Langauge Arts Day Three

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

     Today's class was a success. The thing we did in our reading groups is that we talked about reading with expression. This was through a lot of discussion and the students wrote down answers that were suitable on the T-chart. The first thing I asked if they listened to music. I then asked sang that song in a monotone voice. I asked them if they would listen to that song and they all said "No." Then I asked the students if they would listen me to read the story with expression and on the T-chart they had to write how my reading sounded, how it made them feel, and if they liked it. While I read students were able to write down their answers. The students got the idea because they said things like, "It was fun, I liked it, and I was interested." Then I asked them to do the same thing while I read the story without any expression. The students also understood this concept because they said things like, "It was horrible, it was boring, and I was uninterested." From this, I was able to ask the students why they want to read with expression, especially when it comes to folktales and fables. The answer I was aiming for is that, "you want to keep the reader interested in order for them to learn the moral." The students got halfway there. They understood that you want to read with expression in order to keep a person interested. I then asked them if they would want to learn about a moral if the reading was boring and they all said no, so it worked better when I chopped the idea in half. 

     Our last activity that we did is that I asked them for feeling words. All of them were excited to share the different feeling words. I then prompted them to think about while I read the story in the wrong feeling expression. For example, if the character was excited, I read it in a sad voice. Once the giggles had somewhat settled, I asked them how it sounded. A lot of the students said that it sounded silly and that they were not able to pay attention to the story. I then asked them why they thought it was important to read with the right expression. The answer I was aiming for, "Is that you want it to sound right in order to convey the right feelings of the characters." The students came close and said that they wanted it to sound right. Unfortunately, they did not get to get to the other part because we ran out of time in each group. The changes that I would make in each group is time management, because I always run over by about three or four minutes and that adds up. I would also try to incorporate folktales and fables more. This lesson went great and many students understood the concept of reading with expression.