Ten Minute Lesson on Woody Guthrie: A Reflection

I was less nervous doing this lesson than I was for my assignment of teaching the trumpet. Still, I cannot say I was fully confident in my ability to deliver the best 10 minutes of my lesson.  The reason is not the obvious, i.e., not being comfortable with the material, but rather the opposite - I had difficulty deciding what my 10 minutes should focus on.  While I had heard of Woody Guthrie and learned the song This Land Is Your Land as a child, I did not know that Guthrie wrote the song and just how important an American musical figure Guthrie was.  I quickly found out, and really enjoyed learning about him, his life, and his music.  Plus, I have always loved Dorothea Lange"s WPA photos of the Dust Bowl era and was familiar with the Grapes of Wrath, having read the book and seen the movie. I quickly realized that Woody Guthrie was the missing link in my own body of knowledge on the subject. I decided to use the 10 minutes to focus on the song, This Land Is Your Land, exploring why it was written and discuss the lyrics according to a lesson plan I found via the Woody Guthrie Learning Center.  Going on the assumption that the class has already heard the song in a previous lesson, and learned a bit about Guthrie, I made the lyrics of the song the main part of the lesson.  One of the great takeaways from our instrumental 5 minute lessons I learned is that you cannot do everything in such a small space of time.

I chose to incorporate teaching strategies that I was learning in my reading content class, and settled on the KWL (Know/Want/Learned) method found in our text, 50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy. With this method, I could organize my 10 minutes by listing with the class what we already knew about Woody Guthrie, what we wanted to know, and then summarize what we learned. Even with this structure, I felt that I could have been more organized.  I played This Land Is Your Land, and now reflecting, I think the time would have been better spent playing the 4 minute video biography I had found on Youtube instead. Then I would of had time to summarize the lesson and have the class share what new information they learned.

 Also, feedback from a classmate was helpful. I had a small activity I could have given the class while I wrote on the board.  I had it in my packet, but did not know what to do with it.  Now that I know the value of having an activity, especially  as exemplified by classmate Rayene's great job teaching her lesson,  I will develop that part of my lesson more. I am glad that I will have a chance to do this lesson over.  I think it will be much improved with the feedback I received from my classmates and instructor.

I should mention that I was the second person to teach my to teach lesson, and that was challenging because I would not have the benefit of learning from my classmates.  I think having a clear teaching strategy helped me not worry too much about being one of the first.  My suggestion to those classmates who have not yet presented their lesson would be to find a teaching strategy that fits your content.  That alone will be a big help in getting through your 10 minutes of fame!

Source:
Fisher, D., Brozo, W. G., Frey, N., & Ivey, G. (2015).  50 Instructional routines to develop

            content literacy, 3^rd edition.  Boston, MA: Pearson.