observation during a professional development day

Above was our agenda for the teacher's meeting on
Feb.18th The food was plentiful and this made
me extremely happy.

      I attended my very first formal teacher’s meeting at a local high school in Saint Louis. What I mean by formal is, I was served food, there were lots of people there, administrators lectured. I had a pretty good time. I've  included in my private portfolio a description of the activity that was planned for the morning. Counselors sent each table of teachers a little black bomb (balloon). Inside we found a “unfortunate” circumstance reflecting an actual student that had previously attended a high school else where. There were no real names used of course, but, the events were accurately portrayed. Our small groups were to think and express to each other “how” we were to feel and interact realistically with school faculty. This was very entertaining to a novice like myself. However, the faculty sitting at my table were not nearly as enthusiastic.

      My cooperating teacher met with the English teachers during their workshop, to discuss the possibility of integrating their two subjects in future lesson plans. I developed a new lesson plan during this meeting that included the elements of text features within its objectives. I would never have thought to do so, if I had not participated in this meeting and learned that students attending this particular high school experienced significant difficulties identifying text features. When I was asked if I could realistically create a lesson plan that would teach text features, I enthusiastically obliged my colleagues. I wrote and submitted the lesson, “Song Cousins” after spending my lunch hour in the school’s library typing out my ideas.