Day 63: I'm Impressed

Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Free Period
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Free Period

I collected the last of the projects from the sophomores today. They had some very interesting pieces and I am looking forward to reading them. The other class did such a good job that I can only expect that this class will be just as good, if not better. There was a member of the visiting team in this class. He was super impressed with the project. Yay! My class rocks! I already knew that though. I found an email from a parent in my inbox when I woke up. It was from a parent of a student in the other class. I found out later that it was about the project. The parent was concerned about the amount of work and how late the kids were up working on it. We were able to walk away understanding each other and feeling everyone was treated fairly. I think though that if I ever do this assignment again I will have them do one reflection on the research presentation project, one reflection on their Holocaust Victim, one reflection on a classmate Victim Card, 3-5 genres, and then essential questions like I did with the seniors rather than passage reflections. I think that I would have more specific due dates for the genres too. Many of the students put these off till the last minute and it was because of this that they had so much trouble with the project.

The seniors turned in their projects as well. I started grading them during the breaks and was impressed with the number of good grades I got. They did really well on this project! I was interested to see how many of the seniors spoke highly of Browning despite the fact that they did not like Aurora Leigh. I didn’t think they would. I was also impressed to see that many of the seniors went and picked poems of their own choosing rather than use ones I had read to them in class. They didn’t need to do the extra work but they did. I am proud of them.