1. I am Beth Cunningham, a Fourth Grade teacher at Ridgeview Elementary. I attended Sulphur
Spring Elementary and graduated from Daniel Boone High School. I received my Bachelor of Science in
Education degree from East Tennessee State University, and received my Master of Education degree from
Tusculum College. I previously taught at Sulphur Springs Elementary for ten years in 6th-7th grades and
Kindergarten. Since moving to Ridgeview in 2009, I have had the pleasure of teaching 4th grade. I am proud to
be a Ridgeview Raptor! I am a life-long resident of the Gray Community. I have been married for twelve years to
Mike, and we have three children that also attend Ridgeview Elementary. Austin is in 5th grade, Avery is in
Kindergarten, and Alex attends the Pre-K program.
Today, I will continue teaching my students “Author’s Purpose” through engaging them in Shift 4 of English
and Language Arts/Literacy. During this shift, my students have become familiar with the increased emphasis on
close reading and textual evidence in the Common Core State Standards and classroom practices that foster
these. The Common Core State Standards set expectations for students to read text carefully, attend to details,
follow the line of arguments, and cite details from the text to support their conclusions. Today, my students are in
their learning communities engaged in evidence based conversations to determine the Author’s Purpose of
writing.
- Group “A” is actively engaged in a “close read” with the teacher through the use of iPad’s. The
iPad’s were gained through a grant from the QUEST Foundation. The students will scan a QR code from the
Smartboard to determine the reading passage; they will incorporate this file into a PDF file which allows the
students to Annotate during the close read activity. The teacher will be the facilitator asking Higher Order
Thinking (HOT) questions and textual evidence through-out the passage.
- Group “B” is independently engaged in reading the newspaper to determine the Author’s Purpose of
an article of his/her choice. They will draw conclusions based on evidence from their reading, and re-create the
article in his/her writing journal using a different type of Author’s Purpose.
- Group “C” is actively engaged in sorting through Scholastic Book Orders and charting the Author’s
Purpose – to Persuade, Inform, or Entertain.
- Group “D” is independently reading a Non-Fiction passage from the computer to determine the
Author’s Purpose. He/she will be charting information and writing a summary of the passage in their writing
journal.