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?
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
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.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Flying Solo
I'm on day two of my first week completely solo will all five classes. Yesterday wasn't so bad, though. Due to a small error in timing, I'm finishing up some of my CT's units rather than starting my own mini-units with the classes. Right now, I'm finishing Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns with the World Lit class, finishing Hamlet with the morning section of British Lit, starting "North by Northwest" with the Film Studies group, introducing alphabet books to the Children's Lit students, and ending my unit on Much Ado About Nothing with my section of British Lit.
I'm finding that the two classes which are the hardest to teach are World Lit and Film Studies. The World Lit class, I think, may be too "advanced" in maturity for some of these students, particularly the boys. A Thousand Splendid Suns is an incredibly well-written book, but it also deals with very serious issues like spousal abuse, war, and religious rights. The girls all seem to get that these are serious things--perhaps because in the book, it is the female characters who bear the brunt of the abuse and heartache which is perpetrated by the male characters and a male-dominated society. The boys in this class, though, don't seem to get it. Sure, a few do, but there is a group of boys (athletes, specifically) who manage to crack jokes and laugh during class. I've yet to figure out what's funny about women being forced to stay at home and be servants to their abusive husbands.
The Film Studies class is hard for a different reason. This class is full of students who just seem to not care about school--they see Film as an "easy A" their senior year. They goof off on their work, they talk and joke incessantly--even during tests! Several students refuse to give up their cell phones during tests, to the point where they lie and say "I don't have one." Well, they definitely have one when I end up taking it five minutes later because I caught them using it to text their friends during the test. One student is so attached to his phone that he will actually argue with you about why he is special and shouldn't have to give it up. I remember a time when I actually got him to give up the phone (with my CT's help) and he unplugged his headphones, turned the phone off, carefully closed all the flaps on his ultra-heavy-duty Otterbox and told us that if there was "one scratch" on the phone, he would make his parents sue (can you say "spoiled brat"?). Then, he proceeded to throw the phone into the box! After going on and on about how he didn't want it broken and we should take care of it, he goes and throws it rather than placing it gently.
Then, also in Film, there's a pair of boys who will not shut up. I swear, I could give them a test and tell them to take it, but if they were the only two in the room, they'd take a zero on it because they wouldn't get any work done. One of them can't make up his mind on what his name is and comes in with a different one every day--and he won't answer to anything but is nom du jour. He also thinks he's some kind of hot-shot like a cross between Jonah Hill and that kid that plays McLovin'. Except he doesn't realize that he's just obnoxious.
I suppose I'll have to get used to students like them because with the way kids are being raised now, I don't think that mentality is going to change. There's just no respect any more. There's no sense of where the line is between being funny and being absolutely annoying. I think that part of the problem is also that they know I'm an intern, not a fully-paid and licensed teacher so they push the boundaries and think they can get away with all sorts of things they wouldn't be able to get away with if my CT was teaching. So far, they think they've gotten away with it. But I get revenge in the worst way: I assign essays.
I'm finding that the two classes which are the hardest to teach are World Lit and Film Studies. The World Lit class, I think, may be too "advanced" in maturity for some of these students, particularly the boys. A Thousand Splendid Suns is an incredibly well-written book, but it also deals with very serious issues like spousal abuse, war, and religious rights. The girls all seem to get that these are serious things--perhaps because in the book, it is the female characters who bear the brunt of the abuse and heartache which is perpetrated by the male characters and a male-dominated society. The boys in this class, though, don't seem to get it. Sure, a few do, but there is a group of boys (athletes, specifically) who manage to crack jokes and laugh during class. I've yet to figure out what's funny about women being forced to stay at home and be servants to their abusive husbands.
The Film Studies class is hard for a different reason. This class is full of students who just seem to not care about school--they see Film as an "easy A" their senior year. They goof off on their work, they talk and joke incessantly--even during tests! Several students refuse to give up their cell phones during tests, to the point where they lie and say "I don't have one." Well, they definitely have one when I end up taking it five minutes later because I caught them using it to text their friends during the test. One student is so attached to his phone that he will actually argue with you about why he is special and shouldn't have to give it up. I remember a time when I actually got him to give up the phone (with my CT's help) and he unplugged his headphones, turned the phone off, carefully closed all the flaps on his ultra-heavy-duty Otterbox and told us that if there was "one scratch" on the phone, he would make his parents sue (can you say "spoiled brat"?). Then, he proceeded to throw the phone into the box! After going on and on about how he didn't want it broken and we should take care of it, he goes and throws it rather than placing it gently.
Then, also in Film, there's a pair of boys who will not shut up. I swear, I could give them a test and tell them to take it, but if they were the only two in the room, they'd take a zero on it because they wouldn't get any work done. One of them can't make up his mind on what his name is and comes in with a different one every day--and he won't answer to anything but is nom du jour. He also thinks he's some kind of hot-shot like a cross between Jonah Hill and that kid that plays McLovin'. Except he doesn't realize that he's just obnoxious.
I suppose I'll have to get used to students like them because with the way kids are being raised now, I don't think that mentality is going to change. There's just no respect any more. There's no sense of where the line is between being funny and being absolutely annoying. I think that part of the problem is also that they know I'm an intern, not a fully-paid and licensed teacher so they push the boundaries and think they can get away with all sorts of things they wouldn't be able to get away with if my CT was teaching. So far, they think they've gotten away with it. But I get revenge in the worst way: I assign essays.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
A New Quarter, A Fresh Start... Yeah, Right!
I don't know what happened between the end of Quarter One and the start of Quarter Two, but my classroom just hasn't been the same. I went from having 7 average-and-above achieving students and 1 I-know-he's-smarter-than-he-lets-on-but-he-just-won't-do-the-work student to having 3 average-and-above students and 5 failing-because-they-won't-do-the-work students.
I honestly have no idea what happened. The students themselves have told me the work isn't that hard. For example, this quarter, they're writing an 8-10 page research paper. They have the entire quarter before Winter Break to write this paper. At the same time, they're reading Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" since we're in the Renaissance time-wise. They usually read a couple scenes over a three-night period (and these are short scenes. Some of them are only a little over a page or a page and a half long) and then come in and act out those scenes. That's the extent of what I'm pushing them to do with Shakespeare right now. Read and then come in and act it out.
While they do that, they've also got their paper to think about. So far, they've had to come up with a topic (they all did), find me 10 sources that they will use to get information about that topic with at least 3 of those 10 being book sources (they've all done this, though two students took two extra weeks and multiple prompts from me to do it), write an annotated bibliography (basically write me a paragraph for each source and tell me how you're going to use it in your paper) (three students did this and I gave them two weeks [that's less than one paragraph a day]), and finally write me 20 note cards (each card being the equivalent of: 3 bullet points or one long quote from the source) (three [the same three students] did this [and I've told them multiple times that they should be constantly taking notes and that they should have started taking notes on day 1 of the project]).
Is that too much to ask of them? The three students who turned in the work have all said they don't know what the fuss is about because it honestly was pretty easy to do. When I asked the other students why they hadn't done it, I got blank stares and shrugs.
Right now, my class average is a 64%. I repeat: my class average score is a failing grade.
This is completely unacceptable. I just wish I knew how I could get the kids who aren't doing the work to realize they need to be doing it. Hopefully the fact that their grades are now all completely entered into the online gradebook, their parents will see that they're failing and do something about it. I'm at a loss.
I honestly have no idea what happened. The students themselves have told me the work isn't that hard. For example, this quarter, they're writing an 8-10 page research paper. They have the entire quarter before Winter Break to write this paper. At the same time, they're reading Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" since we're in the Renaissance time-wise. They usually read a couple scenes over a three-night period (and these are short scenes. Some of them are only a little over a page or a page and a half long) and then come in and act out those scenes. That's the extent of what I'm pushing them to do with Shakespeare right now. Read and then come in and act it out.
While they do that, they've also got their paper to think about. So far, they've had to come up with a topic (they all did), find me 10 sources that they will use to get information about that topic with at least 3 of those 10 being book sources (they've all done this, though two students took two extra weeks and multiple prompts from me to do it), write an annotated bibliography (basically write me a paragraph for each source and tell me how you're going to use it in your paper) (three students did this and I gave them two weeks [that's less than one paragraph a day]), and finally write me 20 note cards (each card being the equivalent of: 3 bullet points or one long quote from the source) (three [the same three students] did this [and I've told them multiple times that they should be constantly taking notes and that they should have started taking notes on day 1 of the project]).
Is that too much to ask of them? The three students who turned in the work have all said they don't know what the fuss is about because it honestly was pretty easy to do. When I asked the other students why they hadn't done it, I got blank stares and shrugs.
Right now, my class average is a 64%. I repeat: my class average score is a failing grade.
This is completely unacceptable. I just wish I knew how I could get the kids who aren't doing the work to realize they need to be doing it. Hopefully the fact that their grades are now all completely entered into the online gradebook, their parents will see that they're failing and do something about it. I'm at a loss.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
No manner of luck at all...
You know how sometimes you have a week where absolutely nothing seems to be going your way? I'm going on a month of that feeling.
My mom passed away in late August and everything seemed to be going alright immediately after that. I took a day off from my internship before discovering that I was going to go stir crazy if I just sat in my room letting myself be sad the entire time. So I went back to interning and the first week was fine.
Then I started getting sick. At first it was bronchitis. Then it was some sort of cold that manifested into congestion so bad that I couldn't hear because my head was so stuffed up.
Just as I was getting over the sick part, I ended up in the hospital emergency room with extreme stomach pain caused by my accidentally aggravating an ulcer by eating spicy food. I was in enough pain that I thought the problem was my appendix. Turns out, I'm just too stressed. Quelle surprise.
And because that wasn't enough, my boyfriend broke up with me. That I'm getting over rather well thanks to the sagely words of Miranda Lambert. I have simply fixed my make up and moved on.
But just because the universe can't leave well enough alone, I was just informed (late yesterday evening) that I have to re-take a course that is required for my teaching certification because I had to pass with a B- or better. I'd like you to note that my professor gave me a C+. On top of that course, I was told this morning that I must also retake ANOTHER course where my final grade was not satisfactory for certification. Of course, nobody at UNH bothered to mention this requirement to me while I was an undergraduate.
Ah, well. C'est la vie, non?
As far as my class is concerned, things are going well. We've finished with King Arthur (but boy, I could spend AGES on that topic) and are moving on to The Canterbury Tales. I'm mixing up this unit in that I'll also be providing essay-writing instruction because they've finally been assigned an actual essay to write. I plan on modeling Penny Kittle's conference techniques because, having seen those in the past, I think that with the group I've got (two very high performing students, two low performing students, and four average students) this method would be the most beneficial.
I gave them a handout on MLA style and one with advice on how to make an essay truly readable. I got both from the UNH Connors Writing Center for free off their website. Definitely an awesome resource for any teacher who may be trying to teach the dreaded formal essay to their students. I've got rough drafts from most of them right now that I'm going to look over and see what I can use to teach a few mini-lessons on grammar and style. Today, I'll be putting all of the drafts up on the projector screen (with names missing, of course) to do a group conference and critique.
Now, that critique shouldn't take our entire class period (today is an odd block day so the kids have all their odd period classes for 100 minutes instead of the standard 50 and tomorrow they'll have only their even period classes). Toward the end of the class, I'm going to introduce them to The Canterbury Tales via "The Prologue" and give them each their assigned character. Each student will have one character from the tales and, in addition to the class readings of "The Prologue" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale", will have to read their character's tale. After they've done this, they'll do a short project (it should only take a couple of days) where they'll create a "Fakebook" profile of the character they've been assigned using information they've gathered through the readings.
I'm slightly worried about assigning the essay (a long-term project) and the profile (much shorter term) at the same time, but I think they can handle it.
PM
My mom passed away in late August and everything seemed to be going alright immediately after that. I took a day off from my internship before discovering that I was going to go stir crazy if I just sat in my room letting myself be sad the entire time. So I went back to interning and the first week was fine.
Then I started getting sick. At first it was bronchitis. Then it was some sort of cold that manifested into congestion so bad that I couldn't hear because my head was so stuffed up.
Just as I was getting over the sick part, I ended up in the hospital emergency room with extreme stomach pain caused by my accidentally aggravating an ulcer by eating spicy food. I was in enough pain that I thought the problem was my appendix. Turns out, I'm just too stressed. Quelle surprise.
And because that wasn't enough, my boyfriend broke up with me. That I'm getting over rather well thanks to the sagely words of Miranda Lambert. I have simply fixed my make up and moved on.
But just because the universe can't leave well enough alone, I was just informed (late yesterday evening) that I have to re-take a course that is required for my teaching certification because I had to pass with a B- or better. I'd like you to note that my professor gave me a C+. On top of that course, I was told this morning that I must also retake ANOTHER course where my final grade was not satisfactory for certification. Of course, nobody at UNH bothered to mention this requirement to me while I was an undergraduate.
Ah, well. C'est la vie, non?
As far as my class is concerned, things are going well. We've finished with King Arthur (but boy, I could spend AGES on that topic) and are moving on to The Canterbury Tales. I'm mixing up this unit in that I'll also be providing essay-writing instruction because they've finally been assigned an actual essay to write. I plan on modeling Penny Kittle's conference techniques because, having seen those in the past, I think that with the group I've got (two very high performing students, two low performing students, and four average students) this method would be the most beneficial.
I gave them a handout on MLA style and one with advice on how to make an essay truly readable. I got both from the UNH Connors Writing Center for free off their website. Definitely an awesome resource for any teacher who may be trying to teach the dreaded formal essay to their students. I've got rough drafts from most of them right now that I'm going to look over and see what I can use to teach a few mini-lessons on grammar and style. Today, I'll be putting all of the drafts up on the projector screen (with names missing, of course) to do a group conference and critique.
Now, that critique shouldn't take our entire class period (today is an odd block day so the kids have all their odd period classes for 100 minutes instead of the standard 50 and tomorrow they'll have only their even period classes). Toward the end of the class, I'm going to introduce them to The Canterbury Tales via "The Prologue" and give them each their assigned character. Each student will have one character from the tales and, in addition to the class readings of "The Prologue" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale", will have to read their character's tale. After they've done this, they'll do a short project (it should only take a couple of days) where they'll create a "Fakebook" profile of the character they've been assigned using information they've gathered through the readings.
I'm slightly worried about assigning the essay (a long-term project) and the profile (much shorter term) at the same time, but I think they can handle it.
PM
Friday, September 13, 2013
Here's a few of my favorite students...
I've met quite a few students who are... well... interesting. Nearly all of them just serve to make me smile and liven up a class that might otherwise struggle to be interesting. I've changed the names of students because I obviously can't tell you who they actually are.
Anna-Maria. She's the ultimate Celebrity Buzz/Gawker/TMZ/Perez-style girl. The class she's in is writing Anglo-Saxon boasts using a celebrity (or a teacher) as a subject. She's writing from Kanye West's perspective and her effort is turning out to be rather hilarious, if a bit tacky. In a discussion today about death, she announced that she wanted to be buried with all of her money--actual physical bills and coins--like a "true G". She wants her family and friends to cry at the "pure swag" she'll be a display of in her casket. Particularly, she wants to be holding a bouquet made of $20. And, to top it all off, she wants her kids to dig her up after she's been buried in order to claim their inheritance.
Marilyn. She dresses like a pop-goth 1950s pin-up and wants to be a housewife. Tattoos, piercings, and a love of children's stories. She's a character and she makes every class interesting.
Seth. He reminds me a little bit of a wanna-be Jonah Hill/Michael Cera combo. He tries too hard to get the girls to like him and to get the boys to think he's an OK guy. He's constantly inviting the kids in his class to movie parties complete with "bacon tacos". I don't know if these are actually tacos with bacon on them or if it's something else entirely, but the rest of the class seems to love them. He had to have his picture taken the other day for the vo-tech school IDs and came into his class back here at the regular school wearing nothing but his jeans, shoes, a red vest, and a polka-dot bow tie. One of the girls he's always trying to impress asked him what prompted the outfit and he explained that it was for the picture he had to take. She asked him why he chose the outfit he did and his answer was--direct quote--"because literally yolo".
Liz. She's in the same class as Seth and she LOVES Charlie Chaplin. She's a pretty big film enthusiast and she's always popping into the conversation to offer a comment on the films they're discussing in class. She doesn't do much that's really out of the ordinary, but her enthusiasm for movies reminds me so much of a good friend I had in high school who is studying film production in college now. They've even got similar hair cuts.
I've got two kids in my class that always make me smile when they start talking with each other. Thomas and Tom. An anglophile and a jock. They should have nothing in common, but they have some great conversations and debates in class. Not always on topic, but they're amusing and tangentially related to what they're supposed to be talking about. The class wouldn't be the same without one or the other.
In other news, the sun just came out. I haven't seen it in a couple of days so this is really nice. I had to wade through the street to get from my boyfriend's dorm to my own last night.
Anna-Maria. She's the ultimate Celebrity Buzz/Gawker/TMZ/Perez-style girl. The class she's in is writing Anglo-Saxon boasts using a celebrity (or a teacher) as a subject. She's writing from Kanye West's perspective and her effort is turning out to be rather hilarious, if a bit tacky. In a discussion today about death, she announced that she wanted to be buried with all of her money--actual physical bills and coins--like a "true G". She wants her family and friends to cry at the "pure swag" she'll be a display of in her casket. Particularly, she wants to be holding a bouquet made of $20. And, to top it all off, she wants her kids to dig her up after she's been buried in order to claim their inheritance.
Marilyn. She dresses like a pop-goth 1950s pin-up and wants to be a housewife. Tattoos, piercings, and a love of children's stories. She's a character and she makes every class interesting.
Seth. He reminds me a little bit of a wanna-be Jonah Hill/Michael Cera combo. He tries too hard to get the girls to like him and to get the boys to think he's an OK guy. He's constantly inviting the kids in his class to movie parties complete with "bacon tacos". I don't know if these are actually tacos with bacon on them or if it's something else entirely, but the rest of the class seems to love them. He had to have his picture taken the other day for the vo-tech school IDs and came into his class back here at the regular school wearing nothing but his jeans, shoes, a red vest, and a polka-dot bow tie. One of the girls he's always trying to impress asked him what prompted the outfit and he explained that it was for the picture he had to take. She asked him why he chose the outfit he did and his answer was--direct quote--"because literally yolo".
Liz. She's in the same class as Seth and she LOVES Charlie Chaplin. She's a pretty big film enthusiast and she's always popping into the conversation to offer a comment on the films they're discussing in class. She doesn't do much that's really out of the ordinary, but her enthusiasm for movies reminds me so much of a good friend I had in high school who is studying film production in college now. They've even got similar hair cuts.
I've got two kids in my class that always make me smile when they start talking with each other. Thomas and Tom. An anglophile and a jock. They should have nothing in common, but they have some great conversations and debates in class. Not always on topic, but they're amusing and tangentially related to what they're supposed to be talking about. The class wouldn't be the same without one or the other.
In other news, the sun just came out. I haven't seen it in a couple of days so this is really nice. I had to wade through the street to get from my boyfriend's dorm to my own last night.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Struggle
I got my first call from a parent the other day. I didn't take the call, my CT did because I haven't given my number out to students. Here's the background:
I was not in school on Monday because I was fighting off the worst day of my Crud (which appears to be some form of bronchitis) and to get by I pretty much had to put myself in a cough syrup coma or I'm pretty sure I would have started coughing up blood. My CT filled in for me in class. Monday afternoon was when the call came in. The parent said the student described me as rude and abrupt and that the student was confused about some of my grading policies.
Now, as my CT explained it to me, "rude and abrupt" probably means I'm just moving through the material too fast and I should slow it down. And she's right. I did Beowulf in two weeks. Which for college prep-level kids is a bit too fast. I should have taken three, maybe four. But I can't take it back now. I can only learn from my mistake and do it differently in the future. Which I did immediately. I re-did my lesson plan for yesterday's class throughout the day and made it more of a review of the text and discussion instead of reading the next Arthur story like I had planned. And from the looks of it, it went well. I'm hoping that these changes (which I will continue to make to my existing lessons) solve the problems this student is facing.
I also really hope that my CT is right and that "rude and abrupt" means I'm moving too fast and not that this student thinks I'm rude to the class. I don't think I am, but I will admit that I am a bit more informal as a teacher than many of the teachers they're probably used to having. The vernacular that we traditionally teach kids with is so far from the vernacular they use in every day life that sometimes they have difficulty understanding it. So I tend to try and break things down into a more understandable phrasing for the students. Maybe my candor could be perceived as rude? I'm not sure.
As for today, I'm doing what could be the most fun lesson I have planned for the entire Anglo-Saxon unit. We've read three of the Arthurian stories--"How Arthur Got His Sword", "The Death of Arthur", and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"--and now we're going to watch some pop culture adaptations of these legends: pieces of Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" and Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" and then the entirety of the first episode of the BBC's "Merlin". The students are going to be comparing and contrasting what they observe about the characters, relationships, settings, and themes in the pop culture adaptations to what they've read in Sir Thomas Mallory's texts.
At the same time, they're learning about the Medieval Romance as a genre which will lead into their first paper: analyzing the three pieces we've read in the early canon of BritLit using the Medieval Romance traits. Students will have to make an argument for either Beowulf, the Arthurian Legends, or "The Wife of Bath's Tale" (which we haven't gotten to yet).
Oh, and we need to work on our vocabulary.
I was not in school on Monday because I was fighting off the worst day of my Crud (which appears to be some form of bronchitis) and to get by I pretty much had to put myself in a cough syrup coma or I'm pretty sure I would have started coughing up blood. My CT filled in for me in class. Monday afternoon was when the call came in. The parent said the student described me as rude and abrupt and that the student was confused about some of my grading policies.
Now, as my CT explained it to me, "rude and abrupt" probably means I'm just moving through the material too fast and I should slow it down. And she's right. I did Beowulf in two weeks. Which for college prep-level kids is a bit too fast. I should have taken three, maybe four. But I can't take it back now. I can only learn from my mistake and do it differently in the future. Which I did immediately. I re-did my lesson plan for yesterday's class throughout the day and made it more of a review of the text and discussion instead of reading the next Arthur story like I had planned. And from the looks of it, it went well. I'm hoping that these changes (which I will continue to make to my existing lessons) solve the problems this student is facing.
I also really hope that my CT is right and that "rude and abrupt" means I'm moving too fast and not that this student thinks I'm rude to the class. I don't think I am, but I will admit that I am a bit more informal as a teacher than many of the teachers they're probably used to having. The vernacular that we traditionally teach kids with is so far from the vernacular they use in every day life that sometimes they have difficulty understanding it. So I tend to try and break things down into a more understandable phrasing for the students. Maybe my candor could be perceived as rude? I'm not sure.
As for today, I'm doing what could be the most fun lesson I have planned for the entire Anglo-Saxon unit. We've read three of the Arthurian stories--"How Arthur Got His Sword", "The Death of Arthur", and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"--and now we're going to watch some pop culture adaptations of these legends: pieces of Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" and Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" and then the entirety of the first episode of the BBC's "Merlin". The students are going to be comparing and contrasting what they observe about the characters, relationships, settings, and themes in the pop culture adaptations to what they've read in Sir Thomas Mallory's texts.
At the same time, they're learning about the Medieval Romance as a genre which will lead into their first paper: analyzing the three pieces we've read in the early canon of BritLit using the Medieval Romance traits. Students will have to make an argument for either Beowulf, the Arthurian Legends, or "The Wife of Bath's Tale" (which we haven't gotten to yet).
Oh, and we need to work on our vocabulary.
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