Section III: Instructional Planning and Implementation

Artifact 1: Battles of the Revolutionary War Activity

TESOL Domain & Standard:

- Domain 3: Planning and Managing Instruction. Candidates know, understand, and use
standards based practices and strategies related to planning, implementing, and
managing ESL and content instruction, including classroom organization, teaching
strategies for developing and integrating language skills, and choosing and adapting
classroom resources.
o Standard 3.c. Using resources effectively in ESL and content instruction:
Candidates are familiar with a wide range of standards-based materials,
resources, technologies, and choose, adapt, and use them in effective ESL and
content teaching.

For this lesson activity, I utilized NPRs Listenwise radio shows to teach about the
Revolutionary War. In my classes currently, I do not have any CLD students who are in the
ESL/ELL program in our school (all the CLD students I have tested out of the program within the
past 2 years), so language modifications arent currently needed. However, I do have students
who need modifications based on academic needs and this lesson allows me to make those
modifications easily. During this lesson activity, I gave a copy of the radio show transcript to
students who needed it, and we listened to the radio show twice through before beginning the
assignment that went along with the show. Listenwise also provided a Language Identification
checklist that students could use as a language modification. This checklist has phrases from the
radio show that students can check off once they hear the phrase in the show. As students
listen to the show, they are also filling out a Fact, Question, Response graphic organizer that
has the students first write (or draw) a fact that they hear in the show, then write a question
about that fact, and then in the response boxes, they write (or draw) the answers they hear in
the show about their question or the answers they get from their peers from their group
discussion on the topic. The Fact, Question, Response graphic organizer allows students to
think about what they are listening to, discuss their thoughts with their peers, and document
their contributions through the group and class discussions. Another activity that I could do with
CLD students during this lesson is to have the students retell the story using the academic
vocabulary highlighted by Listenwise on their transcript page. By having students retell the story,
I can quickly asses their understanding of the story and their understanding of the vocabulary
that was introduced in the lesson. After completing this lesson, the students were paired off and
began making an illustrated timeline of the American Revolutionary War battles, starting with
the knowledge gained from this activity. This lesson also ties into the next section of the unit,
which is comparing the American Revolutionary War to modern day revolutions that have been
happening around the world. Since we end up comparing modern day revolutions to the
American Revolution, CLD students who may be from countries that have recently had or are
currently having a revolution can see their culture being reflected in the classroom and can use it
as a tool to help them better understand the American Revolution.

Section 3 Artifact 1 Caption 1

 This artifact aligns with what I wrote in Section III of my portfolio platform because in that
section I discussed the importance of focusing on students strengths and weaknesses when
adapting and designing lessons, and I discussed how the content of a lesson should relate to
students previous knowledge and serve a purpose/provide knowledge for future lessons. This
artifact has students participating in multiple activities that utilize their strengths and
weaknesses, and the lesson provides avenues for modification depending on the needs of each
individual student. The artifact also ties into the previous lessons students had about the
American Revolutionary War, and it benefits the students when they complete the
comparing/contrasting other revolutions to the American Revolution because of the background
knowledge it provides.

CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy

After reviewing my artifact, I think that it closely aligns with the Language & Literacy
Development aspect of the CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy. I would rate myself as
enacting on the Standards Performance Continuum because the lesson activity requires
students to focus on their listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills to complete the activity.
The student has multiple opportunities throughout this lesson to express their knowledge using
the new academic language introduced in the lesson and the lesson includes students past
knowledge to complete the activities.
In the future, I can use this lesson activity in many ways with CLD students. One distinct
and useful feature of Listenwise is that you can change the speed of the radio story. So,
depending on the listening comprehension abilities of my CLD students, I can play the radio story
slower or faster based on their abilities to orally comprehend their L1. Another great feature of
Listenwise is that it provides the teacher with a copy of the transcript. If I have students whose
oral comprehension is lower but have higher reading comprehension, reading along with the
story could be beneficial. It also is beneficial because I could translate the radio show into a CLD
students native language if I needed to. I also could have CLD students read through the
transcript to find the academic vocabulary in use and use context clues to better understand the
meanings of those academic words. In all, there are countless ways I could use this artifact in my
future work with CLD students.

Section 3 Artifact 1 Caption 2