Inside the Classroom: Melissa Garcia - Carter Elementary
Inside the Classroom: Melissa Garcia - Carter Elementary
Inside the Classroom is a series that visits Northwest ISD campuses throughout the year and highlights the magical moments that happen between teachers and students each and every day across the entire 234 square miles of NISD.
One of Northwest ISD’s core priorities is centered around literacy and that the district will “provide personalized learning experiences and cultivate the growth and achievement of every student.”
That growth in literacy is evident throughout the district every day. For this week’s edition of Inside the Classroom, we are taking a first-hand look as we go inside of Melissa Garcia’s fourth-grade classroom at Carter Elementary.
At Carter, fourth-grade teachers are “partnered,” meaning Ms. Garcia teaches English language arts and social studies to her homeroom students, as well as Erica Bourland’s homeroom students. Meanwhile, Ms. Bourland teaches math and science to those students.
On the Tuesday afternoon that we visited Ms. Garcia’s classroom, students are studying character traits and making claims that they back up with evidence, utilizing their class read aloud book, “The Tiger Rising” by Kate DiCamillo.
As students return from recess, Ms. Garcia instructs them to have their reading journals ready for today’s lesson. She doesn’t refer to the children as students, she only refers to students individually by their name or collectively as readers. These readers are eager to jump into the lesson as they settle in for an afternoon of literacy instruction.
Next, Ms. Garcia passes out strips of paper with quotes from “The Tiger Rising.” Students read the quote, then use knowledge of the characters and their traits to determine who the dialogue is associated with.
Spread around the room are pictures of the book’s main characters. Readers patiently wait for their name to be called to take their quote to the poster of Rob, Sistine, Rob’s father or Billy and Norton, and tape their quote next to the character where it belongs.
Ms. Garcia’s readers then gather in the front of the class and she models how they will fill out their journal. In pairs, readers will visit a poster and make claims about traits their character exhibits then provide evidence to support their claims.
As readers gather around their poster and discuss their claims and evidence with their partner, Ms. Garcia visits each group to check in and provide guidance. As readers discuss, they write their findings in their journal.
To keep traffic down in the classroom, only half of the class is directed to a poster. The remainder of the class sits at their desk and reads a book of their choice. However, they aren’t just reading, Ms. Garcia instructs them to “read intensely.”
After Ms. Garcia is happy with the progress she is seeing in journals; the readers switch and those that were reading intensely, visit a poster and vice versa.
Once every reader has completed their journal entry, they return to the front of the room to share their findings. After listening to a partner who studied the same character, readers find a new partner who studied a different character.
These Carter Coyotes are incredibly respectful throughout the entire process. Those who are sharing their findings are getting the complete and undivided listening attention of their partner.
In less than one hour, Ms. Garcia’s readers have further connected with the characters of “The Tiger Rising” and also built stronger bonds with classmates.
“Reading gives us a place to go when we have to stay here” — that’s the inspirational quote on a sign in Ms. Garcia’s class, and her readers are loving every minute of their literacy journey.
Check back regularly all year as we continue to visit students and teachers throughout Northwest ISD and offer a rarely seen look Inside the Classroom.