Standard 3A: Planning for Standards-Based ESL and Content Instruction
The artifact I chose for Standard 3A is from of ESC 790: Workshop Curriculum and Materials Development. This class served as my edTPA seminar, hence the artifact is an overview of the lesson sequence that I taught and videotaped for my edTPA. This lesson overview provides a look into my planning process for a multi-lingual multi-level classroom with learners from diverse backgrounds using the New Language Arts Progressions (NLAP) as a guide.
I found this overview was more difficult to create than I had imagined when I set out to start my edTPA. I thought that I would simply get my objectives down and the rest of the work and planning process would sort of fall into place. I had reached a certain comfort level with planning by this time, so I felt comfortable with the idea of putting together an overview.
After a few hours, I realized that I had been sorely mistaken. Whether it was the added pressure of the edTPA or the fact that I was being pushed to think about the lessons on so many levels (content objectives, language objectives, language and grammar structures, higher order thinking skills, etc.), I struggled with this process. In all, it took me three days to complete all 18 boxes to a level that I was satisfied with.
The process of completing this overview made me cognizant of a reality that I had been ignoring previously. My ELA lessons were almost entirely centered on content and lacked any genuine language instruction. That was why this lesson overview took so long to complete. In creating this document, I was doing something that I had never done before: creating three lessons that were connected through language.
Since planning the edTPA and writing the various commentaries that accompanied the lesson sequence, there is no doubt in my mind that I have been more keyed into teaching language through content. My first year of teaching was about survival, my second year of teaching has been about altering my planning to include language objectives. I think it is no coincidence that I started to feel better about my instruction after I completed the edTPA. I had learned to really use the resources available to me like the NLAP. I had also been forced to rationalize every step of my process using these resources. This lesson overview was the start of a much-needed growing process.
