Teaching Activities

Work Portfolio

When designing my lesson plans, I focus on students’ learning needs and finding ways to address them. I recognize that students have different learning styles, strengths, interests, and levels of understanding. My goal is to move beyond traditional lecture based instruction by incorporating opportunities for collaboration, critical thinking, discussion, and hands on learning.

I aim to anticipate potential challenges, provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding, and create an environment that supports different learning needs. Whether it’s presenting a video, group discussions, or independant readings, each student should have the opportunity to engage with the material in a way that supports their learning.

Below are three lesson plans I’ve made and taught to a middle school class.

Mini-Lesson Plan- Prepositional Phrases

Summary
  1. Subject(s): English
  2. Topic or Unit of Study: Space Exploration
  3. Grade/Level: 7th Grade
  4. Standards:
    1. TA3.B
  5. Time Allotment: 49 Minutes
Planning
  1. Instructional Materials: Add the hyperlink to any of your materials
  1. Resources:
  • Seen in Instructional Materials 
  1. Five Pursuits: Which will you meet and how?
    – Skills: The lesson is focused on students practicing prepositions and prepositional phrases, with exercises, guided practice, and independent work. We use the I do, We do, You do structure for the lesson. 
  • Intellectual: Students aren’t just memorizing, they are analyzing sentences, identifying structures, and explaining their reasoning. 
  1. Objectives:
  • Students will be able to identify prepositional phrases in a sentence. 
  • Students will be able to write their own sentences and include a prepositional phrase. 

Tip: Have your students learned everything they need to know to complete this lesson? This might be a good time to review some previous lessons so that they feel prepared to learn something exciting and new!

Procedure
  1. Anticipatory Set – Hook (2 minutes)
  • When students walk in, they will look at the board and see that they need to grab their grammar book.  
  1. Instruction
    1. Beginning (5 minutes)
  • I will ask if they remember what a preposition is. “Does anyone remember what a preposition is?” After a student answers, we will revue what prepositions are on slides 2-4. Slide 4 has a list of prepositions which students can refer back to.
  1. Middle (20 minutes)
  • We will go over slides 5-9. We will follow an I do, we do, you do type of lesson. After learning what a preposition phrase is, I will demonstrate 2 practice questions. After, a student will come up to the board and underline the whole phrase and double underline the preposition. I will repeat the same thing for the compound prepositional phrases.
  1. Check for Understanding – Formative Assessment (15 minutes)
  • They will do Exercises 1-3 in their Grammar Workbook. They are given 10 questions to underline the phrase and double underline the preposition, 5 questions to underline the phrase and double underline the object. On the board I will show the slide with the different phrases, they also have a page in their workbook that has another list too. After they are done, we will go over them on the board. Students will come up and demonstrate what they got for an answer. If a student underlines the wrong word as a preposition, I will ask, “Remember, a preposition answers where, when, and which one.” If a student is still confused, I will ask another student if they can help out and explain why they got the answer. 
  1. Closing (5 minutes)
  • Students will write a sentence using a preposition phrase. We will read them out loud, and see if they are prepositional phrases. 

Reflection can be done on the Lesson Reflection 

Mini-Lesson Plan- Reading and Analyze

Summary
  1. Subject(s): English
  2. Topic or Unit of Study: Space Exploration
  3. Grade/Level: 7th Grade
  4. Standards:
    1. TA3.C
    2. CA3.B
  5. Time Allotment: 49 Minutes
Planning
  1. Instructional Materials: Add the hyperlink to any of your materials
  • Their reading textbooks
    • “Challenges For Space Exploration” -Argument by Ann Leckie
  • Introduction Slide: 4/14/2026 
  1. Resources:
  • Seen in Instructional Materials 
  1. Five Pursuits: Which will you meet and how?
    – Joy: they get to learn about space during the Artemis II mission. They are able to connect the text to real world events. 
  • Skills: Students are reading, annotation, learning vocabulary, and analysis.
  • Intellectual: Students think critically about text, and making connections. 
  1. Objectives:
  • Students will be able to analyze the author’s purpose, repetition, and tone. 
  • Students will be able to pick out evidence to back a claim for a future essay. 

Tip: Have your students learned everything they need to know to complete this lesson? This might be a good time to review some previous lessons so that they feel prepared to learn something exciting and new!

Procedure
  1. Anticipatory Set – Hook (5 minutes)
  • When students walk in they will look at the board and see that they need their reading textbook. I will start the lesson by connecting the text with the Artemis II mission. “What happened recently that was space related?”
  1. Instruction
    1. Beginning (5 minutes)
  • We will review the author’s purpose, tone, rhetorical devices, repetition, and grammar seen in the text. “Repetition is used to help drive a purpose or evidence into your head.”
  1. Middle (15 minutes)
  • I will read the first 3 paragraphs out loud, and after I will ask volunteers to read 2 paragraphs at a time. We will annotate the text by using the questions connected to the text. We will underline phrases that help connect the text with the vocabulary. “How was the word used in the context of the paragraph it’s in?” “How is repetition used, and how does it help the author’s point?”
  1. Check for Understanding – Formative Assessment (15 minutes)
  • We will do the three practice questions at the end of the text. It will be up on the board and students will raise their hand and explain the answer they think is right. As a class, they will raise their hand if they agree or not. Next, there are 5 analysis questions in which students are split up into 5 groups, each group will answer one question. 
  1. Closing (4 minutes)
  • I will ask the students, “Do you think we’ll live on Mars in the next 10 years?” Students will voice their opinion and may even use the text as evidence. 

Mini-Lesson Plan- Analyzing Argument

Summary
  1. Subject(s): English
  2. Topic or Unit of Study: Space Exploration
  3. Grade/Level: 7th Grade
  4. Standards:
    1. TA3.C
    2. CA3.C
  5. Time Allotment: 35 Minutes
Planning
  1. Instructional Materials: 
  • Their reading textbook
    • “Humans Need to Explore Outer Space” by Claudia Alarcón
  • Introduction Slide: 4/28/2026 
  1. Resources:
  • Seen in Instructional Materials 
  1. Five Pursuits: Which will you meet and how?
    – Identity: They are expressing their own reasoning as to if we should go to space. 
  • Skill: Practicing argument analysis, finding evidence, and summarization.
  1. Objectives:
  • Students will be able to analyze argument and rhetorical devices.

Tip: Have your students learned everything they need to know to complete this lesson? This might be a good time to review some previous lessons so that they feel prepared to learn something exciting and new!

Procedure
  1. Anticipatory Set – Hook (3 minutes)
  • When students enter, they will see that they need to get their reading textbook up on the board.
  1. Instruction
    1. Beginning (5 minutes)
  • I will ask for someone to summarize the text that they had read prior to the lesson. “Can someone remind me what happened in the text?”
  1. Middle (10 minutes)
  • We will go over important details that they’ve read. We will go over the argument, and evidence that the author used to back up their claim. “What is the author’s overall claim?” “What kind of rhetorical devices did the author use?”
  1. Check for Understanding – Formative Assessment (15 minutes)
  • Students will be in a group of 2 and answer one of the questions (questions are on Slide 2 of the introduction Slides). Each group will be given a number 1-5, there will be two groups that are given the same question. This way, I can see if students have different ways of thinking if their separated. We will go over them as a class with every group giving their thoughts.
  1. Closing (2 minutes)
  • I will ask them if they were convinced and what evidence made them think that way.