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Nicole Mason's Response to Ina, I love that you added the emotional element and not just academic. Several of our EL students do come to us with trauma, and I feel as though I am not always prepared to help them navigate their emotions. Sometimes we have to realize that they have bigger things going on in their lives than academics and learning the language.

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Nicole Mason To start, all teachers collaborated and worked together to plan focused lessons for their EL students. The teachers knew that the text would be difficult for some of the students to grasp and knew they needed to meet with these students for extra support. Ms. Valenti’s had the whole group read the text together and then pulled her five EL students to work with her. The rest of the students were given a different assignment to work on so they were not ahead of the EL students.

She introduced a different focus for the EL lesson, which was language. She wanted students to be able to make a connection with the text so she asked the students a general question about their thoughts. During this time the teacher learned that the vocabulary was challenging for the students, even though vocabulary words were addressed during the whole group lesson. She has students find the words that they struggled with and helped chart and define them. She also put these words on an academic word wall so students could refer to them at a later time.

She refers back to previous lessons taught to bridge connections to the learning. The teacher had the students reflect on a past lesson and then she explained how the memoir they were currently reading was similar structure but had some differences. The teacher had students skim the text for this structure and encouraged a collaborative student led discussion. Also, by the way the students are interacting with each other it seemed like she had given them academic sentence starters to use when having academic conversations. She only interjects to stop students from interrupting each other, or to have students expand on an answer.

The teacher then concludes the conversation by putting the key information from the conversation into a graphic organizer. She then asked students to find more specific items in the text involving language. For example, language that was used in sequencing events. They find more sequencing words and phrases and discussed the importance of these words in a story, especially a memoir.

The next day the teacher had the whole group discuss text features. This allowed the EL students to be front loaded with the information and to feel successful during ELA class. They already had been exposed to the lesson once before and they were able to gain further understanding with other peers.

I think for students to be engaged and want to learn language they need to feel successful and empowered. I also believe that what content the stories are about will also help them get engaged. This vignette was a great reminder that our EL students need to be talking and collaborating in a structured, academic setting. With the help of their teacher, the EL kids were able to make connections to prior lessons and focus on language difficult to them without feeling the pressure of feeling judged.  Nicole Mason

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The teacher did a great job here, its clear she collaborated with the ELA teacher on content and tries to expand it in Designated ELD.  She first asks the class to review ELA content and review their notes. She looks at her ELA groups and levels and targets her 5 lower EL proficient students to review and engage them in the language investigation of the book they are reading in ELA.  She then breaks down what a Memoir is and how it's organized.  As students engage in the lesson they understand that a memoir is connected to the prior lessons on stories and their organization.  She connects the lessons like a story. As she connects the lesson she explores new vocabulary words that are connected to reading a memoir. This then starts the language explorations and challenges students to find evidence in the text to understand the concepts of a memoir. This is why I think we confuse Designated ELD as a reteach because you are learning content that should be available to all students.  Hearing her give good feedback to students as they explore the memoir for evidence is so encouraging and secretly teaching them to have social conversations in English. She gives their ideas value by charting their ideas and questions. As groups work together she takes time to support a student that she notices is struggling and gives him emotional and academic support.                                                          I think as a district we have given good resources to teachers to understand that the shift needs to be connecting with students on an emotional level and not just academics.  Recognizing that EL's come to us with trauma, adaptive challenges. Trauma-informed care is key to this part.

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According to the background, the 6th grade team works collaboratively to create lessons based off the levels as well as needs of the students in their classes. The teachers plan out the lessons effectively so that students are able to engage appropriately in the variety of task. They use small group sessions for their designated ELD time while other students are completing tasks that are able to do independently. By creating an environment that allows other students to focus independently, the teacher is able to focus on developing the skills of the students in the group. Included in the lesson plan is the Lesson target as well as the CA ELD Standards for Expanding. She directly states to the students what they will be focusing on for this lesson as well as to connect to their previous ELA lesson. She allows students to know that they will be completing a language analysis. Students are able to articulate their thoughts within this small group  Ms. Valenti has also anticipated questions that students may have questions and charts words that students do not know and explains what they mean. She also will add this to their academic language word wall. Ms. Valenti then reviews with the students how short stories are organized and connects it with how a memoir is organized. This helps students feel engaged and helps with learning language by including them in the conversation, asking for their thoughts, and connecting it to what they already know. Students have already read the text before so she asks them to identify the orientation, events, and evaluation of the memoir (after writing on a small whiteboard the words). She then allows students to share their thoughts which also keeps them engaged in their learning and documents their thoughts with them on the chart made. She then allows the students to identify certain phrases within the text that tell when the time frame is with a partner. She gives them the opportunity to collaborate. I also noticed that she breaks this assignment down into small chunks so that students are only focusing on one question at a time.  Ms. Valenti then follows up with the entire class with the same lesson but dives further into the text. The purpose of the Designated ELD time is to help support her English Language Learners in understanding the more complex text.                                                                                                                                         The shifts that I feel need to happen in regards to classrooms in general is to make sure students are engaged and learning language is that teachers need to make the time to collaborate with one another in developing strong lessons that help focus on various strategies for their students to learn. This teacher has very clear goals for the lesson and then for the other students in the class as well. Teachers need to be challenging their students but also providing necessary supports. The students are using critical thinking skills, but also are being supported by being able to express their ideas in a small and safe environment. Students have the opportunity to all speak within their group to practice their language development. Teachers should be providing all students with the opportunity to be successful at reading the same level text. Teachers should be using small groups to help deepen the understanding of students. I actually really like this set up as an option for helping better support my English Language Learners in science. I do stations and small groups, but this gave me ideas about how to implement it more effectively. I think a way Ms. Valenti could make sure they are engaged and learning language is giving them more opportunities to write down their ideas as well instead of just verbalizing it. She could them more wait time to process their ideas as well.    Response to Peer: I like Cory Pagan's idea of using a graphic organizer with the three different parts of a memoir for students to have access to for a reference. Another piece that was important to make sure that students were engaged in their learning was by connecting with Raul about his personal life. This positive relationship allows students to feel supported in their learning.

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The teacher, Ms. Valenti, begins the lesson by setting the purpose.  She first has them use references to their existent background knowledge by having them review their notes from prior English lessons.  She gives them the first task of selecting words they are unsure of and then charts them with brief meanings to later add to the word wall.  In the initial discussion, she has them make some test to text connections by referring to some text structures from previous lessons.  In the new reading, she uses a whiteboard to visually identify the three focus stages in order to identify them.  After the focus on finding the words to identify the stages, they have a small group discussion.  Throughout the discussion, students and the teacher repeat certain phrases such as 'events' and 'memoir'.  The teacher probes them for some extension on their answers for deeper critical thinking skills.  The students work with partners and have discussions among them as well.  She ensures everyone participates by even asking the non-participatory students their ideas/thoughts.  She always has a specific goal for the students that is clear and well thought out.  She personally connects to the students when possible.  An example of this is Raul whom lost his uncle in a car accident.  She participates in a choral reading as well for practice reading aloud but not alone. Everything done in designated ELA was a preset lesson for success in ELA.  Some shifts I feel that could have happened would be including a graphic organizer of the three events with examples for each individual student.  This would allow them to have one to reference further in the future with other lessons and better understanding.  Also, I would hope some independent practice was done with a different text but the same skills to show mastery.