Since I have taken over ELA, this week I began teaching the novel Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings. (If you have not read it, I would strongly recommend it–it is a great book!). Red Kayak is taught every year as a part of the third quarter ELA unit, “Crossroads”. My coop has given me free rein to do whatever I wanted with this novel study, but did ask that I incorporate Google Classroom into the unit about every day. I wasn’t exactly sure if there was a best way to teach a novel study unit, but I soon realized that there isn’t “one right way”.
Luckily, my coop shared a bunch of resources for Red Kayak that both him and his last student teacher had found. This gave me a good place to start. When I introduced the book last week, it was during my edTPA lessons on identifying theme, meaning that now I have a lot more flexibility in my teaching. Because we had a long weekend with President’s Day off, I decided to first continue Red Kayak reading aloud Chapter 4 and then allowed them to read independently or with a partner. For homework, I had students answer a comprehension question on Google Slides. The first day was fine but with each day I teach, I see myself improving and thinking of new strategies to use in my lessons. After the first day, I decided to assign a worksheet with comprehension questions to accompany each night’s reading, along with a Google Classroom activity. Because students have to fill out the worksheet each night, I decided to make the Google activities about vocab. The first vocab assignment had students use two vocabulary words in two different complete sentences, while the second assignment had students creating a representation of a vocab word (a picture, meme, poem, etc. — anything they wanted!). Through next week, I hope to implement more creative activities, such as writing a letter from the point of view of the main character or having students create a text conversation between two characters. Although I was nervous to have free rein at first, it is allowing me to grow and try new things in the classroom, a crucial part of student teaching!