TRACK I AND TRACK II

PRE-OBSERVATION FORM

Name Justin Busch School/Administrator Hempstead / Lee Kolker

Date of Pre-Conference 7th hour 4-17-18Date/Time of Observation: 6th hr. Mon. April 16th

Grade level/Curriculum Area Observed Sophomore English 3-4

1. Briefly describe the students in this class, including those with special needs.

There are nine boys and 12 girls in my 6th period English 3-4 class. One student has
special needs which are he is given added time for assignments and sometimes takes
breaks. Most of the students are very capable, but they can be easily distracted at
times.

2. What are the goals for this lesson? What do you want the students to learn?

RL.9–10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the
course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details;
provide an objective summary of the text.

RL.9–10.6
Analyze a particular point of view (perspective) or cultural experience reflected in a work
of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.

More specifically to this lesson, the goals are for students to analyze the importance of
music in Ishmael’s life and how it changes as the circumstances of his life change. The
other goal is to examine how Ishmael’s life and the lives of many other people in Africa are
incredibly different, yet connections are still able to be made.

3. How do these goals support the district’s curriculum?

These goals support the district curriculum of developing students into people that can
make positive contributions to their schools, workplaces, and communities because they
are helping students to use critical thinking as well as gaining an understanding of other
perspectives that differ from their own. Both of these will help guide students to success
outside of the classroom. Critical thinking and understanding those who are different from
ourselves are things that will help students empathize with others which can lead to
identifying problems, problem-solving and make positive impacts in a variety of places.

4. How do you plan to engage students in the content? What will you do? What will the students
do?

I plan on engaging the students on the content by connecting what is going on with
Ishmael in the book to their own lives. Although my students and Ishmael are going
through incredibly different things in life, they do have some similarities such as music
having significance in all of their lives. They will also be engaged because they were given
the freedom to choose a song that was meaningful to them for this assignment, which
should cause them to be interested in the activity. During the class period, I will walk
around the room while they are working and I will go have a conversation with any student
that I observe that is not engaged. My goal in the conversation will be to trigger an idea or
thought that they will be engaged in enough to write a paragraph about it to meet the
criteria for an assignment. The students will do a variety of things. They will have a short
class discussion, brief discussion at their pods, analyze the lyrics of two songs and then
compare them, and even compose a poem. The reason for this variety of tasks that by
mixing things up the hope is that students won’t get bored doing one thing for too long.

5. How do you plan to assess student achievement of the goals? What procedures will you use
and will they be formative or summative assessments? (Attach any tests or performance
tasks, with rubrics or scoring guides.)

“I Need Love” Activity / Poem writing – both of these assessments will address RL.9–10.2.
They let me know how deep of an understanding the students have about the culture in
Sierra Leone at the time and how it affects the people within that culture. Specifically how
the circumstances that Ishmael is in are causing him to find means of expression through
music.

Class discussion / Passage Analysis – both of these will address RL.9–10.6. They are
formative assessments to gauge whether or not students are developing their
understanding of how Ishmael relates and sees value in music as well as how he is
changing over the course of the book as a person.

CULTURE AND CLIMATE

6. What is the climate and culture you want in your classroom? What will I observe as evidence
of the climate and culture that exists in your classroom? Do you want me to focus my
observation on any specific climate and culture issues?

The culture that I want in my classroom is one that is flexible, student-centered / student-
friendly, and engaging. I understand that things don’t always go as planned so I must be
flexible with that among other things, but I encourage my students to be flexible as well.
Some days it is imperative that they are very serious and task-oriented, other days I
encourage them to be talkative and to share their thoughts, etc. It all depends on what
benefits the day, which is why at the beginning of class I try to set the tone so that
students are able to see what kind of day it is going to be. Because there is a lot of work to
be done on this particular day, I anticipate that you will see a very task oriented class.
However, the climate changes each day. I also anticipate that you will see a class that is
engaged in the material and they will enjoy the class to some degree. Although they might
complain, I think you will notice that the students feel welcomed and have positive
attitudes towards the class.

There is not any specific areas that I want you to focus on. I would like to simply know
what you notice while observing.

7. What specific Iowa Teaching Standards would you like me to look for in this observation?

2a, 3b, 3d, 4a, 4d, 4e, 5a, 6a, 6d, 8d

Teacher comments pertaining to observation setting: List any items you might want to call to the
attention of the administrator.

On the bulletin board in the room, there are drawings of soldiers. These were done by the
students in the class. The reason they are hanging up is because this was what they
thought a soldier looked like. I refer back to those pictures to remind students that in
some parts of the world, soldiers actually are children like we are learning about in A Long
Way Gone.