Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

Lauran Herring, ECI 430, 11/1/13 Using Latin and Greek Roots to Find Meaning Grades 6-8 Academic Level Academic (regular) Context The national standards require that students, beginning in fourth grade, know common Greek and Latin roots and affixes and use this knowledge to analyze the meaning of complex words. So my students would already know some roots, this would be more of an overview and introduction to some new words. This would be a good introduction at the beginning of the year for vocabulary, and every week new roots and affixes could be added for weekly vocabulary. In this lesson. small groups of students will work together and use online resources to assist them in an inquiry based approach to discovering the meanings of some common Latin affixes(prefixes and suffixes) and roots. Then, each student will teach a particular affix/root and related vocabulary words to another group of students through a jigsaw exercise. Common Core Standards 6th grade

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.6.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., audience, auditory, audible). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.6.4c Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech 7th grade-

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., belligerent, bellicose, rebel). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.4c Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.4d Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary) 8th grade-

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.8.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., precede, recede, secede). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.8.4c Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech.

Student Objectives At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to: 1. define multiple words containing a common ancient root 2. infer the meanings of some common Latin roots 3. use their knowledge of word origins by creating original words using Latin roots.

Materials/Technology Resources

Book a day in the computer lab unless you have enough computers in your classroom (one for each group) Materials: o white board o projection screen and projector o small slips of paper or index cards (each with a list of four words that contain a common root) o rap video o hand-out: The Latin Root bene Concept Map o hand-out: Blank Concept Map o hand-out: Words Containing Latin Roots

Time Required 60-90 minutes Instructional Procedures Warm Up: Start with the rap video Instruction: Modeling an "inquiry approach" to discovering an ancient root's meaning:

Explain to students that today they will also be applying the meaning of "root" that refers to "the place where something begins" and will therefore be discovering some of the ancient Latin roots that long ago contributed to the formation of English words that they now encounter and use in their everyday lives.

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

Handout a copy of the The Latin Root "Pedis" Concept Map to each student and have partners or small groups of students (depending on the number of available computers in your room) find VT (Visual Thesaurus) definitions for each of the words listed in the outer bubbles of the map. Have students list VT definitions for these four words in their corresponding bubbles. Draw a similar concept map for "pedis" on the whiteboard and get students to call out definitions for the four "pedis" words in the outer bubbles. Write those definitions on the board and ask students: After looking at these definitions of words that all use the root "pedis" can we pull out a common meaning?" Confirm that the Latin root "pedis" means "good or well" and that students could infer that meaning based on the definitions for the 4 words they looked up.

*Note: If you have ESL students in your class that speak a Latin-based language, they can contribute to the discussion by offering related "pedis" words from their home languages. Determining the meanings of some common Latin roots:

If possible, now organize the class into small groups of the same number. Assign each student a number, and tell them not to forget it. Have all of the ones in a group, all the twos in a group and so forth. Explain to the class that each group will receive a blank concept map and a list of four words that contain a common ancient Latin root. It will be each group's job to use the VT to find the definitions for their words and to then decide on their root's meaning based on those definitions. Handout The Blank Concept Map to each student and a slip of paper or index card with a list of four related words written on it to each group. As groups define their four words and attempt to infer their common roots' meanings, circulate around the room and make sure that each group has correctly identified its root's meaning.

Sharing knowledge of "roots" through a jigsaw approach:

Reconfigure the small groups in the class so that each new group is formed with an "expert" representative from each of the prior groups. Have a one, two, three, four, five, and so on in each group. Direct students to each present his or her completed concept map for a Latin root from his or her previous group's work by displaying the concept map and describing the process by which the root's meaning was discovered or inferred.

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

Hand out the Words Containing Latin Roots worksheet and while individual students are presenting their root meanings and word definitions to their groups, their group members should take notes on the presentations. By the end of the class period, the entire class should have mastered all the assigned root meanings and word definitions.

Wrap-up: Combining roots to create original words:

Challenge students to create original words using some of the roots discussed in class in conjunction with one another or with another root they know or discover on-line (students could check out www.espindle.org/roots.html for a good list of ancient roots). Students will have fun making goofy words or serious words. Have students share these words with the class and describe their definitions.

Evaluation:

Groups' analyses of ancient roots' meanings can be assessed on accuracy and their use of the VT to validate their analysis. Students' understanding of specific roots presented in the jigsaw groupings could be easily assessed by giving the class a "roots quiz" to see how many roots they interpret correctly.

Resources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n7OLlQ6OtQ http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-prefixes-roots-andsuffixes/ www.etymonline.com www.espindle.org/roots.html http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/lessons/rooting-ones-way-tomeaning/latin_root_bene.pdf http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0907036.html

Extension Activity

Another fun way to use the Visual Thesaurus to further students' etymological knowledge would be to have them find some of their favorite words, or a list of

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

word you give them, on the Visual Thesaurus and to then research their etymological roots by consulting an online etymology dictionary (such as www.etymonline.com. Students could then compare the words' Visual Thesaurus definitions with the meanings of their composite roots. Reflection For my microteaching lesson several things went well, some things didn't go as well as I had hoped, and if I did it again I would make a few changes. I felt like I had a good introduction, the rap, and it definitely got my students attention. This rap helped to get my students' energy and excitement levels up and ready to learn and see what was in store for the rest of the lesson. I think I did a good job of teaching without lecturing or spoon feeding them the information. The students discovered the information on their own. I used many different tools for learning including group/partner work, web 2.0 tool, handouts, and concept maps. This factor enhanced my lesson and kept the students from getting bored. I felt like the idea of my lesson was good and very useful in every student's future. There were some things that didn't go as well as I had expected. I didn't take the time limit under enough consideration. I thought that I could get through a lot more material than I did and that is a very useful realization for my future lessons. I also, wasn't as comfortable as I wish I had been. This partially comes from the fact that I was teaching my peers and my teacher, people I see as equal and an authority figure. This made me much more nervous. If I was to teach this lesson again I would make a few changes. I would get much more comfortable with my material and not try to fit so much in to a short amount of time. I would keep the rap and focus on the students looking up and teaching each other the definitions. I also might add the dissection of a super long word so that students could identify how this lesson could help them in life/future. I would also try to keep the lesson flowing and not fidget or use "um" do much. Overall I think my lesson was pretty good but in the future it would need a few tweaks.

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

The Latin Root pedis Concept Map

Pedal

Pedicure

We think the common root means:

Pedestrian

Pedometer

Blank Concept Map

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

We think the common root means:

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

Words to Write on index cards/ slips of paper Also give this list to students so they can take notes when they do the Jigsaw activity

Words Containing Latin Roots

"Tempus" temporal extemporaneous contemporary temporary "Dict" "Ject" "Scrib"

contradict dictate diction predict

eject inject project reject

describe prescribe subscribe transcribe

"Vert"

convert divert invert revert

"Non" nonessential nonresident

Micro-teaching Lesson Plan and Reflection

postdate postwar postnasal postnatal

rearrange rebuild recall remake

submarine subway subsoil substandard

*Teacher note; Mal-bad; Pedis-feet/by foot; Tempus- not permanent; Dict-to say; Ject-to throw; Scrib-to write; Vert- to turn; Non- not; Post-after; Re-again/back/backward; Sub-under