# 1
Choose a complex text (nonfiction article, excerpt from a novel, chapter/unit from a textbook, passage used on standardized test, etc) that is on grade 5 level for the class you are teaching and provide the lexile level.
Talk about what makes it a complex text according to the definition of what makes a text complex and who it would be complex for in your classroom.
Explain
-what you would do to make this passage more accessible for your low leveled readers (students reading two or more grade levels below)
-what strategies you would use with your on grade level readers
-how you would challenge your students reading above grade level.
# 2
Find a writing sample of a student in grades PreK-12 and critique the writing sample providing explicit feedback, areas for improvement, and pedagogical techniques for development that include building from the student’s relative strengths, background knowledge, and cultural funds of knowledge (skills and ideals taught at home/as part of a cultural group) as applicable.
# 3
Address two or more of the following three questions in your response:
- Some schools promote sustained silent reading during instructional time, though the practice is fading from many programs. Even more rarely is extended time devoted to in-class writing exercises. With the bevy of technological shifts in writing that have occurred over the last 20 years (i.e., blogging, emails, texts, fan fiction), what purpose do traditional means of writing (i.e., handwriting, penmanship, cursive) play towards a learner’s development today?
- Using the Lawrence et al. (2013) article, discuss two types of notebooks can be used across the content areas to reflect a learner’s thinking and content knowledge acquisition.
- Discuss a few best-selling and award winning author techniques that align with your own approaches to writing from the Sampson et al. (2016) article.
# 4
How might content area teachers develop a sense of genre and knowledge of rhetoric to prepare their students for the world beyond school?
Use the rhetorical theories from your reading to support your response.
# 5
Discuss your perspectives on what is the appropriate place of “voice” in non-fiction writing. How does a given content area (like Social Studies, Science, or Mathematics) view this concept in terms of written communication? What might be done to improve our instruction of voice in elementary, middle, and high school grades?
#6
Examine the writing samples provided in “Writing Sample A”. Score the student ONLY on sentence fluency using the rubric attached out of 5 and provide a detailed rationale for this score.
How would you instruct the student to revise this writing, paying specific attention to sentence fluency and conventions? Make specific suggestions and explain what mini lessons and instructional tools and strategies you could provide this student.
