Journals

This is a place to put our journal entries. This is really interesting but I can't tell whose journal entry is whose. Maybe we should post these under discussions so we can keep track of them?

9/13/2010

ACS Block 2: Did a word wall. It was really interesting. I put up four signs ( advertisement, entertainment, history, freedom, which are the themes for this class) and printed every vocab word out on orange paper. I asked the students to line up by the last movie that they watched and put them in pairs that way. Each group was given a handful of words to place in the category they thought it should go it. I gave them seven minutes to do it and they seemed to all be complete in that amount of time. We discussed a few of the words. After this almost half of the class went to the computer lab to finish a paper that they didn’t turn in. I supervised them while the other half of the class watched and talked about a youtube video. English Skills: Began by turning in Homework. I did a vocab lesson. Picked 10 words from the list we created and defined them by using a laptop on an overhead projector. Because the words weren’t terribly difficult the students had no problem brainstorming ideas. The problem came when we had to narrow it down to one definition. Although the lesson went really well it was way longer than it should have been and the students started to fall apart at the end. ACS Block 4: Same general agenda as the last class but the difference being that these students are calm. They really enjoyed the activity and seemed to get a lot out of it. We talked about the power words have over our culture. Conferenced with Lisa this morning. I seem to have either misunderstood or meg’s email worked like a charm. She asked me to plan with her today and explained that over the next few weeks I will be taking over mini lessons as well as doing vocab. Up the anti so to speak…. Note to self:GSA meeting next monday!! Don't forget!!

09/13/10

Creative Writing:

Led a discussion on a very interesting short story entitled Love Is A Fallacy. I went over the reading questions that came with the reading. It's amazing to me how willing Honors students are to participate. I never once had to call on a volunteer. We discussed the process of writing short fiction: how to end a story, how to incorporate dialog, and how to create your own voice as a writer. I tried to ask the kids broader questions such as Is this even a good story? What makes it good? Do protagonists always need to be likable? They seemed to respond very well and I can't wait to work with them tomorrow.

English 10 Block 2 and 3

Today the students spent most of their time working in groups and a quiz so I didn't get anytime to teach. Marie had me review the vocab words with them right before the quiz and that was it. The rest of the class was really student driven. I had an interesting (and revealing) conversation with her about our upcoming plans for 1984. I asked her about why she assigned 100 pgs due at the end of the week instead of spacing it out. She said it was all a "trick" really. If she assigned 100 pgs then the kids on average would at least read 50 or so. A trick? I don't think my style of teaching involves "tricking" anyone. Why manipulate kids and there homework? I think we need to be upfront with our students and say hey this is important and worthwhile. If you don't come prepared then you're going to miss out on a lot. I was shocked by the lack of expectations in this class. I think I'm going to write up an entire OP on this conversation and the implications of what my coop teacher said to me.

Overall a good day. I met with both my coop teachers and have a better idea about where I'm going and what I plan to do. I also found out that during my solo period in Creative Writing I'll get to cover poetry! Woo hoo! Slam poetry here we come...

9/14/2010 Block 2 American Cultural studies In block 2 american cultural studies class there is a foreign exchange student from the middle east. He is amazingly bright but seems to only ask question to me or Lisa as opposed in front of the class. He speaks very clear english and often contributes to the dialouge. I wonder if this is something to do with his culture? SPA- Split students into groups of three and asked them to come up with questions about the up coming assignment. Although many of the students did come up with questions many disregarded the task. Instead of an assigned due date Lisa talked to the kids about how long they think they would need.

English Skills- Poetry Lesson, put up poem with no conventions or line breaks and asked the students to write it out like a poem. Went over the grammar one step at a time, talking about the rules for each. Did a status check. Many students are losing focus with their independent writing I think.


 * The kids seem a little off, I am wondering if it is the upcoming homecoming weekend. Most seem to be a little extra mouthy and definant.

09/14/10

B.2 The kids were incredibly difficult to work with today. I started off the class with a writing prompt that asked: Describe a time in your life when you felt powerless. I thought it was simple, straight forward, but effective. As I've learned in the past...when you teach nothing goes as you planned it to. All of my students were incredibly reluctant and thought the question was way too personal. Many of them wouldn't even write their answers down for fear that I'd make them talk. I didn't want to make them uncomfortable so I simply tied the question into the theme of power and went from there.

This class is by far my hardest to work with. I feel as if the majority of my time teaching is spent quieting kids down. I'm genuinely nice to the kids and try and talk to them like human beings but theres a difference between being friendly with the kids and being walked all over. I don't want to turn into that mean teacher but I knew going into student teaching that discipline would be my hardest challenge. If the kids know they can get away with talking (because the only form of punishment I have is to tell them to stop talking) what else can I do?

FURTHERMORE, Marie has clearly sent the message that 1984 is not only "a hard mountain to climb" but that it's okay to only read 20 or so pages when she clearly assigned 100. She's completely set me up for failure and I'm reigning in this unit plan as best as I can. Because even though, to her, she thinks the kids won't read... at the end of the day I'll be teaching them this unit so I WANT them to read and expect that they will. After today I feel incredibly lost. I have no idea where to take this unit of 1984. It's been dropped in my lap with a huge pile of pre made lesson plans and a lot of vague direction. I'm trying to think of fresh, innovative ideas that can connect this book to their lives but there's no consistency since this unit isn't following any sort of theme or essential question.

My fear is that Marie expects something great. But under the circumstances I find myself in (planning things day by day and very last minute) I can't produce the quality I could have if I had a month or even a full week to plan properly. Sigh...

9/15 We started Huck Finn today. Lisa asked the kids to look at the book and say things that they noticed. The students came up with quite a list which addressed many of the things that are important about the book such as the fact that the book is written in dialect. There are three students in my class that I am very concerned about with this book. One has 400/20 sight and the text is impossibly small. The other two do not speak much English, and one less than the other. That particular student did not understand anything from the book. I wonder how to address these problems. It is very interesting that Lisa is choosing to read the book out loud. The students continued to work on their vignettes. Many of the students were not working. I think this is because they idea that they have to write about an object is hung up in their heads and few of them can think of one object to write 15 vignettes about. The fact that I am not sure that I understand the assignment makes me feel bad for the students when they say they don’t understand.

ES: In this class I had a lot of trouble calming three particular students down. They were working in a group when Lisa steped out. I warned them multiple times and finally gave up and said that if I have to speak with you one more time I am sending you to ISS. PLC: Did a writing on demand workshop. Very cool writing exercises. Concerns: I am concerned that Lisa is letting kids fail. I have asked her and she got really defensive, its just that she assumes that if a kid doesn’t do it they don’t want to. Its not ok with me.