Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Creative Writing
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Study Hall
Creative writing went well. All of the students worked in their groups on their group quest stories. My group managed to get 3 more pages written in our story. We should be done pretty soon and then we can work on editing. It is always amazing to me how much creating and on task work gets done in this class. I wish I could get my other classes to do this kind of work all the time. It is obvious that the difference is that this is a class where everyone is excited to be doing the work.
After creative writing I had the sophomores. They are working on Night now. They had read the first chapter and I tried to use their passage reflections to get a good discussion going. It didn’t go so well. The students seemed reluctant to share in the large group format. They also didn’t seem to have much to add to their classmates’ passages. I need to try something different next time. Meg suggested doing something similar to what I am doing with the seniors. Giving the sophomores a question to explore, then having them in groups discuss which of their passages best answer the question and of course what the answer is. Definitely sounds like a good to guide their discussion to me. Now I need to go through Night and figure out what I want them to consider in each chapter. So far their presentations have been very good. Maybe I can tie those in too somehow? I need to think about this more still. I have also noticed that the Holocaust Victim cards did not go over well. I had to explain to them several times how they were supposed to get two reflections out of their cards. They were very confused. I think they finally understood in the end though. I will have to try to explain it better to the next class. This was a good practice run.
The senior class had some good presentations. Again there was a range of presenting styles and comfort levels. There weren’t as many this time though and we had more time so we were able to get through them all and get to talk about the book. They picked some very strange passages to answer my question. I asked them to look at how Aurora Leigh defines poetry. They picked passages about greenery and dead mothers. I am not sure why they did that. There were plenty of other passages to pick from that said the words poetry, books, and words in them. I think this group may need more help in picking appropriate passages. I am going to see how they do with the second question now that they have seen how their passages will guide our class discussion and then go from there. Maybe I will do a workshop with them on how to address prompts like the ones they are doing over their reading.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Day 46: Research Projects Presented
Agenda-
Meeting
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Free Period
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Free Period
Today I saw two Night presentations. They both did very well. There was supposed to be a 3rd but one student was absent. I am going to have her present next class. After the presentations were done I assigned for them to read chapter 1 and 2 and do passage reflections for both in order to get them back on track since I was unable to assign these things last class Then I went over their final project with them. They seemed ok with it. There weren’t a lot of questions so I am hoping that means they understand everything. If they don’t then I am sure they will let me know as we go along. After I went over everything there wasn’t anything else to do so we played hangman with words from the Holocaust. It wasn’t the most appropriate use of our time but it got them thinking about some Holocaust terms that they knew well. It was also a fun way to keep them engaged in the topic. They had fun with it. I also allowed them to work on other things while we played and many of them did. It was better than just turning the class time into a study hall. The senior class went much better. Heidi and Kym were absent when I gave out the presentation assignment so I gave them the option to go on Friday. Shawna was absent today so she will also be presenting on Friday. The rest of the class did their presentations. Some of them were very good. Others were ok. Most of the students did a good job. They all knew their topic fairly well. Some were more comfortable talking about it than others. Lauren spent a lot of time just reading off her slides but Cam seemed to really know his stuff. Overall, I was happy with the work they put in. I was especially happy when Cam picked up on why I was having them do the project. That’s right, Elizabeth Barrett Browning talks about these topics you are presenting on extensively in her poetry. Congrats! After the presentations were over we went over what happened in their first reading assignment and we discussed some of the passages they looked at. It sounds like they all picked out some of the passages that I was thinking I wanted to talk about too. So again, I was very impressed with them. I am excited to see how tomorrow’s class goes. There will be more time tomorrow and fewer presentations so I am hoping to get more discussion about the book and about the poems they are working on.
Meeting
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Free Period
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Free Period
Today I saw two Night presentations. They both did very well. There was supposed to be a 3rd but one student was absent. I am going to have her present next class. After the presentations were done I assigned for them to read chapter 1 and 2 and do passage reflections for both in order to get them back on track since I was unable to assign these things last class Then I went over their final project with them. They seemed ok with it. There weren’t a lot of questions so I am hoping that means they understand everything. If they don’t then I am sure they will let me know as we go along. After I went over everything there wasn’t anything else to do so we played hangman with words from the Holocaust. It wasn’t the most appropriate use of our time but it got them thinking about some Holocaust terms that they knew well. It was also a fun way to keep them engaged in the topic. They had fun with it. I also allowed them to work on other things while we played and many of them did. It was better than just turning the class time into a study hall. The senior class went much better. Heidi and Kym were absent when I gave out the presentation assignment so I gave them the option to go on Friday. Shawna was absent today so she will also be presenting on Friday. The rest of the class did their presentations. Some of them were very good. Others were ok. Most of the students did a good job. They all knew their topic fairly well. Some were more comfortable talking about it than others. Lauren spent a lot of time just reading off her slides but Cam seemed to really know his stuff. Overall, I was happy with the work they put in. I was especially happy when Cam picked up on why I was having them do the project. That’s right, Elizabeth Barrett Browning talks about these topics you are presenting on extensively in her poetry. Congrats! After the presentations were over we went over what happened in their first reading assignment and we discussed some of the passages they looked at. It sounds like they all picked out some of the passages that I was thinking I wanted to talk about too. So again, I was very impressed with them. I am excited to see how tomorrow’s class goes. There will be more time tomorrow and fewer presentations so I am hoping to get more discussion about the book and about the poems they are working on.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Day 45: I'm Doing It All Now
Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Creative Writing
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Study Hall
In creative writing Mariah, Meg and I continued to work on our group quest story. I asked the class if they could use more time with their stories and all of the groups agreed that they could use more time. So I gave them another week. We all sent the rest of class working. The second set of sophomores did their presentations today. They were much better than the other class. Every group had something prepared and they were well done. The best one I think was Flynnpick’s music video. They did a really awesome rap. Ghost of Banquo acted their presentation out but it was very obvious to me that the only person who had any idea what was going on was Garrett. It seemed like he did most of the writing and the others were just taking direction from him. However, it was a good adaptation. They did a good job making it into a sci-fi action. I passed out to them all of their papers they need for the unit on Night that we are starting. I again got a lot of whining because of the projects they must create for. The students whose projects weren’t due the next class were even whining. I ended up having to tell them what projects are due when. And even then they continue to whine. I eventually gave up on them. I passed out the books and went over their homework assignment. They had time this time to talk about everything but just enough time. I did a much better job this time with timing. I was happy to see that we got everything in and that they got their homework assignments. With the seniors I did the same poetry activity I did the day before. The students did well with it again. I could see that they were surprised by which texts were poems and which weren’t. I think that this project will make their portfolios and their definitions of poetry interesting. I again assigned their projects, reading and a reading question. They handled the news even better than the last class. They were happy to get their projects so early. Plus once they saw that my plan was to front load the work in order to make it easier in the end, they were more willing to work. I think that all of the classes went well today.
Homeroom
Class: Creative Writing
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Study Hall
In creative writing Mariah, Meg and I continued to work on our group quest story. I asked the class if they could use more time with their stories and all of the groups agreed that they could use more time. So I gave them another week. We all sent the rest of class working. The second set of sophomores did their presentations today. They were much better than the other class. Every group had something prepared and they were well done. The best one I think was Flynnpick’s music video. They did a really awesome rap. Ghost of Banquo acted their presentation out but it was very obvious to me that the only person who had any idea what was going on was Garrett. It seemed like he did most of the writing and the others were just taking direction from him. However, it was a good adaptation. They did a good job making it into a sci-fi action. I passed out to them all of their papers they need for the unit on Night that we are starting. I again got a lot of whining because of the projects they must create for. The students whose projects weren’t due the next class were even whining. I ended up having to tell them what projects are due when. And even then they continue to whine. I eventually gave up on them. I passed out the books and went over their homework assignment. They had time this time to talk about everything but just enough time. I did a much better job this time with timing. I was happy to see that we got everything in and that they got their homework assignments. With the seniors I did the same poetry activity I did the day before. The students did well with it again. I could see that they were surprised by which texts were poems and which weren’t. I think that this project will make their portfolios and their definitions of poetry interesting. I again assigned their projects, reading and a reading question. They handled the news even better than the last class. They were happy to get their projects so early. Plus once they saw that my plan was to front load the work in order to make it easier in the end, they were more willing to work. I think that all of the classes went well today.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Day 44: Final Projects and Aurora Leigh
Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Free Period
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Free Period
Today the sophomores presented their final projects. I was fairly impressed with two of the projects. However, one group wasn’t prepared to present and another group you could tell rushed putting it together. It was obvious that group didn’t have good team work and hadn’t practiced. After the presentations were done, I started passing out the things for our next unit. We are doing Night. They weren’t entirely impressed with the idea that 3 of their classmates had presentations due the next class period. However, I know that the class will do just fine with this project no matter what order they go in. Unfortunately, we spent too much time on the Macbeth presentations and then on figuring out the Night presentations they are going to have to do. That left no time to really talk about their homework assignment, their final project or pass out the book. I will have to go over these things next class. I also started a new unit with the seniors. They are doing presentations as well except they will all be going at the same time and theirs will be over the Victorian time period. Their unit is on poetry. I am having them read Aurora Leigh. First, I did a short activity where they defined poetry and in groups decided if texts I put in front of them were poetry based on their definition. Then we looked at two different types of poetry definitions, value definitions and feature definitions. I revealed to them which texts were poems and which weren’t. We went over their presentations, then we talked about the questions I want them to answer after every reading assignment and I gave out the books. We had some class time left so I allowed them to work on their Victorian time period presentations. Overall, this lesson went well. I could see the wheels in their heads turning as they tried to define poetry. I could see them trying to figure out an answer to the question and realizing how very subjective it all is. At first they were a little whiny about all of the work they were expected to have done for the next class but then they realized that it wasn’t really all that much and that in the long run, doing the work now would make their projects easier. I think they are getting used to the idea of studying poetry.
Homeroom
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Free Period
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Free Period
Today the sophomores presented their final projects. I was fairly impressed with two of the projects. However, one group wasn’t prepared to present and another group you could tell rushed putting it together. It was obvious that group didn’t have good team work and hadn’t practiced. After the presentations were done, I started passing out the things for our next unit. We are doing Night. They weren’t entirely impressed with the idea that 3 of their classmates had presentations due the next class period. However, I know that the class will do just fine with this project no matter what order they go in. Unfortunately, we spent too much time on the Macbeth presentations and then on figuring out the Night presentations they are going to have to do. That left no time to really talk about their homework assignment, their final project or pass out the book. I will have to go over these things next class. I also started a new unit with the seniors. They are doing presentations as well except they will all be going at the same time and theirs will be over the Victorian time period. Their unit is on poetry. I am having them read Aurora Leigh. First, I did a short activity where they defined poetry and in groups decided if texts I put in front of them were poetry based on their definition. Then we looked at two different types of poetry definitions, value definitions and feature definitions. I revealed to them which texts were poems and which weren’t. We went over their presentations, then we talked about the questions I want them to answer after every reading assignment and I gave out the books. We had some class time left so I allowed them to work on their Victorian time period presentations. Overall, this lesson went well. I could see the wheels in their heads turning as they tried to define poetry. I could see them trying to figure out an answer to the question and realizing how very subjective it all is. At first they were a little whiny about all of the work they were expected to have done for the next class but then they realized that it wasn’t really all that much and that in the long run, doing the work now would make their projects easier. I think they are getting used to the idea of studying poetry.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Day 43: Accreditation, Again
Agenda-
Accreditation
We spent the day trying to figure out what everyone still needed for their evidence boxes as well as assigning ourselves jobs for when the visiting team comes. It was a pretty uneventful day. I got to talk to some of the other staff though. That was kind of interesting. I think they are starting to get used to seeing me around. I have been pretty shy with many of the other adults in the building. Sometimes it just takes me a while to make friends. I should try to be more outgoing.
Accreditation
We spent the day trying to figure out what everyone still needed for their evidence boxes as well as assigning ourselves jobs for when the visiting team comes. It was a pretty uneventful day. I got to talk to some of the other staff though. That was kind of interesting. I think they are starting to get used to seeing me around. I have been pretty shy with many of the other adults in the building. Sometimes it just takes me a while to make friends. I should try to be more outgoing.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Day 42: First Teacher Workshop Day Where We Weren't Doing Accreditation
Agenda-
Civil Rights Presentation
Lunch
Budget Discussion
Writing Across the Disciplines Presentation
is a teacher workshop day. Almost all of the teachers from the district were at our school today. The first thing we had to attend was a presentation about civil rights. This was the same presentation that I saw on Monday. Yay! Repeats. Except this time only the assistant district attorney gave the presentation. I have to say that it was a little more boring this time around. I knew all of the answers and this guy isn’t as funny as his cohort. I spent the time drafting essential reading questions for the seniors over Aurora Leigh, doodling, and making lists of things. I don’t know why I write lists. I hate them because I always feel like I don’t finish them. Anyway, after the presentation was over we had lunch and I helped Meg and Deb put together some packets for their presentation, Writing Across the Disciplines. We decided Meg was Batman, Deb was Robin and I was Batgirl. It was kind of hilarious. Then I went and listened to Dr. Tom, the superintendent of RSU 10 talk about the budget for the coming year. It isn’t looking good right now. They are looking to retain the teachers they have and if teachers retire they are looking to not fill those positions. Things were feeling a little bleak for me in terms of getting a job after I graduate. I imagine that many schools are in the same boat. The conversation was disheartening and boring. I found myself trying to stay awake. After that though I saw the Writing Across the Disciplines presentation. It had to be trimmed down because the budget conversation went too long, but it was still good. Meg and Deb did an awesome job. I liked their ideas. Writing is an important part of communicating and it really should be a part of what every teacher does in their classroom.
Civil Rights Presentation
Lunch
Budget Discussion
Writing Across the Disciplines Presentation
is a teacher workshop day. Almost all of the teachers from the district were at our school today. The first thing we had to attend was a presentation about civil rights. This was the same presentation that I saw on Monday. Yay! Repeats. Except this time only the assistant district attorney gave the presentation. I have to say that it was a little more boring this time around. I knew all of the answers and this guy isn’t as funny as his cohort. I spent the time drafting essential reading questions for the seniors over Aurora Leigh, doodling, and making lists of things. I don’t know why I write lists. I hate them because I always feel like I don’t finish them. Anyway, after the presentation was over we had lunch and I helped Meg and Deb put together some packets for their presentation, Writing Across the Disciplines. We decided Meg was Batman, Deb was Robin and I was Batgirl. It was kind of hilarious. Then I went and listened to Dr. Tom, the superintendent of RSU 10 talk about the budget for the coming year. It isn’t looking good right now. They are looking to retain the teachers they have and if teachers retire they are looking to not fill those positions. Things were feeling a little bleak for me in terms of getting a job after I graduate. I imagine that many schools are in the same boat. The conversation was disheartening and boring. I found myself trying to stay awake. After that though I saw the Writing Across the Disciplines presentation. It had to be trimmed down because the budget conversation went too long, but it was still good. Meg and Deb did an awesome job. I liked their ideas. Writing is an important part of communicating and it really should be a part of what every teacher does in their classroom.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Day 41: Student Led Conferences
Agenda-
Student Led Conferences
Today there weren’t any classes as all of the homeroom teachers were being required to hold student led conferences. Meg ran the conferences I observed and worked on my Night and Aurora Leigh units. I figured out what I want to require for both and created a rubric for the poetry portfolio. The conferences went fairly well. You could tell that the students that were doing the best were the ones whose parents were the most involved. The students who were failing had parents who had no idea what was going on at school. However, they really seemed to care that their students do well. They were all disappointed that their child wasn’t doing well. All of the conferences went fairly well. The parents liked knowing how their student was doing and liked the feedback on how their child could do better. One conference I was especially impressed with the parent. Meg told her that her son was very smart but that from what she can tell he is just bored and that is why he isn’t doing so well. The parent liked hearing that and agreed her son could do much better. Then Meg started talking about summer school as an option for making up failed classes. And mom said “You’ll be paying for that.” All I could think was, “Go, mom!” Maybe if more parents made their kids pay for summer school they would be more reluctant to go. One student and parent didn’t show up. This particular student is not doing well and tends to get in trouble a lot. It is too bad really that he didn’t come to the conference.
Student Led Conferences
Today there weren’t any classes as all of the homeroom teachers were being required to hold student led conferences. Meg ran the conferences I observed and worked on my Night and Aurora Leigh units. I figured out what I want to require for both and created a rubric for the poetry portfolio. The conferences went fairly well. You could tell that the students that were doing the best were the ones whose parents were the most involved. The students who were failing had parents who had no idea what was going on at school. However, they really seemed to care that their students do well. They were all disappointed that their child wasn’t doing well. All of the conferences went fairly well. The parents liked knowing how their student was doing and liked the feedback on how their child could do better. One conference I was especially impressed with the parent. Meg told her that her son was very smart but that from what she can tell he is just bored and that is why he isn’t doing so well. The parent liked hearing that and agreed her son could do much better. Then Meg started talking about summer school as an option for making up failed classes. And mom said “You’ll be paying for that.” All I could think was, “Go, mom!” Maybe if more parents made their kids pay for summer school they would be more reluctant to go. One student and parent didn’t show up. This particular student is not doing well and tends to get in trouble a lot. It is too bad really that he didn’t come to the conference.
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