Emma Veteto

Professional Internship – Towson University

Artifact Reflection: InTasc 5 – Real World Connections

This artifact is a lesson plan implemented at Fallston middle school during my first

rotation. In this lesson, I taught a 7th grade ILA class how to identify and analyze suspense within

a text. This lesson plan was developed using the Towson University lesson plan template,

outlined by a description of the course, the warm-up, hook, activities (1-3), the closure and

finally, the homework. These lesson plans are developed via the means of backwards design,

meaning that goals were established before the creation of the assessments.

This artifact demonstrates a mastery of InTasc 5, or, wherein “the teacher understands

how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking,

creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.” I

incorporated my mastery of this standard via the means of developing connections between

student learning and popular culture, particularly through television and film. Students studied

not only how to identify the concept of suspense on a surface-level, but how to analyze its

significance to the text overall. I connected with students by discussing popular films and

television shows that similarly used suspense in order to build drama, thus allowing students to

develop a connection between literature and other formats of media.

This artifact contributes to positive student learning because it addresses a significant

need in the classroom. Prior to this lesson, students struggled with not only the identification

process of suspense, but the rationalizing of it’s purpose within a body of text. In this way, I
applied the “judging prior learning” concept of the J.P.T.A.A.R planning-teaching learning cycle.

Additionally, I planned in accordance to the needs of each of my classes.