UCLA Center X TEP ELEMENTARY UNIT/ LESSON PLANNING COMMENTARY Your Name: Ashley Plushnik Date: March 3, 2014

Unit/Lesson Title: MELD Police officers Grade Level and Content Area: Kindergarten Literacy Number of Students 24 Total Amount of Time: 52 minutes

1. Learning Goals/Standards: Students will be able to explain in writing what police officers do. CCSS Writing: 2. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanator texts in which the name what the are writing about and suppl some information about the topic. 2. Rationale: Wh is this content important for our students to learn and how does it promote social !ustice" This content is important because it opens students eyes to different community members, which is a unit requirement for kindergarten. It promotes social justice by giving students access to learning about police officers in ways that they may not have experienced before. It also opens the door for more difficult conversations about whether or not police do their jobs with integrity, it also provides space for students to share about events that they have experiences with police officers. Some of my students have recently experienced some trauma and as a class we are still recovering. 3. Identifying and supporting language needs: What are the language demands of the unit/lesson" #ow do ou plan to support students in meeting their $nglish language development needs %including academic language&" ' plan to use visuals such as the idea map with pictures before students write. ' also plan to let the students have time to thin(, pair, share and share out as a whole class so that students who ma struggle with writing can see how the ideas wor(. ' am providing sentence frames so that students do not have to create entire sentences themselves. ' teach in an $nglish onl classroom right now. 4. Accessing prior knowledge and building upon students backgrounds, interests and needs: #ow do our choices of instructional strategies, materials and se)uence of learning tas(s connect with our students* bac(grounds, interests, and needs" ' chose to plan this lesson as a follow up after ' completed a read aloud about police officers. + students are interested in police officers, ' gave them a choice of , different communit members to learn about and the chose police officers and firefighters which we will cover Wednesda and -hursda this wee(. . Acco!!odations: What accommodations or support will ou use for all students %including $nglish .anguage .earners and students with special educational needs, i.e. /0-$ students and students with '$1*s&" $xplain how these features of our learning and assessment tas(s will provide all students access to the curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their learning. ' will help students who are not et forming letters well b writing in highlighter for them so that the can see how to form letters and still express their ideas. 2or students who are unable to complete the writing portion of what ' am using as an assessment ' will offer them the opportunit to orall explain their ideas to demonstrate their learning.

2013-2014

". #$eor%: Which theories support our unit/lesson plan" %explain the connections& I am using sociocultural learning theory in my lesson. I am honoring prior knowledge students have of police officers from home and allowing students choice in which ideas to write about police officers. I am not dictating that they believe one idea of another about police. 7. Reflection: (answer the following questions after the teaching of this unit/lesson) What do you feel was successful in your lesson and why? If you could go back and teach this learning segment again to the same group of students, what would you do differently in relation to planning, instruction, and assessment? How could the changes improve the learning of students with different needs and characteristics? Overall I believe that my lesson went well. I really wish I could have had more social justice conversations with the kids about police and communities of color. My guiding teacher doesnt like to push those boundaries but I do and I heard the kids sharing lots of stories. I would have liked to hear more about their experiences and I think doing that would have made the assignment much more relevant to all of my students. They were still wonderful and I chose a really great book about police officers that really showed what they do in different settings and represented police officers as males and females of many different races and cultures. I would use the same book, its a full series, again. I really think overall it went really well. I looked through the work samples and after reading the book most students learned something new about police officers and they were able to write about it.

**COMMENTARY IS REQUIRED FOR ALL UCLA ELEMENTARY FORMAL OBSERVATIONS **

2013-2014