Student Teaching at Beit Sefer Ahkvah

1. Student Teaching at BeitSeferAhkvah By Khayah Mass

2. BeitSeferAhkvah • Hebrew Israelite Community School • Elementary through high school • Located across the street from the Village of Peace • Vegan cafeteria located within the village KitahTet 1 • 20 students: 12 boys, 8 girls • First spoken language: English • First written language: Hebrew

3. What makes a place a home? • Theme based on Chapter 1 of The House on Mango Street (p. 128, unit 5 of Mind Matters textbook) • Recipe poems from Maayan Newman’s lecture and excerpt from upcoming book • Focus within the unit: • Reading comprehension • Writing recipe poems • Presenting poems • Reflection

4. Domains and Benchmarks • Appreciation of Literature and Culture • Discuss themes and conflicts in literary texts • Express ideas and opinions about literary texts • Compare different cultural practices, behaviors and traditions with their own • Access to Information • Understand the main idea and supporting details in a text and use this knowledge as needed • Draw inferences in order to identify the points of view in a text, distinguishing fact from opinion

5. Domains and Benchmarks • Social Interaction • Express personal wishes and opinions • Interact for purposes such as agreeing and disagreeing, giving instructions, complimenting, giving advice • Give and receive information in writing, such as postcards, letters, email messages • Presentation • Express ideas and opinions about general topics and experiences using main and supporting ideas • Review and edit presentations based on feedback from peers and/or teacher • React to the content of something read, seen or heard

6. The Original Plan Lesson 1 Lesson 2 • Introduction of me and the 4-day unit (10 min) • Introduction of short story – The House on Mango Street (5-10 min) • Vocabulary • Things to think about/look for when reading • The House on Mango Street (5+ min) • chapter 1, read aloud by me from Mind Matters text book • Discussion of the story (15-20 min) • Explicit comprehension of text • Making inferences • Introduce HW (2+ min) • Jot down ideas answering: what makes a place a home? • Brainstorming (10-15 min) • Individually • As a class • Recipes (5-10 min) • Students pick a recipe from the options and underline verbs and circle measurements • In groups, students discuss which verbs and measurements they highlighted. • Review the writing process (< 5 min) • Writing recipe poems • Individually students write recipe poems reflecting the topic: what makes a place a home?

7. The Original Plan Lesson 3 Lesson 4 • Read poems and make changes/adjustments (5-10 min) • Sharing Poems (20 min) • In groups • 2-3 lines to the class • Editing/Cleaning up poems (10-15 min) • Students can work together or individually to create a Final Draft to submit • Looking at the story – The House on Mango Street, Chapter 1 – and the author (10-15 min) • Students take turns reading the story and then reading about the author aloud (pgs. 128,129 and 131 in textbook Mind Matters) • Discussion of story with new information about the author • Looking at our poems and what they say about us as authors (10 min) • Class discussion • Looking at the writing process (5-10 min) • Discuss changes that were made from rough drafts to final drafts • Reflections (15 min) • Students answer in writing a series of questions about the 4 lessons together • Discuss answers as a class if time permits

8. What really happened • Four lessons to take place during the week before Passover turned into two lessons before Passover and two lessons after. • First lesson too fast, remaining lessons too slow • Rough start turned into decent ending

9. Day to day reflection Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Went well: • Students were comfortable • Students informed of agenda for day and for unit Need to work on: • Transitions/closure • Keeping students aware of time factors • Being aware of the whole classroom Went well: • Sparked student interest • Students became familiar with recipes Need to work on: • Getting off to a better start • Better ways of handling the amount of off-task behaviors • Time frames

10. Day to day reflection Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Went well: • Students finished their poems and turned them in Need to work on: • Classroom management • Better transitions • Students without supplies Went well: • Students read aloud • Class discussion • Student reflections Need to work on: • Transitions • Classroom management

11. Overall reflection • School schedule makes teaching more difficult • Lack of rapport with students worked against me • Getting used to the classroom setting again Yes, but… • Recipe poems were impressive • Student reflections were impressive and helpful • Student interest and pride

12. Recipe Poems

13. Recipe Poems

14. Recipe Poems

15. Student Reflections

16. Sources English Curriculum. State of Israel, Ministry of Education. Jerusalem, 2001. Ezra, Evelyn. Mind Matters. Eric Cohen Books, Ltd. Israel, 2006. Newman, Maayan. “A Recipe.” (an excerpt from her upcoming book and notes from her lecture) Thanks also to Lois Ben-David and LaureenRabbe for their help and dedication!