Piles, Piles and Piles

We are in the 5th week of the school year, and my desk perpetually has 5-6 piles of papers covering it.  Of course, I know what is in each pile.  But when my department chair came into my classroom this morning, I felt momentarily embarrassed by my "lack of organization."  To make matters worse: continuously repeating in my mind are the words of one of my colleagues who dropped a nugget of advice on me at the Literacy Institute this summer: "To teach as long as I have (40 years!), you have to be organized.  If you look disorganized, the kids see it, and it affects their respect for you and what you do."  ...Yikes.

I am generally a very thorough grader, but I often do hand back papers long after I should have.  Sometimes, when a stack has been sitting on my desk for way too long (a week and a half to two weeks), I know I'm never going to take the time to grade it with care, so I just slap a check or check minus at the top of it and hand it back to the kids, or I give up and toss it in the recycle box.  For sanity's sake, though, it's ok that the students sometimes get the practice without a grade.  The really important papers are graded promptly and carefully, but those keep multiplying faster than I can keep up!

Here's what's going on in my classes this week:

SOPH WORLD LIT
We finished our study of Gilgamesh and Noah, and the students worked on their compare/contrast essays on "the flood story."  I haven't graded these yet, but this will be the first sample of these students' essay writing ability.  As I grade them, I will have a better idea about what we need to focus on in our writing practice.  The students have also been working on an open book/note test review that is provided by the textbook publisher.  These are higher-level thinking questions, and require the students to answer a multiple choice question about the text and then provide evidence to support the answer they've chosen.  I really like these.  The students sometimes get frustrated because the questions are harder than the questions in the book, but I offer as much assistance as I can and even let them work in pairs.  Furthermore, the students had to (as I mentioned in my previous post) use the key words of our "word wall" in a paragraph explaining what they learned in this unit, and they had to come up with 10 questions that would make good test questions for this material.  To help them prepare even more, I put a list of materials they should study over the weekend.  Monday is their test (I guess I should finish making that, huh?!) and Tuesday we'll start the next unit.

LA 2
This class received a new seating chart this week.  On an Activity Workbook assignment, most of the class scored 40's-low 60's.  They are constantly off task, talking in their native languages, and disruptive of each others' learning.  So, I moved them to seats that I felt would separate the talkers, combine those who wanted to practice their English with speakers of other languages, and isolate those who constantly disrupt others.  They've been in these seats for about 3 days now, and it is working wonderfully!  There are 2 girls in particular (one from the Ivory Coast and one from Peru) who have the highest grades and are the most motivated to learn English.  I placed them next to each other, and my heart just about burst when I saw how well they were working together today! :)  I will continue to work with this class on their behavior and patience with the language.

LDC 3
This week, we read a chapter in the Visions C book called "The Mystery of the Cliff Dwellers," and informative text about an ancient Native American culture.  The students completed all required work for the chapter (adding to the piles on my desk! LOL), and I wanted something fun that they could do to practice their essay writing skills.  So, I went to the Media Center and picked up 8 books on ancient cultures (Aztecs, Amazons, Romans...).  Then, at the beginning of class, I walked them through the basic organization for an essay (components of an Intro, Body, and Conclusion) and told them, "You are going to pretend that you and your small group of 3-4 people are researchers who have to write a professional report on an ancient culture that you'd been studying.  So, flip through your book, find a few things about the culture that you think are interesting, and follow the essay format to write your report."  The students liked that they got to choose which culture they wanted (though, there were some fights over who got Ancient Egypt!), and they worked really well, explaining to each other and talking about the different parts of an essay.  They'll finish the assignment on Monday, and we'll see how this introduction to essay writing went for them. :)

JR AMERICAN LIT
As we enter our study of the earliest explorers and settlers in American history, I showed the students and introductory slide show presentation about the 3 forms of travel books we'll study in this unit: journal, narrative account, and slave narrative.  As I talked about Christopher Columbus, John Smith, Jamestown, Plymouth, and early slave trade, the students were happy to chime in with facts they'd already learned in their American History classes.  They asked some interesting questions, too!: "If Columbus thought he was in Asia, how could he have named his book 'Journal of the First Voyage to AMERICA'?"  I'd honestly never even thought about that before.  LOL  Whenever the students ask questions and I don't know the answer, I tell them: "You find out, report back to me, and I'll give you 5 points extra credit."  So far, at least 4 students have earned extra credit, and the students are interested in asking questions!  They know the question has to stump me, though (and I know almost everything! haha!), so it has become a little competative.  We'll move through this unit in a couple of weeks' time and lay the foundations for the next unit on Puritanism.

This Week's The Bad/The Good:
The Bad: I had to deal with the rare occasion when my personal strife began to affect my attitude in the classroom.  Because I was dealing with personal unhappiness and frustration (which I'm blessed to say doesn't happen very ofen in my life), I felt myself being short with the students, being frustrated with my performance, and being negative toward everyone around me.  It was a struggle to bury that the best I could and try to be nice, supportive, and keep a smile on my face.  What performers we sometimes have to be.  It was exhausting!
The Good: I am really please with how the new seating chart is working out for my LA 2 students.  I hope they continue to stay focused and pratice patience when learning something new.  They are so quick to feel frustrated and give in to distraction at this level of English ability.  I'll continue to encourage them and assist them so they'll feel more motivated to do better.