students to be as
descriptive as possible. Last, students writing can consist of writing a review to their
favorite book they just finished to a movie review. (Concordia University Portland,
2018).
Second grade is a lot of review of what students learn in first grade. Teachers
spend a good amount of time building on the skills introduced from the previous year so
that writing can become easier. Just like it took time and practice in first grade for
students to master the skill of putting letters and words on paper it will take time for them
to master second grade objectives. Teacher needs to be patient with them and allow
students to freely write and sound out words as best to their abilities and have teacher
assist as needed. In the beginning of the school year students should have begun learning
about printing and grammar. Working on handwriting skills and being able to write
legibly is critical. Some students may reverse certain letters like the ‘b’ and ‘d’ so it is
important teacher analyzes the student well. Another essential skill second graders
should master is sentence writing and being able to write more detailed sentences. They
will focus on using the correct punctuation mark and capitalization. Students should also
 3
OBSERVATION 5 SUBJECT MATTER (TEACHER TAUGHT LESSON)
be introduced to parts of a sentence such as learning about nouns, verbs, adjectives,
contractions, possessive words, conjunctions, synonyms, and other parts of a sentence
that aide in forming a complete sentence (Gault, 2019).

V. Data:
 Two-third of the class stays with the teacher in the class, while the remaining one-
third of the students who have IEPs leave with the special ed teacher and go to the
resource room for writing lesson.
 Todays writing lesson, which they begin to discuss on Monday and will work on for a
week or more, is Personal Narratives.
 The teacher has students sit in the carpet.
 If someone was absent. The teacher would shortly recall what happened the day
before in writing lesson to catch the student up. In this case she explained a little bit
about personal narratives and what it is about, notes on what to put on beginning,
middle and end.
 She has students face the easel to begin teaching the lesson.
 Then, she does a small personal narrative by writing on the white paper. She begins
writing and verbally says what she is writing.
 Answers any questions the students have on what she is writing.
 Flips paper to finish the beginning, middle, and end. This helps children understand
on what to write in each section.
 Students are sitting focused on the teachers writing and paying close attention to her
writing.
 After she finished, she had volunteers read the story she created aloud to the class.
 Then, explains to the class what is expected, what they must do when they go off to
their desk and work on their own.
 Explains to them that they can draw pictures, are encourage and must make notes on
one side of the page to know what to write about in the beginning, middle, and end.
 Students are the sent off to their writing station where they go to write.
 Writing lesson is all about writing and the teacher tells students she expects them to
write for the remaining of the period.
 Gave DOJO points to those following directions. Teacher said she would give dojo
points to those following directions the whole entire time during writing.
 Teacher walks around students and helps students as needed, such as in spelling. She
tells students its okay to make mistakes because it is only a rough draft. Has them
spell and sound words out the best they can.
 When students are struggling with spelling words. They ask the teacher how to spell
it, then they add it to their word wall so they can look back and practice to spell.
 Teacher continues to go around and checks each student to make sure they are doing
their work and meeting the objectives.
 When writing was over, she asks each student to put stop what they are doing and put
their folders away in writing bins. Then, she has students meet them her in the carpet
for the next direction.

VI. Analysis:
 4
OBSERVATION 5 SUBJECT MATTER (TEACHER TAUGHT LESSON)
More and more schools are becoming inclusive classrooms in the United States.
As the rates grow and years pass, children with moderate to mild disabilities are being
included in general education classes. Observing this second-grade class with one third
of the class with an individualized education program it was a little hard to point out
which one has an IEP because they blended so well with the rest of the general class.
Some students had a minor disability such as speech impairment and ADHD. With that
in mind the students with special needs required extra attention for subjects such as
writing and reading. Research has shown about 85 percent of students with disability can
master general education content if they receive educational supports. Supports can
involve a special education teacher or having test questions read aloud to them. This is
beneficial because these children are getting more instructional time with the teacher and
tend to have better post-secondary outcomes (Mader, 2017).
The word wall has a huge influence in students and will help students build
relationships and patterns in words which helps in building their phonics and spelling
skills. The teacher has shown two ways in the classroom for helping her students in their
spelling skills which will support them in writing activities. This includes having a large
word wall on the back of the classroom and personalized individual word wall worksheet
for each student. When it comes to word walls, they should be easily accessible so
students can see them. Specifically written in large letters and have a colorful
background so words can be distinguished. Teachers should also work together with
students to determine which words are most suitable for them and it is suggested it should
be words they use most commonly (Reading Rockets, 2019).
The writing lesson the students were learning was about personal narratives.
They were to compose a personal narrative of a special moment in their life, it had to be
something they recently can recall the events to. The teacher had the word personal
narrative written on the white board and a couple of reading examples of some on the
easel. As a class she worked on one about herself so that students can get visual of how
to compose a personal narrative. Learning to do narrative writing is important to start as
young as elementary because not only is it part of the common core standards, but it also
helps kids tell an engaging story. It is a tremendous skill to have because it benefits in
their English Language Arts skills. Narrative writing fosters creativity because it asks
students to use their imagination in their writing and they can become descriptive with a
mixture of their drawing and dialogue (Bright Education Testing & Services, 2015).
Students after mastering narrative writing they will be well-prepared for when they move
up through grade school and must learn about informative writing and persuasive essays.

VII. Recommendations:
The teacher did an excellent job connecting with her students and able to teach the
content of the lesson. Students appeared well-engaged, eager to learn, and asked
meaningful questions pertaining to the topic. Kids seemed cooperating and did their
work immediately after being given instructions. Teacher displayed interest by walking
around and assisting any student who needs help. The improvement is not about how the
lesson was taught, but an improvement on how the students can improve on writing skills
such as spelling.
It is mentioned that reading affects writing and writing affects reading and with
that thought in mind it is suggested that to improve writing skills students should begin to
 5
OBSERVATION 5 SUBJECT MATTER (TEACHER TAUGHT LESSON)
read more extensively. When children read more then they would become better writers.
Reading will help them learn text structure and language that students will be able to
transfer into their writing (Lightner, 2019). Reading books is a great strategy to improve
spelling especially for these young learners. Teacher should suggest to students to take
time at home to sit down and read and underline any words they are struggling with to
pronounce. Have them write and rewrite to help memorize it.

VIII. Post-Observation:
After concluding with my observation in observing a subject, teacher taught
lesson, I was able to learn some valuable gains in how to teach these young students a
lesson such as writing. Connecting to the audience is key so content matter can be
followed through. Doing my research on inclusive classroom has helped me out
tremendously with what to expect and why things are done in a certain way. It is
important that when there is a general education teacher and a special education teacher
in the same classroom, that both teachers need to find a way to work together and plan
together common interest and goals that will help students succeed in life. After learning
the struggling points of many children in the class during the writing lesson, I can do my
own extensive research in learning how to improves students spelling skills.

IX. Citations:
Bright Education Services & Testing. (2015, April 17). Why is narrative writing
important? Retrieved from
https://brighted.funeducation.com/News/CommonCore-State-Standards-
News/why-is-narrative-writing-important

Concordia University Portland. (2018, May 3). 5 innovative ways to teach second grade
writing [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://education.cu
portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/5-innovative-ways-to-teach-second
grade-writing/

Gault, A. (2019). Mastering the basics of writing. Retrieved from

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/mastering-basics
writing/

Lightner, L. (2019, September 16). 7 measurable iep goals for writing skills. Retrieved
from https://adayinourshoes.com/7-measurable-iep-goals-for-writing-skills/

Mader, J. (2017, March 1). Teacher training is failing students with disabilities.
Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/03/how
teacher-training-hinders-special-needs-students/518286/

Oxford Learning. (2016, November 30). How to improve writing skills for kids: 14 easy
tips. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordlearning.com/improve-kids-writing
skills/
 6
OBSERVATION 5 SUBJECT MATTER (TEACHER TAUGHT LESSON)
Reading Rockets. (2019, September 19). Word walls | classroom strategy. Retrieved from
https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/word_walls