At the beginning of this week, all teachers received notice that there would be personnel cuts in many of our county's schools. On Wednesday, I found out that I would be one of the teachers to be involuntarily displaced. They do not have enough students to justify keeping me and 20 other teachers on staff, so we are being sent to other schools to fill open positions. I am not angry about this development...I am mostly stressed out that my job status is relatively uncertain at present, and I am sad to be leaving the people here.
This school has been a wonderful place for me to grow and improve as a teacher. I received my SIOP Model training here, I've had the opportunity to teach new material, I've had more support than I could have hoped for, and I've had resources (adapted versions of texts, a wonderful Media Center, awesome suggestions from other teachers) that have made all the difference in my teaching.
With this weighing on my mind, though, I still have a job to do. Today in SOPH LA, we played Julius Caesar Jeopardy. It's always fun to see how competitive the students get when it comes to winning extra credit points for their test. It always happens that the losing team sees how far they are behind the winning team, so they kind of give up on trying to answer the questions. So, one of my students suggested that we have the "Double Jeopardy" question next time on which the teams can wager as many of their points as they want...so the losing team still has hope that they may come out ahead. Great idea! Why didn't I think of that before? See...even as teachers, we are always learning. :) Tomorrow, the students will take their Julius Caesar test, and next week they have to present their projects for this unit. After that, we get to start our unit on Medieval Lit and Dante's Inferno! I already have some great ideas for helping the students understand the content and language of this piece, and a friend shared a project idea to really immurse the students in Dante's hell. Exciting stuff!
In my JR LA class, we read "The Story of an Hour" yesterday. We had some great discussions as we read the story bit by bit. The students asked so many questions and had great ideas when it came to analysing the images and irony in the story. Today, they answered some comprehension and critical thinking questions about the story; tomorrow they will write an essay to defend this story as a work of Realism based on 3 tenants: a) realities of everyday life, b) illusion vs. reality, and c) how society and environment affect individuals. They aren't going to like the fact that they have to write an essay, but that's just too bad. :) Next week, we'll finish Realism and start on the Harlem Renaissance! Yay!
The stress of being displaced is definitely weighing on my mind, but I know that these students still need me right now. I have to do what's best for them. As long as I keep that in mind, it will all turn out alright in the end.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Oh, I teach JR LA, too!
In all of my excitement about how enjoyable, productive, and necessary it has been to teach Julius Caesar to my SOPH LA classes, I've been neglecting my reflection of my JR LA classes. (By the way, I have a serious pile of papers on my desk that needs to be graded, but I can't grade when my mind is racing, so it's just going to have to wait. I'm hoping that blogging will help me focus.) Anyhow, in JR LA, we are in the middle of our unit on Realism. During this unit, we study African-American slave spirituals, Frederick Douglass, The Red Badge of Courage (an adapted text), Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Jack London, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
I love, love, love teaching the African-American spirituals. My students do a mini-research webquest to learn about key abolitionists, different routes of the Underground Railroad (which they draw and color-code on a map), secret messages in the spirituals themselves, and quilt codes that slaves used as another means of communicating secret messages. They fill in their webquest packets as they learn all of this. I even have MP3's of various spirituals in my folder on the school's network so they can all hear the different spirituals we study. (Some of them sing the spirituals for days afterward, which is always cute!). At the end of the project, each student must make his/her own quilt square out of construction paper of one of the slave codes they studied. When they bring them in, I display them all on the wall for our own "quilt," as a reminder of what we learned.
I use Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Mark Twain's "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" to teach elements of Realism like regional culture/dialect, racism vs. social progress, the affect of society and environment on an individual, and illusion vs. reality; but I don't especially enjoy teaching them. Those are the works we are studying right now. I'm taking a break from the literature, though, to show my students the film Glory (one of my all-time favorites), during which they must take notes on examples from the movie of the 7 different characteristics of Realism that we've been studying. As we read The Red Badge of Courage, it became clear that my students (all immigrants) have almost no background knowledge of the American Civil War (save what they learned and actually remember from their U.S. History class). I'm hoping that this film will help to bridge the gap. Next year, I may show it before we read the story.
What I am REALLY looking foward to is teaching Dunbar's poetry. I do a lot with his poem "We Wear the Mask," and I always have my students write their own "I Wear a Mask" poems. From there, we will jump forward a bit and begin our study of the Harlem Renaissance! Just as I was so excited to NOT have Benchmark Exams for my SOPH LA class, the same is true of my JR LA class. This year, I will actually have the time to teach A Rasin in the Sun during our Harlem Renaissance unit. I've never taught it, so it's going to add some pressure on me, but I think it will be well worth it. :)
A note about my SOPH LA class: we're finishing reading Julius Caesar this week. Then, we'll have 2 weeks of a test, a project, an essay, and (maybe) a film. After that, it will be time for Dante's Inferno, which I've also never taught before. I want to do an intro webquest project so the students can learn about the set-up of hell before we actually start reading the Cantos. More work, I know, but very exciting!
I love, love, love teaching the African-American spirituals. My students do a mini-research webquest to learn about key abolitionists, different routes of the Underground Railroad (which they draw and color-code on a map), secret messages in the spirituals themselves, and quilt codes that slaves used as another means of communicating secret messages. They fill in their webquest packets as they learn all of this. I even have MP3's of various spirituals in my folder on the school's network so they can all hear the different spirituals we study. (Some of them sing the spirituals for days afterward, which is always cute!). At the end of the project, each student must make his/her own quilt square out of construction paper of one of the slave codes they studied. When they bring them in, I display them all on the wall for our own "quilt," as a reminder of what we learned.
I use Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Mark Twain's "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" to teach elements of Realism like regional culture/dialect, racism vs. social progress, the affect of society and environment on an individual, and illusion vs. reality; but I don't especially enjoy teaching them. Those are the works we are studying right now. I'm taking a break from the literature, though, to show my students the film Glory (one of my all-time favorites), during which they must take notes on examples from the movie of the 7 different characteristics of Realism that we've been studying. As we read The Red Badge of Courage, it became clear that my students (all immigrants) have almost no background knowledge of the American Civil War (save what they learned and actually remember from their U.S. History class). I'm hoping that this film will help to bridge the gap. Next year, I may show it before we read the story.
What I am REALLY looking foward to is teaching Dunbar's poetry. I do a lot with his poem "We Wear the Mask," and I always have my students write their own "I Wear a Mask" poems. From there, we will jump forward a bit and begin our study of the Harlem Renaissance! Just as I was so excited to NOT have Benchmark Exams for my SOPH LA class, the same is true of my JR LA class. This year, I will actually have the time to teach A Rasin in the Sun during our Harlem Renaissance unit. I've never taught it, so it's going to add some pressure on me, but I think it will be well worth it. :)
A note about my SOPH LA class: we're finishing reading Julius Caesar this week. Then, we'll have 2 weeks of a test, a project, an essay, and (maybe) a film. After that, it will be time for Dante's Inferno, which I've also never taught before. I want to do an intro webquest project so the students can learn about the set-up of hell before we actually start reading the Cantos. More work, I know, but very exciting!
Funny Moment Today:
After a brief discussion about examples of figurative language (simile, hyperbole, metaphor, etc.), we moved on to the concept of diction. I explained that diction simply meant "word choice." A young man, Alan, raised his hand and said he still didn't understand.
"Well," I said. "Remember, to be persuasive, you must choose strong, direct words. You must also choose words to most effectively communicate your message. For instance, rather than saying, 'Alan is a good student,' I should say something like, 'Alan is an intelligent and focused student."
"Oh, Miss! I know!" A shout came from the other side of the room. "That's hyperbole!" :)
...It's a good day when students make literary device jokes.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
This is How Teaching is Supposed to Feel
Last semester, the Benchmark Exams that we must give per county orders were such bad tests and such horrible measures of student knowledge and skills that the county gave us a pass on the test this semester. Since my previous school was a "guinea pig" for the Benchmarks, this is actually my 5th year giving these tests. My current school only started giving them last year, so it's all still very new to most of the teachers. I thought I'd been well trained by my county (since I've never taught anywhere else, and don't know any better) to follow the pacing guides, reading schedules, reading lists, and testing schedule that they determined would be "best." Each year, I find myself feeling rushed, anxious, and frazzled in the attempt to kee up with the county's schedules. However, without the threat...er, deadline...of Benchmark Exams looming over my head, I'm finding that I actually enjoy coming to school, and am as excited as a first year teacher to teach lessons each day!
In past years, as I may have already written, I taught A Midsummer Night's Dream to my SOPH LA classes. This is the Shakespeare text that was chosen by the county as being best suited to sophomore students. According to the pacing calendar, I had to teach this play--and all AKS (our county's standards) associated with the unit--in about 3 weeks. Now, this might be possible if I taught Honors students who had the maturity, ability, and motivation to do some reading at home by themselves; but I teach ESOL and collab. CP, and these students are not going to (and often times CANNOT) read alone at home. So, everything we read, we must read together in class. It is impossible to teach a Shakespeare play this way in 3 weeks. So, I never had time to fully explain, practice extention activities, or assign end-of-the-unit projects. It was all too much.
This semester, though, we are on our 4th week of studying Julius Caesar (I've posted previously why I decided to do this play instead), and we are reading Act III, Scene 2 together today. The students are totally into it. They want to know how Antony will exact his revenge on the conspirators for the death of his beloved Caesar! I am under no pressure to hurry myself through the unit, and it is great. Even more wonderful, though, is that I'm making time to teach EVERYTHING I'm supposed to teach while we are reading this play: grammar with bell ringer Daily Oral Language activities; writing with weekly and bi-weekly chunk paragraphs based on topics that pertain to the scene we are currently reading in the play; literary terms like monologue, soliloquy, aside, stage directions, etc.; sonnets (an activity inspired by this lesson plan from Folger); persuasive techniques (activities inspired by 2 other Folger lesson plans); and a love for literature that these students have never known before. I think that's pretty amazing stuff.
In past years, as I may have already written, I taught A Midsummer Night's Dream to my SOPH LA classes. This is the Shakespeare text that was chosen by the county as being best suited to sophomore students. According to the pacing calendar, I had to teach this play--and all AKS (our county's standards) associated with the unit--in about 3 weeks. Now, this might be possible if I taught Honors students who had the maturity, ability, and motivation to do some reading at home by themselves; but I teach ESOL and collab. CP, and these students are not going to (and often times CANNOT) read alone at home. So, everything we read, we must read together in class. It is impossible to teach a Shakespeare play this way in 3 weeks. So, I never had time to fully explain, practice extention activities, or assign end-of-the-unit projects. It was all too much.
This semester, though, we are on our 4th week of studying Julius Caesar (I've posted previously why I decided to do this play instead), and we are reading Act III, Scene 2 together today. The students are totally into it. They want to know how Antony will exact his revenge on the conspirators for the death of his beloved Caesar! I am under no pressure to hurry myself through the unit, and it is great. Even more wonderful, though, is that I'm making time to teach EVERYTHING I'm supposed to teach while we are reading this play: grammar with bell ringer Daily Oral Language activities; writing with weekly and bi-weekly chunk paragraphs based on topics that pertain to the scene we are currently reading in the play; literary terms like monologue, soliloquy, aside, stage directions, etc.; sonnets (an activity inspired by this lesson plan from Folger); persuasive techniques (activities inspired by 2 other Folger lesson plans); and a love for literature that these students have never known before. I think that's pretty amazing stuff.
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