Individual Written Assignment: Book Review & Professional Reflection

TE 842
By: Julia Graeser
*Paper unable to be retrieved. These are my personal notes that I created to prepare for writing
the book review & personal reflection paper*
Section 1: Book Review

• Why you chose to read this book: I am highly interested in best practices of implementing
PBL in the classroom. Been trained in gold standard PBL from PBL Works and have
read a number of professional texts. Trained by school district.
• A brief summary of the book:
o This book showcases how to teach reading and writing informational text in an
engaging manner through the lens of project based learning. Nell Duke uses
research to share more about the foundation and power of a project and answers
questions on how to effectively design a project-based learning unit that is both
tied to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and your grade-level
curriculum (such as science or social studies). Then, Duke walks the reader
through the phases of a project, which include a project launch, the reading and
research phase, the writing and research phase, the revision and editing phase,
and the presention/celebration phase. Throughout all of these phases, students
are learning to understand a purpose for learning with a real-world focus and an
authentic audience. Lastly, Duke shares more information on how to make
project-based teaching manageable through planning documents, examples, and
different engagement tools. This book is an excellent resource to explicitly lay out
the an effective, compelling, and exciting model of teaching students
informational reading and writing that is show to be beneficial to all students.
• A reflection on what you learned from reading this book and from discussing it during
your book group:
o I learned more about how to effectively utilize the components of PBL to grow
students as literacy learners.
o Through readings and discussions with my colleagues, I learned more about the
necessary elements of informational text, the different constructs it can take, and
how it should be implemented in different phases of project based learning. For
instance, in the reading and research phase, students are focusing more on
conducting extensive research on their topic whereas in the writing and research
phase, they may revisit their research and begin drafting their project. As a
result, in these phases, the instruction will inform students based on the needs of
that phase (ex. Teaching text graphics vs. writing process strategies).
• Thoughts on how you will use what you have learned from this book in your teaching
(either for this course or more broadly) or if you have already tried to use these ideas,
how did it go?
o I plan to use these ideas by drawing upon them in a variety of ways. To begin, I
will work collaboratively with my teaching team to plan a project based learning
unit surrounding an informational unit in reading and writing. It is important for
 us to ensure that we structure our curriculum so that informational reading and
writing units are taught at the same time or near one another so students can
have the greatest amount of impact. Furthermore, I would like to apply the
concepts from this book to narrative writing and our social studies unit at the
beginning of the year as we discuss who we are as learners, as a classroom
community, and as a school community.
• Your professional opinion on the book (what was useful).
o I found the reading & research phase and the writing & research phase chapters
the most useful because it helped me fill in some gaps in my understanding. I
appreciated the explicit layout of the needs that are presented in each phase and
how to teach or structure the classroom/students (such as needs based
grouping/strategy grouping) to maximize student’s learning outcomes.
• Whether or not you would recommend this book to others, and who you would
recommend it to.
o I would highly recommend this book to others due to the nature of the text, the
strategies it provides, and the research used to back up the ideas shared.

Section 2: Professional Reflection

• Discuss how your professional learning in TE 842 will impact your future teaching of
reading or other professional work as an educator.
o It will impact my future as an educator because I understand more about literacy
learning in these ways:
▪ Authentic PBL using nonfiction reading/writing
▪ Best practices for teaching early literacy and dual language learners.
▪ Strategies for teaching phonics, vocabulary and fluency - specifically
fluency
• I learned that when analyzing a running record, fluency may look
like a prominent goal but it may be present due to underlying
comprehension, background knowledge, or decoding skills that
need further development
• Perhaps you now think of children’s reading development differently and will apply this
learning in your teaching, perhaps there are areas of reading development or methods of
teaching that you have learned that you will now apply or perhaps this course reaffirmed
the work you are already doing. These are the type of reflections that are appropriate to
discuss.
o I will apply reading development or methods of teaching by:
▪ Analyzing my running record differently by creating strategic goals based
on their miscue analysis, as well as their background knowledge,
comprehension, and accuracy - how to decipher the differences in goals
that need to be addressed and how to address them
• Reflect on your reading instructional practices and beliefs at the beginning of the course.
How have they changed?
o I used to think strategies were isolated and should be targeted in isolation only
o Now I think it is possible to address one goal at a time, while still teaching to the
whole child as a literacy learner
o I used to think that grouping by level was the only best teaching practice
 o Now I think that by strategy grouping learners, you are helping each child reach
their full potential as a literacy learner
• Are there aspects of your teaching of reading that have been affirmed by course- related
experiences?
o Yes, by providing background information to ELLs, it helps them grow their
background knowledge and therefore comprehension. This gives you a more full
look at who they are as a reader, rather than creating goals based on what could be
assumptions
• Are there aspects of your teaching of reading that you are now questioning based on
course-related experiences?
o Yes I am questioning how I am assessing word study skills, what those
assessments are teaching me, and what goals I am creating based on these
assessments
Plan to continue: I will continue to learn more about reading assessments through professional
conferences regarding literacy instruction and assessments for lower-elementary teachers. This
will help me continue to develop an expertise in this area of study based on research of best
practices.

Goals:
-explore characteristics of effective reading assessment and instruction as identified in research
and described by respected reading researchers/practitioners
-develop expertise in the assessment and teaching of reading at elementary school level
-foster the translation of that expertise into tangible improvements of their teaching of reading