Sample Lesson Critique

Sample Lesson Critique

The sample lesson in poetry is interactive and informative for the students. This lesson gave the students the important concept of using words from an existing text and “scrambling” them to create a new composition. This is a great learning experience for creating poems-or any written work- with a base of words and phrases. This teaches the students to utilize their existing vocabulary and knowledge, and pull up what they already have and transfer it to a new work.

I approved of the lesson planner’s book choice because it was a simple and stimulating book so the students focus was not distracted from the task at hand.

The lesson was well planned and the materials helped clarify the students’ requirements. The teacher scaffolded by starting with reading aloud and then with modeling. She then progressed in to pairing the class with partners to work on the assignment. Also, having the children share their works with the class is always helpful for everyone else to hear their ideas.

By putting a definition to the term “found poetry”, the students clearly understand the term and the task.

The activity where the children formed a circle involves the students in a fun and interactive way without taking away from the focus of the activity at all. I like how the students can be rearranged, thus rearranging the poem. By continuing to use the poem that the class created, the class as a whole feels that they made something special and that the poetry they learned about is actually useful.

The lesson itself was quite well done, but one overall critique- I think that the concepts in the lesson and the required task would be too hard for the grade levels listed. To me, it would seem to be closer to a fourth grade level lesson.