Sarah DesLaruriers' Portfolio

Sarah DesLauriers'
Portfolio

Mr. Pak Buys a Story

During my 3rd year at UVM I working with 12 children at East Harbor Elementary School. The students had read-alouds often and retold stories as a group. I enjoyed reading to the students and felt that most of the students were understanding how to retell. I enjoyed doing whole class retells, but I noticed that Sarah usually didn't raise her hand and when she did she couldn't add anything to the class. Earlier in the year I went and asked her to tell me about "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. She was unable to tell me about the story. (PC 2a4) She said that there were animals in it. This disturbed me because there had just been a group retell of the story about 5 minutes before and it involved acting out the story, so it was very interactive. I felt that this needed more looking into. The class was a multi-age class of 1st and 2nd graders

To your right is a copy of the lesson plan that I wrote to work with Sarah on retelling a story. I did the lesson with her and 3 other students during the literacy time. I noticed that Sarah was having troubles with the story so as a group we retold the story together once in the middle of the story and once at the end.	TEACHER: Sarah DesLauriers CONTEXT: Literacy TOPIC: Mr. Pak Buys a Story TIME: 30 minutes DATE: March 10, 2003 OBJECTIVES: Students will actively retell the sequence of the story "Mr. Pak Buys a Story", especially Beginning, Middle, and End. Students will make predictions throughout the story RELATED STANDARDS: Vital Results 1.13 - Students listen actively and respond to communications. This is evident when students: Ask clarifying questions and restate. MATERIALS: "Mr. Pak Buys a Story" by Carol Farley Drawing worksheet TEACHING-LEARNING PROCEDURE: Teacher will tell students where the book is from and that it is from the genre of Folk tales. Teacher will picture walk the story Teacher will ask students to pay special attention to the story and what happens in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. Teacher will read the story and do the following: After the first page, "What do you think is going to happen next?" Prompt to the title. Ask the students to help retell the story after the thief spies the stork. When Thief is just going over to rob the Kim's ask, "What do you think is going to happen next?" Hand out the drawing worksheet. Ask students to draw three pictures... One picture of the beginning of the story, one of the middle, and one of the end. Ask students to share them with me and explain what the pictures are of when they are done.
Although hard to see this is a story map that I completed decribing the story. It says: "An old couple, the Kim's, want some entertainment, so Mr. Pak goes to town to buy a story." "Mr. Pak buys a story from a thief. The story is peculiar and tells of a stork being chased by a fox." "The thief tries to rob the Kin's but go confused when his story he sold Mr. Pak was similia to what he was doing and he thought they were on to him." "The Kim's and Mr. Pak live happily ever after."
	This is what Sarah drew. Her pictures looked good to me and I thought that I had an idea about what they were about, but she did not. She gave good predictions during the story, but did not participate in the retells without prompting and even then she was unable to contribute in a meaningful way. While explaining her drawings she stated "I don't know what happened" or "I don't know what's in the picture" to me a couple of times. Her pictures look really good to me and I was surprised that she was unable to explain them.
This is another child's work, I will call him Xander. Xander was a 1st greader and throughout the story he made a few predictions story and asked a couple of questions. He was looking at the book the entire time and he stated that he forgot about the camera (I videotaped the lesson) at times. He made basic drawings but was able to explain the stick figure drawings to me with no problem. "That's the guy giving the gold for Mr. Pak to buy a story. That's the fox going after the stork. That's them having tea at the end." He was also a very active member in the retellings.
By retelling the story in many different ways I felt that Sarah would be able to understand and complete the lesson with plenty of success. It turns out that I was incorrect. My teacher wouldn't let me look at IEPs for confidentiality reasons, so I couldn't see what was written about Sarah in her IEPs, so all I had to go on was what I saw. I see that she needs work on her comprehension of stories. My next step for her would be to continue to press her to retell stories both within a group and alone. Eventually I think that she will get it with more practice and some specialized practice just for her.