Analyzing Teaching
Specific Changes for Future Instruction
The primary change the teacher would make to this lesson series is to add lessons that explicitly address creating purposefully persuasive works (visual and written). Students were taught several new concepts (the higher-order thinking concepts of identities, “we” and “they,” the pervasiveness of purposeful persuasion in our society) and how to recognize and analyze them, but were never directly instructed on how to apply these principles in their own creations. In part because the assessment for this series of lesson was creation based, very few students were able to display mastery of understanding of purposeful persuasion techniques or the ability to expertly apply them. For example, almost all students were able to distinguish between self- and other-assigned traits and repeatedly identify and analyze persuasion techniques in visual propaganda in various assessments (examples shown here & here), but could not generally create a poster that appealed to a person’s identity and utilized persuasion techniques. In future instances of instruction the teacher would also plan to carefully scaffold the creation process to ensure student success by to catching and clearing up misunderstandings before students turn in an assessment of their skills.
The teacher would also revise the rubric used for the assessment project so that there is more emphasis on using the taught persuasion techniques, less emphasis on other stylistic parts of the project, and a separate group of criteria for choosing and appealing to a target audience. These revisions would serve several purposes: first, the rubric would then better communicate to students what the teacher expects in both the final essay and the poster; second, it would help the teacher frame their instruction and stay focused on the desired end goal, and finally the scores from the revised rubric would better reflect students demonstrated understanding and ability to use the concepts taught in this learning segment. Once the rubric was revised the teacher would present the rubric and teacher examples to students at the very beginning of this learning segment (and then again at the end) to help students better understand the purpose for their learning and better conceptualize how the material presented better relates to them as modern adolescents.
In future iterations of this learning sequence, or when implementing two part project-assessments, the teacher will also present each part of the assessment as a separate assignments with separate work times and due dates, to ensure that student effort is more equally divided between the two parts. The poster students created was a fairly good measure of students' emerging ability to apply persuasion techniques at the stage at which it was assigned. The poster assignment required more limited use of persuasion techniques and allowed students to show what they knew without getting bogged down in the mechanics of writing. With just a small amount more of direct instruction the teacher believes that more students would have been able to succeed on the poster task and it would’ve given the teacher a fairly good indication of how to proceed with essay related instruction. However, the essay assigned was way too complex for this point in instruction. That part of the assignment needed to be assigned much later with more help from the teacher.
In order to improve my own practice during future iterations of this series of lessons the teacher will revisit the materials used for these lessons (lesson plans, handouts, books, videos, etc.) in the near future and carefully reflect on how the delivery of those lessons went. Notes will be added to my files on what worked well in the delivery of instruction, what did not work well, and what needs to be revised or added (mostly according to the reflection and analysis in this portfolio). Revision and additions will be made, at least in rudimentary form, to lesson plan files early in the summer so that if the opportunity to re-use these lesson plans presents itself, most of the required materials will be ready to use. As part of the revision and addition process, methods for scaffolding middle school student writing will be researched so that students are better prepared to create their own persuasive piece of writing.
Broader Implications for Future Instruction
The lessons analyzed here will also serve as a good benchmark for considering how to set-up the teachers classroom environment in their new school and new classroom. This series of lessons deals with concepts that can stir-up complex student emotions (identities, in-groups, out-groups), weighty social issues (how is propaganda used in society today?), and complex analytical and synthesis tasks (analyzing historical and modern propaganda and creating posters and essays that reflect students’ own experiences). These lessons also deal with a wide variety of technologies and other supplies (high resolution photos, PowerPoint presentations, videos, picture books, student handouts, teacher examples shown a under document reader, art supplies, writing supplies). If the teacher creates a classroom environment (social-emotionally, physically, technologically) that can support these lessons, almost any other variety of middle school appropriate Language Arts or Social Studies instruction should be feasible as well. Approaching summer professional development, classroom set-up, and the first days of school with these lessons in mind may help the teacher be much more successful in her first year of teaching.
The instruction analyzed here has also shown the value of drawing upon available resources and support systems. The teacher had the wonderful opportunity to attend a Facing History & Ourselves professional development workshop shortly before this series of lessons was taught and heavily utilized the ideas and resources presented at that workshop, as well as additional resources and ideas provided through one-on-one conversations with Facing History & Ourselves staff. Although the teacher would have probably produced similar lessons without Facing History’s support and tweaked the resources provided to make them fit into the Academy for Urban School Leadership's (AUSL) framework and to help them meet the needs of the Dodge Renaissance Academy students’ needs, the teacher’s plans would not have been nearly as rich or detailed without the support of Facing History & Ourselves, and neither the teacher or the students would have been as successful. Additionally, working with colleagues at the Facing History workshop and afterwards on a one-on-one basis made planning less-time consuming and more enjoyable then planning independently, from scratch.
The teacher was also able to draw a great deal of support from many parts of the AUSL network. The AUSL-wide “I do/We do/You do” lesson plan format and general instructional mentality helped the teacher to create plans that created an environment in which all students could experience success. The teacher’s mentor and mentor-resident coach were both available for planning support and instructional coaching support throughout the teaching process. The teacher’s co-residents at Dodge Academy also provided great support as a resource to discuss instructional ideas with and also as an emotional support system throughout the rigorous residency year.
Perhaps most importantly, the results of these lessons also showed that typical “Language Arts skills” (analyzing content, creating persuasive material) become much more dynamic when they are combined with Social Studies content and many students are more engaged when content is viewed, at least in part, through a Social Science lens. Hopefully, there will be further opportunities, and administrator support, for planning instruction that dynamically combines Language Arts and Social Studies to create better instruction.
