Greensburg Salem Professional Reflection on Effective Teaching &

Learning

Danielson Domain & Component: 1A: Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy

Description of Artifact: Johnny Appleseed Lesson Plans

Justification for proficient or distinguished rating within Domain & Component:

In order to marry the content areas of reading, mathematics, social studies, science, writing,
and grammar I created a week and a half long unit plan dedicated to learning about Johnny
Appleseed. For the first two days, students built background knowledge of apples and apple
trees. Students also discussed the five senses and read a poem that related the five senses to
apples. Students had the opportunity to taste three different apple types and add their favorite
apple to a bar graph to discover which apple was the most popular in our classroom. This
knowledge progressed into reading Johnny Appleseed and discussing the elements of tall tales.
The book also opened up a discussion about geography as our story mentioned Johnny planting
seeds in parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio. After reading about Johnny and his journeys, students
had the opportunity to write an opinion-based response to the prompt, "What do you think
Johnny Appleseed carried in his knapsack?" Students wrote rough drafts which were discussed
in a conference-style fashion with the teacher in order to make necessary changes to grammar
and spelling. After the conference concluded, students wrote their final copy of their writing on
their own knapsack. We all enjoyed this unit!

Reflection on future growth within Domain & Component:

Cross-curricular lessons are exciting for students as it helps them to build an ample amount
of background knowledge and confidence about the topic. Students enjoy when “everything
they have been learning about” ties together. In the future, I hope to work with more unit
plans that allow students to engage with a topic and gain depth of the knowledge instead of
just what lies on the surface.