Reflecting on my Pre-Reading/Vocab Mini Lesson

Part of the scaffolding that I am experiencing as I create a unit for my education classes is gradually designing and teaching smaller mini-lessons from my unit. One of the most recent mini-lessons I taught to a group of my peers was centered around pre-reading and vocabulary instruction for a short story that will complement my unit.





The primary focus of my unit is to create an environment for my students to engage with narratives and storytelling through multiple lenses. Initially, the unit guides students through literary narrative so as to familiarize them with the language they already know or have been exposed to. (This is where my pre-reading mini lesson fit in!) Students will then use their prior knowledge of narrative vocabulary to bridge their understanding of storytelling to the idea of narratives in visual art and how those artistic narratives may be important to different group identities.


My mini-lesson asks students to work in groups to brainstorm definitions of words I know they have already been exposed to. Once these student-generated definitions are created, students have the opportunity to compare their definitions to my “teacher” definitions. After we review all of the terms, students will use their brainstorming sheets to identify examples of these vocab terms in the assigned short story. Narrative, figurative language, character, plot, setting, conflict, and point-of-view are all terms that will resurface in the context of storytelling in visual art.


I learned quite a lot about who I am as a teacher while I taught this mini-lesson. While I was creating my lesson plan I noticed that I was really getting excited about teaching my lesson! Not only was I really into making a detailed plan, but I also knew a lot about what I was teaching as well. In reflecting on this I have come to the conclusion that throughout my career as a future educator I have been teaching content and giving presentations here and there which have helped me build my communication skills, but never had I taught something in my specific content area before. I feel like a bit of a nerd admitting to the fact that I really loved creating English and art content to teach! That experience added to my building excitement surrounding having my own classroom soon.


Although my excitement to teach is through the roof, there are also many things that I could improve on. Throughout my lesson I was constantly thinking of how I could improve upon what I was doing, and that translated as me thinking out-loud while I was teaching. I am happy that I was striving for the betterment of my lesson, but if I were teaching an actual classroom of actual students I think that would have just confused them more. I also think that the resources I created (the vocab sheet) could have been better geared toward 7th and 8th grade students. Both the language I used and the formatting in that document could have been simplified for better understanding.


I learned that pre-reading is a process that requires many more steps than what I initially thought! If I want my future students to be as successful as they can be, I need to set them up for that success. I like the definition-generating model I used for this lesson and will probably recycle that format in the future.


The next steps for incorporating feedback from my first vocab/pre-reading mini lesson looks like a number of things: I need to simplify my created resources, I need to be clear in the instruction I give my students, and I need to reflect on my lessons privately. I feel like these three goals will move me in a positive direction as I prepare to teach two back-to-back mini lessons.


Both the creation of and the reflection on my mini lesson tie back to pillars of the SMC Education Department’s Mission Statement. The excitement that I have for teaching and getting better at communicating my practice demonstrates that I am a “passionate and curious scholar” in that I am ready and willing to devote myself to being a lifelong learner of best-practice. I am also a “reflective and contemplative practitioner” because I am constantly reassessing how I can convey information to my students in the best way I can.


Ultimately this experience is making me more and more excited to finally start teaching!