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...
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