Analysis of Student Work Spring 2013/Practicum 1 Topic: Opinions and Facts Objective: Students will be able to write both

an opinion sentence and a factual sentence about a topic of their choice with 80% accuracy provided they have prior knowledge on writing and sentence structure. Standards: 1.W.1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure. 1.W.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure. Student Performance: Kayden did not write his complete name on the top of the paper. He filled in five out of six of the boxes, one of the boxes just prompted for him to circle what he was writing about. In the boxes where he had to write information, it is almost impossible to read what he was trying to say. He seems to have mastered capital letters and punctuation in three out of four of his sentences. When prompted, Kayden was able to verbally explain what he was writing about, but it is not clear in his writing. Initial Teaching Strategy: Modeling Together as a whole group, the class went over what constitutes a fact and what an opinion is. The students helped complete a worksheet on the Elmo consisting of different sentences, some fact and some opinion. After I modeled what I would like the Review Planning

Page to look like. I used my own example and completed the worksheet while the started on their own and looked up to watch how I was completing my own. Re-teach Strategy #1: Find Examples in Text Using literature to help explain the concept of fact and opinion could be a useful teaching strategy. This will in turn help Kayden and the rest of the class with their reading level. It will also give the students other examples of fact and opinion other than the ones the teacher gives or the ones the students come up with. Having the class or each student individually read through the text and circle things that are truth and cannot be changed and underline things that someone could disagree with or an opinion. Re-teach Strategy #2: K-W-L Chart (Tompkins, 2010. Pg. 389) To help re-teach fact and opinion I could use a K-W-L chart but I would make some adjustments. I would make a chart with one column for what they know (K) about a particular subject, the next column could be for how the subject makes them feel (F) and then the L would still represent what they learned after the lesson is over. This will help focus on the difference between a fact, which is something that everyone knows or something that is truth and their personal opinion, how something makes them feel. Re-teach Strategy #3 (Used in Class): Use of Manipulative I think that Kayden would have a better feel of what a fact was or what an opinion was if I brought in something he could see and physically touch. This will allow him to really see what aspects of this manipulative are truth, regardless of who is using it or looking at it, also known as a fact. I could also ask Kayden or the class how they feel about my particular manipulative and explain that their response would be what is known as an opinion.

Re-check and Re-assess Strategies: Re-teach strategies #1 is something that would best be assessed by observation or class participation. If you hand out books for them to write on, the actual book can be assessed for understanding. In re-teach strategy #2 the best technique for re-assessing would be to collect the K-F-L charts and to check for understanding, you can also use observation if there is a class discussion. For re-teach strategy #3, the re-teach strategy that I used in class for Kayden, I had Kayden write down on a piece of paper something fact and opinion on the first item and to do the same for the second item. I brought in items that were completely different, knowing he would only like one of the manipulatives. When prompted, he told me his fact and his opinion sentences before he wrote them down. I was able to better understand if he was grasping the concept since I had the two items and he had to write a fact and opinion on both of them. Kaydens four sentences were my re-assessment tool.