I don't know what's happened to the year so far, but I'm having a lot of trouble with the fact that March is almost over...
I feel like just yesterday I looked at the calendar (provided by my CT as a Christmas present and it's wonderful, you guys) and it said "January". Now, I'm facing down a colloquium that's due in three weeks and the end of my spring semester at UNH. HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED?! Graduation from UNH is in under two months! Granted, I'm still going to be taking some courses over the summer, but I'm walking in May.
I don't want to leave my internship. I may have had some ups and some downs, but I love this whole teaching thing. Fingers crossed that I get a job doing this next year (although... not teaching means a trip to Food and Wine festival with my dad and a few others in October...).
I just finished my second solo week and it went well. We're chugging along nicely toward the end of the year. Children's Lit is just finishing up their unit on fantasy stories and will be transitioning into fairy tales next week. British Lit just finished Frankenstein and is moving into the Romantic poetry before we finish that unit and move into the Victorian era. I'm really excited for what I have planned for the Victorian time period. I had to be creative because I don't want to spend too much time on it, even though it's my favorite era, because I want to get to 1984 before the end of the year.
The colloquium is coming together. It's outlined, but not typed, and I've got a couple more elements to finish up. I want to use an entire quarter of assignments in my data set, so I'm waiting until grades are official to crunch those numbers. Grades close Friday, so I should be able to have numbers done and explained by the end of next week.
What's killing me is my class in Manchester. I'm really struggling to get everything done for that class. But it has to get done somehow, right?
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
A World of My Own
I know it's been a while since my last update. I've found that teaching two classes gives me much less time for reflection on my experience because I spend more time reflecting on my lessons, which isn't something I'm very inclined to do on this blog.
That said, right now I'm working on two of my favorite stories. Children's Literature is reading Alice in Wonderland and British Literature is tackling Frankenstein. I love both of these stories deeply.
Anybody who knows me well would be able to tell you that Alice is my favorite story. It's such clever nonsense that the book manages to entertain my again and again. It's absolutely wonderful to see my students experiencing the same enthusiasm (for the most part) for a book that I enjoy. It's been mountains of fun helping them work through the jokes that Carroll weaves into his text. Some definitely went over their heads, but then, I don't know that I expected them to get some of these jokes. A true understanding of about half of Carroll's jokes require an understanding of life in the Victorian era, which these students don't have because we're not a traditional literature class. I've given them some instruction, but for the most part, we've been looking at how Alice is a fantasy story and what makes it appropriate for children. We did have a tea party last Friday, though. I definitely enforced Victorian tea rules (the students weren't very happy about that).
As for Frankenstein, this novel just fascinates me to no end. Not only is it by a female author, but it's one of the first modern novels ever written AND it's science fiction. Mary Shelley adds so much detail to her text describing characters and their motivations. We're reading the novel in conjunction with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" because of the influence that poem had on the creation of the novel. We've also looked into the story of Prometheus in Greek mythology because the subtitled to Frankenstein is The Modern Prometheus. We are just about halfway through the novel right now and a lot of my students are amazed at how much they're liking the story.
I'm still struggling with one of my students. It's like he's just completely given up on doing any work and I really wish I knew how to help him. I know that he's capable of doing the work that I assign--he managed it last semester--but now it's like he's protesting me. Even if I give my class time to do their work in-class, he'll sit there and just stare at the blank page rather than even try. It's very frustrating. And the worst part is, he's not going to pass the class if he keeps this up. He's already failing beyond hope for this quarter (grades close in two and a half weeks) and once I put in the grades for the assignments he's missing and has already told me he's not planning on turning in, it's going to be even worse for him. He chose this course over other junior English classes. He came in talking about how interested in British literature he was. Now, he's just not even making an effort. I don't understand him at all, but I'll keep trying to find ways to encourage him to work.
That said, right now I'm working on two of my favorite stories. Children's Literature is reading Alice in Wonderland and British Literature is tackling Frankenstein. I love both of these stories deeply.
Anybody who knows me well would be able to tell you that Alice is my favorite story. It's such clever nonsense that the book manages to entertain my again and again. It's absolutely wonderful to see my students experiencing the same enthusiasm (for the most part) for a book that I enjoy. It's been mountains of fun helping them work through the jokes that Carroll weaves into his text. Some definitely went over their heads, but then, I don't know that I expected them to get some of these jokes. A true understanding of about half of Carroll's jokes require an understanding of life in the Victorian era, which these students don't have because we're not a traditional literature class. I've given them some instruction, but for the most part, we've been looking at how Alice is a fantasy story and what makes it appropriate for children. We did have a tea party last Friday, though. I definitely enforced Victorian tea rules (the students weren't very happy about that).
As for Frankenstein, this novel just fascinates me to no end. Not only is it by a female author, but it's one of the first modern novels ever written AND it's science fiction. Mary Shelley adds so much detail to her text describing characters and their motivations. We're reading the novel in conjunction with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" because of the influence that poem had on the creation of the novel. We've also looked into the story of Prometheus in Greek mythology because the subtitled to Frankenstein is The Modern Prometheus. We are just about halfway through the novel right now and a lot of my students are amazed at how much they're liking the story.
I'm still struggling with one of my students. It's like he's just completely given up on doing any work and I really wish I knew how to help him. I know that he's capable of doing the work that I assign--he managed it last semester--but now it's like he's protesting me. Even if I give my class time to do their work in-class, he'll sit there and just stare at the blank page rather than even try. It's very frustrating. And the worst part is, he's not going to pass the class if he keeps this up. He's already failing beyond hope for this quarter (grades close in two and a half weeks) and once I put in the grades for the assignments he's missing and has already told me he's not planning on turning in, it's going to be even worse for him. He chose this course over other junior English classes. He came in talking about how interested in British literature he was. Now, he's just not even making an effort. I don't understand him at all, but I'll keep trying to find ways to encourage him to work.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
New Semester, New Class
We've entered a new semester here at the high school. I've picked up a new class to teach: Children's Literature.
So far, I like it. It's much different from my small British Literature class (although, I did just gain a student in that class so I have 9 now!) in more ways than one. First off, it's a much larger class (20 students). Secondly, it's an unleveled class (meaning that it's not "College Prep" or "Advanced" or "General", it just exists as a class anyone can take) so I have students of all abilities. Third, I have to approach it differently; Children's literature is almost as much art and creative writing as it is a study of literature.
Right now, we're easing our way into the semester with picture books. The kids spent the last week looking at Caldecott Medal-winning picture books studying art styles and what makes a picture book a GOOD picture book. We're starting to look at the text of picture books now, too. This means thinking of what kind of vocabulary authors use, how to lay out the text on the page, and even what amount of text belongs on a page.
The students have also just started a project researching an author-illustrator. In singles or pairs, each picked the name of an author-illustrator out of a hat and will be looking at that person's writing style, art style, and doing biographical research. I've given them until the 21st of February to finish the project, which includes a poster and a 1-2 page paper on their person. I think that length of time is more than fair enough to analyze six picture books and write a 2-page maximum paper.
British lit is in full swing right now. As I mentioned, I got another student (plucked him out of the other section of British lit) and he's fitting in much better with my group than he did with the other one. The only downside is that I still have only one girl in my class. I worry that she feels isolated--especially since a few of the boys like to tease her. But she's bright so I think she can handle them.
As far as what we're covering in that class, we've just entered the Restoration--and I don't plan on staying here for long. We read works by Jonathan Swift last week and this week including two parts of Gulliver's Travels and all of "A Modest Proposal" in order to look at satire as an element of literature. The class is working on their own "modest proposals" and should be handing them in tomorrow by midnight. The idea of the "modest" proposal is that it isn't modest at all--Swift's focuses on solving poverty in Ireland by using babies as a food source (ergo bringing in income to the families that sell their children for slaughter, being a food source for families who may otherwise not be able to afford food, etc;). The proposals are all completely satirical; nobody should actually find them to be reasonable solutions, but instead they should point out some injustice in the world and shed light on it in an extreme manner.
After finishing Swift and satire, we'll be looking briefly at Milton before we move into the Romantic era and crack open Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
As for me, I'm re-taking a class I didn't do very well in the first time I took it. The downside is that it's in Manchester so I have to commute there two days a week which is really cutting into the time I have to work on my colloquium and philosophy of education papers--let alone the time I have to plan for the classes I'm teaching.
This is going to be a truly busy semester.
So far, I like it. It's much different from my small British Literature class (although, I did just gain a student in that class so I have 9 now!) in more ways than one. First off, it's a much larger class (20 students). Secondly, it's an unleveled class (meaning that it's not "College Prep" or "Advanced" or "General", it just exists as a class anyone can take) so I have students of all abilities. Third, I have to approach it differently; Children's literature is almost as much art and creative writing as it is a study of literature.
Right now, we're easing our way into the semester with picture books. The kids spent the last week looking at Caldecott Medal-winning picture books studying art styles and what makes a picture book a GOOD picture book. We're starting to look at the text of picture books now, too. This means thinking of what kind of vocabulary authors use, how to lay out the text on the page, and even what amount of text belongs on a page.
The students have also just started a project researching an author-illustrator. In singles or pairs, each picked the name of an author-illustrator out of a hat and will be looking at that person's writing style, art style, and doing biographical research. I've given them until the 21st of February to finish the project, which includes a poster and a 1-2 page paper on their person. I think that length of time is more than fair enough to analyze six picture books and write a 2-page maximum paper.
British lit is in full swing right now. As I mentioned, I got another student (plucked him out of the other section of British lit) and he's fitting in much better with my group than he did with the other one. The only downside is that I still have only one girl in my class. I worry that she feels isolated--especially since a few of the boys like to tease her. But she's bright so I think she can handle them.
As far as what we're covering in that class, we've just entered the Restoration--and I don't plan on staying here for long. We read works by Jonathan Swift last week and this week including two parts of Gulliver's Travels and all of "A Modest Proposal" in order to look at satire as an element of literature. The class is working on their own "modest proposals" and should be handing them in tomorrow by midnight. The idea of the "modest" proposal is that it isn't modest at all--Swift's focuses on solving poverty in Ireland by using babies as a food source (ergo bringing in income to the families that sell their children for slaughter, being a food source for families who may otherwise not be able to afford food, etc;). The proposals are all completely satirical; nobody should actually find them to be reasonable solutions, but instead they should point out some injustice in the world and shed light on it in an extreme manner.
After finishing Swift and satire, we'll be looking briefly at Milton before we move into the Romantic era and crack open Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
As for me, I'm re-taking a class I didn't do very well in the first time I took it. The downside is that it's in Manchester so I have to commute there two days a week which is really cutting into the time I have to work on my colloquium and philosophy of education papers--let alone the time I have to plan for the classes I'm teaching.
This is going to be a truly busy semester.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)