Entry #2: Date and Time: Friday, February 17, 2017, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (3 hours) Task/Activity: Students in both classes started off the class by taking their weekly spelling test. Following this, both classes examined prose-constructed responses completed by fellow students (although responses were kept anonymous). Students would then work in groups to grade the response according to PARCC standards. The class would then come back together as a whole, with each group discussing the grade they gave the response and why. Mrs. Lanza would then reveal the grade she gave the response, hoping that each group fell within one point value and had relatively the same constructive criticism to give. Following this, students worked on independent writing assignments on MyAccess. Accommodations/Modifications: While working on evaluating student responses to the PRCs, Mrs. Lanza utilized the document camera to project the selected responses onto the whiteboard. In addition to visually seeing the responses, Mrs. Lanza also read the responses orally to ensure that students who had trouble seeing the responses could hear them instead. …show more content…
Lanza during this class period was the modeling method. That is, since the classes were preparing for the PARCC exam, Mrs. Lanza had her students complete PCRs and then graded them as a group according to PARCC standards. This allowed students to see just how grades are determined for PCRs and why they are given the grades they receive, and encouraged students to think like a PARCC test grader. As a result of this teaching by modeling, students were able to see both good and bad responses and why they are considered as such. This allowed students to walk out of class having a better idea of how they will be graded on the PARCC and how they can work to specifically improve their writing