I had every intention today of following the lesson plans I put together two weeks ago. I had the vocabulary activity copied, the reading passage (with noted discussion points) we were going to continue to work on as a whole class, small group activities already in folders, and the next poem we were going to work on in writing ready to go. All of my teaching materials were organized in my green go-to folder, my small group clipboard was ready for the day’s focus, and our current read aloud was bookmarked and ready to go by my reading chair.
But that’s not how teaching goes, is it? It’s now 4:30 and the stack on my desk still has the new poem type we never got to. The read aloud book still sits in the same spot, untouched today, and there’s a globe on my front table that wasn’t there when the day started.
Our reading passage this week is aligned with what my co-teacher is focused on in social studies. We are looking more closely at what the main products and industries are in Michigan. I have read so much research this year about how important background knowledge is to reading growth, that I have tried to augment, supplement and continue the topics that my partner teaches to help solidify not only the reading strategies but to build up their knowledge base while we do it.
But as we dove into the reading passage today, we stopped to really dissect a particular sentence that said, “…the moderating effect of the Great Lakes creates perfect conditions for growing [blueberries].” We pulled up a map of the United States so we could visually support what we were reading. We talked extensively about the word “moderating” until we had a good understanding of it, particularly how it could relate to one of the Great Lakes.
And then, the conversation just kept evolving. I shared how I had never seen fields of blueberry bushes or grapevines until I moved to Michigan. They asked where I had lived before and I showed (on the map) about where in northern Illinois I grew up. This led to quite a conversation about how the proximity (another word we had a great discussion about, with several “Ah ha!” moments as they related it to “approximation” in Math!) of my Illinois location was about the same with regard to Lake Michigan as where we live now. “How could it be so different?” they wondered. And a conversation about the jet stream ensued.
Which somehow led to a discussion about time zones (a topic very few knew anything about). Which led to a discussion about seasons and to my shock that these ten-year-olds didn’t know the earth was on a tilt. Hence, the globe (that I ran to fetch from the copy room, momentarily abandoning my class for a prop that I hoped would help them better understand how seasons are created.)
Which is all to say that the discussion points that I had already noted for today in my plans were abandoned. The small group work was cut short, and we never did finish reading the rest of the whole group passage. I handwrite my plans, and this means a mess in my playbook for sure, but I cannot say I mind one bit.
THIS is building background knowledge. My objective for today was still met. It is impossible to know the exact gaps that students have in their experience, or to know what they have learned but forgotten. As these moments arise, (when I can afford to let a tangent take over the lesson), I want to seize them. I want to help students in the moment to connect new concepts to prior learning and if that prior learning isn’t there, then I want to help them build a scaffold from what they knew to where we are, including learning what knowledge they need to know along that route.
So, at the end of ELA today, the vocabulary page was completed, but no cinquain poems had been written in our notebooks; the small group work had been minimized; a map of the United States remained on the board with lines denoting time zones, jet streams, and lake effect notations; and a dusty globe sat on my table. But, with any luck, some gaps were filled. And when we get back to that same reading passage tomorrow, their understanding of how Lake Michigan helps our area of the state produce such amazing blueberries, grapes, apples and asparagus will be deeper and more complete.
That’s what it was all about to begin with anyway, wasn’t it?
Teaching at 3am 