A very trying time

I feel as if I have been pulled through the ringer. I am fresh back today from my dad's farewell in Denver and I feel as if I am chasing my tail trying to catch up from a long absence. I really dislike being gone from school, and I think I have been gone far more this year already than I have ever expected. I have awesome kids though and know that with each new day, I will be given multiple opportunities to catch-up. I am emotionally stable. I feel at peace with his passing, though I am still sad. I will forever miss him and all that he is to me. I know he is still looking out for me in all I do and I am grateful for that.

Reflection of the past two weeks- really? Did I miss that many? Wow. Okay, so reflections of teaching the 11th grade English classroom- I feel like I have a great plan of attack for writing really crummy sentences and helping the kids develop solid paragraph structure. I believe we still have a ton of work to do, but the foundation is being laid and the work has been put in place. I will consistently refer back to my Sentence Prescriptions for writing and The Writing Guide by CASA. They need the information and they need to put it into practice. I have read through a few "corrected" paragraphs and we still have work, but at least I know where I need to move forward with them. We may spend a day going back through and making even more corrections than I had anticipated. All in due time. I hope to find that the smaller stuff will only support the bigger stuff as we move into dialogue and the Narrative Essay. I did not focus on the descriptive, so I will make sure to include small lessons on description this week. Writing my teaching thoughts is already helping to pull me back into my reality.

The not so good part of the lessons: the plan of attack for writing the prescriptions is to switch papers and allow multiple students to write on one piece of paper, different types of sentences about one topic. This worked really well with the exception that we ran out of time- future use for this day: we will not have bell work on that day and they will switch all hour. I had to break it up into two days, and that was a weak link in the process.

Reflections for teaching the 10th grade English classroom- I just have to say this and you will read this line over and over again- I love my Sophomores! They are bright, driven and totally into whatever it is I am teaching! It is a joy to not have the attitude and to see the interest as they accept the challenges I place before them.

We have been working on Ethos, Logos, and Pathos and have entered our next unity of Humanity. We are starting with "Contents of a Dead Man's Pocket" short 48 sec video. They had to use words to describe what they saw, what they heard and how it made them feel In 4 groups, we placed the word strips on the walls and determined the most common ideas. We then learned how to use one Google Doc cooperatively as we took the words from the walls and wrote them down every time they appeared. Once we finished this, I created a word cloud and we discussed the idea of theme: the life lessons taught in film, books, short stories. I believe they were amazed to see that they were able to pull multiple ideas from the video and all were applicable to the idea of theme. I am anxious for us to read the story and apply ethos, logos, and pathos to the literature as well as determine theme. We will then move into discussion circles and learn how to apply new thoughts and ideas to works of literature.

The not so great part of the lesson: I was not fully prepared to wrap the lesson up. I only came up with the idea for the word cloud and theme after talking the lesson over with Michele Charles, so really I don't have any regrets for this. I did find out that when using one doc, it helps to have kids write their names on the form to claim a spot for themselves. I loved this and will use it again in the future.

Plans for this class include a QR search for Author notes and a reading using Cornell Notes in order to have a deeper understanding of the story. I am excited to put this into action.

I hope I have fulfilled enough for the two week requirements. I am looking forward to my personal life calming down and hoping to see a growth with my students as we develop this year.

A harder week

I know many may be tired of seeing me in my sorrow, but it has totally affected me in everything I do. I have never in my entire life ever thought the death of my dad would have come so early and so totally unexpectedly. I know there are people out there that wonder why I did not take the time from work. I couldn't. I had to be where life is. I have to find my way and be brave. I cannot just stay home and cry....I am afraid of those emotions and I know that as I follow everyday, I will find my way out of this pain and the kids have totally helped me.

I have worn my heart on my face this week and they have felt my pain. They have offered me hugs, cards, flowers, candy, a place to just be and condolences in the multitude. They have given me something to smile about through the pain. I know I made the right choice to be here- even on the worst day, which happens to have been Thursday of all days....

I came in feeling off that day, and due to my own attitude and the kids feeling off, it just was not a great combination. Thursday so happens to be the day I chose to change it up and move kids around in the room. They do not do well with change, and I felt the rebuttal from such change, especially 6th hour. A handful would not stop talking, and would not allow others to complete their benchmark testing. The class as a whole was not happy with me, even though I made room for everyone and I was fairly excited about this idea. Today, however, I did not experience this as we had a pep assembly. I hope this gives us a re-boot next week. I hope next week will bring better things..

For the going-on's in the room, all classes took their benchmark. I did not go computerized due to grading issues with Renaissance, but I did pull the test from there, print it and gave them the test with a scan-tron. The mean of the classes were in the 60's, which was about where I had expected them to be after the summer. I did have a few higher and a few lower, but this seemed to be the average. I did grade them on a curve as they do not know all of the materials and we are just beginning to gain momentum, so this allowed for higher grades in the grade book. I know they will gain and I look forward to seeing such growth.

11th grade is working on improving their writing. I want them to learn how to organize a paragraph and how to stay on one topic. I want them to gather a thesis from this paragraph. They think it is an easy task, but I have a feeling they will find it challenging if they take the time to do it correctly. This will be due next Tuesday. Then we will discuss a poorly written paragraph and they will be allowed to change their own paragraphs, finding the mistakes and changing words to make their writings stronger. From here, they will move into short story and themes for different modes of writings.

10th grade is finishing up the Ethos, Pathos, Logos unit with persuasion posters. It will be interesting to see what the kids come up with. So far, they have some really great ideas and I look forward to seeing the completed projects. We will also move into short story and look for themes and ideas to write using the readings to support their work.

Bell work will start up again next week. I had every intention of doing so this week and was able to only apply it to one day. I am also slacking the 3 g's- I need to make sure I pull that together again. I think it is important for the kids to see the good things of the world and to present these ideas to everyone else. I will have to come up with a system that works.

 I have to admit I only have a slight idea as to what I will have them do while I am gone for three days....I will ponder this next week.

I only pray this weekend will be much better than the last...

Week of ELP and the thesis

I have spent so much time at the school as we have started rolling through the year. I am seeing changes in my room, and I know that every little layer that I have put into place in the first days will eventually start to pay off. I am already seeing it in my sophomore classes. They are incredible students, so willing to try new things and learn. I am very fortunate to be called their teacher. We are currently working through methods of persuasion if you are curious about the ELP...this is an acronym for Ethos, Logos, Pathos: methods of persuasion. We have watched videos, looked at ads, and we will begin the poster project next week to wrap the unit into a pretty little package. We will use these throughout the year as they approach all types of literature and writing essays.

My juniors and I are working our way around in the classroom. A class of 33 students packed into my 6th hour classroom like a can of sardines is a bit of a challenge, especially when I have several that are the best of friends, and they cannot seem to catch up on life outside of the classroom :) I do enjoy them, and I know that what I am teaching them will eventually click and start to move them in the right direction :) We are practicing the writing of strong thesis statements, which tends to be the hardest part to learn about writing- well aside from using complete sentences. They will get it. Thankfully, a few already do practice using complete sentences :) I love the texting world for this. The challenge is before me, and I embrace it :) We are making our way into writing a full essay while we explore the different modes of writing an essay.

The one area of change I am going to make: I need to set only one morning aside during every week for the 3 g's- the good news, good words, and good fun. This is a wonderful idea and would work wonderfully if I could get everyone on the same page where they come prepared to present everyday. As of right now, this is not happening, and the process is taking far too long. One of my sophomores pointed this fact out to me today when I announced that we are not presenting the 3 g's today due to the assignment time requirements, though I had already started the process of moving this to just one day...I love the student who speaks up and does what she can to make our classroom an efficient one. For the moment, we will present the 3 g's on Friday where we can look forward to them.

Even though I have had a wonderful week, I would be insane to say that I am not looking forward to the long weekend. I plan to spend a lot of time in my pool and with my family. I hope all will have a fantastic weekend and be ready to move Tuesday!