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Lesson
Builder: Introduction
Purpose
Now that you have explored the envisionment-building process
and revisited the joy of reading literature, we invite you to
reflect upon your own instructional practices. Take this opportunity
to help your students make rich connections to text, opening
whole new worlds to their literary experiences.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of the Lesson Builder, you will:
- Implement the envisionment-building process in an existing
classroom lesson.
- Take stock of your own instructional practices, considering
which ones support a literary community and which ones need
to be renewed.
- Begin to create a literary community within your own classroom.
Process
 Taking
Stock:
Which instructional strategies are you currently using in your
classroom that you think support envisionment building and foster
a literary community? What instructional practices do not support
an envisionment-building environment? What instructional strategies
would you like to implement in the future to create your own
literary community? Keep these questions in mind as you move
through the Lesson Builder.
Getting
Started:
Select a classroom lesson that you feel comfortable renewing
for future use. Consider selecting a single lesson, rather than
an entire unit or series of lessons. This will give you the
opportunity to experiment with new instructional approaches,
rethink and enhance what you are already doing, and reflect
upon what works for you and your students and what does not.
Lesson
Analysis and Renewal:
Using the Lesson Builder Template,
review your lesson's instructional approaches and strategies
[click here for a PDF
version].
As you begin to evaluate the lesson, you might consider the
following:
- What is the role of the teacher?
- What is the role of the student? How do the activities
focus on students' thinking?
- How are students given a variety of opportunities to build
envisionments?
- How are students' interpretations valued in the instructional
process?
- What instructional approaches support envisionment building?
Explain.
- What instructional approaches hinder envisionment building?
Explain.
- What can you do to foster a sense of community in this
lesson?
- How can students take ownership for their own literary
interpretations?
- How are multiple perspectives valued and shared in the
community?
- How is the class meeting time utilized for students to
question, critique, and challenge?
- How are students encouraged to find their own interpretations,
adjust them, question them, and even challenge and evaluate
them?
- How is a sense of mutual respect fostered among the members
of your community?
- How do you respond to students' perspectives during a
classroom discussion? Are there ways to move the conversation
along by responding with additional questions? Explain.
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