Lesson Plan Critique

The lesson plan critique was a project designed for us to observe another teacher, write their lesson down, and then analyze it. I used Screencastify to record my notes and talk about my findings, which is another great example of the transmediation I talk about on my "Flying Around" page. Never using Screencastify before, I had to learn new skills to create my project and get creative in this new medium.  This assignment allowed for me to work on my ability to critique and look at lesson plans from a different perspective. During this observation, I was able to watch this class and immediately see ways these students were participating in disciplinary literacy. As teachers, we should implement disciplinary literacy and the aim it has of focusing on "what we teach ([for example] how to read and use information like a scientist)" (Wolsey). For this lesson, the students had to put on the hat of English scholars, and had to know specific jargon to understand the task they needed to accomplish. The teacher did a great job of allowing space for her students to think and learn as English scholars. These students were working with elements of plot and discussing them using the new terms they have been learning. This is crucial when teaching disciplinary literacy because the students"first must understand the knowledge of a discipline. Words help us understand the discipline, and the discipline informs how we understand the world" (Wolsey). Because of this course, I was able to see some strong points of this lesson, and also was able to provide feedback in places where I think more diverse practices could have been implemented to enhance the students disciplinary literacy even further. 

​

Wolsey, Thomas DeVere, and Diane Lapp. Literacy in the Disciplines: a Teachers Guide for Grades 5-12. The Guilford Press, 2017.