Day 50: OK

Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Free Period (Worked on TWS)
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Seminar

The sophomores were pretty good about their discussions. There were a few students who didn’t have their homework done but they were still able to participate because I had them working in discussion groups. I think that the class does better as a whole when they talk in groups before talking in front of the class. I am wondering if maybe I should be timing their group discussions in order to eliminate some of the side conversations. I know that they pick passages to talk about with the class and then turn their attention to their friends to talk about things not related to the book. I am walking around trying to assess how each group is doing and they are not on task. The timer might give the process a little urgency. I also noticed that they stop talking when I stand near their groups. I am trying to listen in to their conversations but they stop talking. May be I should take myself out of the conversation completely. I wonder if they have the maturity and skills to do carry on a discussion by themselves. I wonder if I could steal a page from Dr. Grace’s book and just say “get in a circle, now talk, I’m just going to listen.” It just seems to me like the discussions function very much as they speak, I speak then they speak again. I would like to hear more of them and less of me.

The seniors are interesting. Sometimes they get a good discussion going between themselves and sometimes their discussions are like the sophomores. They speak, I speak and then they speak again. I do really like the questions that I am giving them over their reading. I am disappointed that some of the students didn’t do it. However, it isn’t due till they turn in the poetry portfolio and the students who didn’t have it done still managed to contribute to the discussion. At least they were honest in saying they didn’t do the work. I don’t think I am going to do anything about the fact they didn’t do the work. The only person they are hurting is themselves. In the end that just means they will have more work to do for the final project than everyone else. They also won’t be getting practice for the AP exam. I think I need to point that out to them though. Megan asked me today if they would be getting any practice for the exam. And I told her we were. She expressed concern that about the fact that they had done a lot of poetry and not a lot of test prep. I told her there would be a lot of poetry on the test and that unlike their last AP test, this one was much more about can you analyze something. I think I need to explain to them that the questions I am giving them over their reading is a practice for the test in some ways. I also need to talk about editing poetry. Justin asked how you edit poetry since it is feelings. I think I am going to take one of my poems I have edited in to show them an example. Then next week we are going to talk about meter because Hannah and Lauren were asking about that. I always feel like there are a million things I want to do and about 5 minutes to do them all.