I chose a lesson for 7-8 graders titled: Accountable Book Clubs: Focused Discussions. The teacher has established four student objectives for all eight of her lessons designated for the book clubs. The teacher has taken an extra step to ensure that her students stay focused and on topic by using a Critical Thinking Map that correlates with group discussions starting with lesson #2. The critical thinking map allows students to organize their thoughts, discussion and focus on the most important social issue (which supports one of the teachers objectives) in the book and the focused reading for that section. The teacher does a great job during the first session of establishing the criteria and expectations so that lessons 2-8 will run smoothly. She does give homework that includes reading the designated section, they are to use sticky notes or journals to record questions about what they have read and they are to use the wiki to post about the social issues their group discussed using the critical thinking map. After the students have completed all eight lessons, the teacher has extension activites the students can use to lead into the next group read. I chose this lesson because I would like to venture into Middleschool Language arts and I felt this lesson was well organized and appropriate for the grade level. I have read the book Esperanza Rising, and found myself thinking about the important events in the book and how I could apply what I read into her daily lesson plan, homework plan and the critical thinking map. I could visualize how this lesson could work in a "real" classroom setting! I felt like all the objectives were covered in all lessons and that the groups would be more focused with the structure the teacher used!
I felt like the teacher did a great job and I would like to keep this in my save pile for later use. Tonya Isenhour