about the text as well, which lead to great discussion. Since the book is incredibly
suspenseful, the students were actively engaged and did not want me to stop reading.
Something else that I thought was successful during this lesson was how I modeled my
own thinking for the students. This set up an expectation for what I wanted them to be
doing on their own, so as I continue to read the students can become more independent
on writing their thoughts and observations. One thing that I did not think was successful
about this lesson was not having the students understand what the tricky vocabulary
words he or she chose actually meant. I should have gone back in the text and had
them read the sentence with the word in it to understand the meaning, or I should have
had a student look up what the words meant. As I read on I will stop to discuss the
vocabulary that students do not know. I also should have displayed my chart on either
the SMART Board, or a document camera so the students could see how I was filling in
my chart. It was hard for some students in the back to see my writing on the chart, so if
it was zoomed in on a document camera or on the SMART Board, it will definitely be
easier for students to see. One thing that I would change, if I was to do this lesson in
the future, would be to read the synopsis on the back of the book to the students after
they are done looking at the cover and making predictions on what they think the story
will be about.
For my next lesson I am unsure if I want to do an ELA lesson or a social studies
lesson. I would like to incorporate technology into the lesson since I know that is a
weakness of mine, and something I am trying to improve on incorporating into my
lessons.