Instructions

Choose one of the following teachers to study:

• • Susan: This study takes you through the way she and her students participate in writer’s workshop in a second-grade classroom. From it you can see how you might set up writer’s workshop in workable ways in your classroom regardless of the level. The man doing the filming asks the students at key points to tell you how it works and what they are doing (all helpful). Note the perspectives that report the relationship of her work to the Standards for Effective Pedagogy.
  • Hilda: In this study, Hilda has engaged her students in an MSDLA. What will be most interesting is her work in the teacher center. She begins by having students identify words they need help with and a question they have about the text. Then working with chart paper, together she and the students develop a summary of the text based in the interest of the students. Her group is a fifth-grade class studying social studies.
  • Derek: This is a seventh-grade class. Derek uses an authentic context where he asks students to send an email to a school board member arguing for and against school uniforms. This is a process writing assignment set in an authentic context. He uses students’ opinions about having uniforms, student interviews with parents, generation of lists of pro/con arguments, a graphic organizer to capture their pro/con argument and then the production of e-mails sent to a board member who responds. 
  • Jerry: He is also in TELL 430, but is in the Adolescent Level Literacy Case (same username and password). This is a science classroom and we are joining them on the first day of a shark unit. Jerry begins with a walk through the classroom. What is interesting here is that he gives them a handout that has vivid vocabulary words and academic language which he asks the students to use in their descriptions of their observations of the sharks. Notice the student interactions with each other and him. Another strategy is that at the beginning of each class students use 3 X 5 cards to note one thing they learned the during the last class and one question they still have. He gathers these and plans the next lesson based on their questions.

1. Go to tellcases.byu.edu (username: tellcases, password: video)
2. Click on 430, #3-Middle Level Literacy Case-Language Arts. Or the Adolescent Literacy Case if you choose Jerry. If you click on the first prompt it will play the entire video. If you want to look more closely you click on the specific clip. Just play the video from the video screen. Each clip has a different set of perspectives so if you want to learn what the teacher is thinking or experts in particular areas click on the perspectives listed at the top screen. 
3. Use the Examining Process Writing worksheet to take notes while watching the video.