Pressure to Perform and Intro to Steinbeck

As the students take their Gateway exams this week, I feel relieved to be done with the preparation for them. I honestly lost sleep over worrying about whether I was teaching them enough and giving them enough practice to do well. From what the students told me, their science and social studies teachers thought it sufficed to give the students 1 practice Gateway prompt the week before the test. They didn't even practice together - the students recieved the assignment and had to complete the essay. Which means (as always), the other core area teachers are relying on the language arts teachers to teach the majority of the test-taking skills. That's not OK, but I've accepted it as reality. Therefore, to follow up on the work my SOPH LA students did on their whole group essay (the one we wrote together on the overhead), I had them work individually on an essay to practice and refine those skills.

First, I gave them their new practice Science Gateway topic and a handout of the work we'd previously completed together. Then, each day, I asked them to complete a portion of the Gateway process on their own. Monday, they had to complete an outline of the topic they chose. Tuesday, they had to complete an introduction and 1st body paragraph; Wednesday-their 2nd and 3rd body paragraphs; and Thursday-their conclusion, Gateway Checklist, and final draft. On Friday, we used a rubric to peer review and comment on each other's essays.

This process was great! The students asked so many great questions, helped each other, and improved so much in such a short time. On their peer review rubrics, a couple of students even wrote comments like, "You did a great job, and I actually learned some things from reading your essay!" I am so proud of them all for working so hard, and the cool thing is that they actually seemed to enjoy being pushed to write well on difficult topics! No one complained about our prep work being "too hard," or "too much work." They were determined to do well, and I constantly reminded them that failure was not even an option. :)

I know that teaching my students to write chunk paragraphs and giving them so much practice was key to them learning to write a Gateway essay so quickly. Next year, I think I will introduce the chunk paragraphs at the beginning of the year, and will try to require a document-based essay for each unit. ...Of course I say that now, but it's always so hard to fit in everything we need to do.

The students have taken the Science/LA Gateway and will take the Social Studies/LA test tomorrow. Overall, they have told me that the practice we did in class really helped them on their tests. They said:

1.) They thought about me repeating "Hook, Background, Thesis" when writing their introduction paragraphs.
2.) Even if they didn't completely understand the topic, they remembered how I showed them how to highlight key words in the Scenario, Task, and Bullet points, and to use those key words to help them write their introduction.
3.) Writing the thesis was easy because they thought about using the Bullet points to create the main idea of their essays.
4.) They felt like they new exactly how to organize their essays so it made sense and flowed well.

To me, this is the best part of my job. The students rarely ever say "thank you" for teaching them something, but when they are excited to tell me that they thought of my class or something I said while they were completing their test, I know I did my job well. :)

I only wish I recieved results from these tests, too. I'd like to know how many of my students passed and how many failed. If they failed, I want to know why they failed so I know if I need to alter or abandon my strategies. I want my students to do well, but I also need to be told if they are doing well if I am going to be the best teacher I can be. Who do I talk to about that???
_________________________________________

My JR LA students have been introduced to Of Mice and Men, and (only one chapter in) they are already in love. I read each chapter aloud to them, and I do different voices for the characters: slow and high for Lenny, short and gruff for George, etc. The students laugh out loud at the funny parts and mummble audible "Aww's" when George is mean to Lenny. It's great. :)

Some of my JR LA students are also in my SOPH LA class, so they were Gateway testing yesterday. A couple of students stopped by my room at the end of the day yesterday and asked if we had read Chapter 2 in class while they were testing. When I said no, they were so happy and said they were wondering what will happen once George and Lenny get to the new ranch. I love teaching this novel....


Moment that Made me Smile:
R____, who I taught last year for LDC II (level 2 English Language), was hanging out in my trailer in between classes. He looked at my poster of Subordinating Conjuntions and asked, "Miss, what is a subornitating conjunshion?"
"A subordinating conjunction usually starts the dependent clause of a sentence."
His face became concentrated and his eyes focused while he thought. "And, a dependent clause can come at either the beginning or end of a sentence. Right?"
"Good, R____! Where did you learn that?" I was so excited that a level 3 English student would know such a thing!
"Um.... Lemme see. Ms. W___? No. She don't talk about grammar. Hmm... I think you, Miss. You taught me last year." He smiled.
"Well, then I'm very proud of you for remembering! That's impressive!" I beamed back.
He laughed and humbly but matter-of-factly said, "I know, Miss. I have to do my best because I want to go to college."

Gateway Prep and Prufrock Talk

For those of you who are not high school teachers in Gwinnett County, let me explain: the Gateway is a document-based essay exam given to all sophomore students. The test is given in three subject areas, and the tests are categorized as Social Studies/Langauge Arts and Science/Language Arts. The two essay exams are given on two separate days (Tues and Thurs). As you can see, the students are graded on their LA skills twice. Now, with as much writing as we do in LA, most students pass these portions of the tests with no problem. The only time my ESOL students have issues is when their English skills are still lower than expected for Sophomore students. Most students also pass the SS portion without much trouble. It is the Science portion that gives many students headaches. For many of them, it is difficult to write about science.

Thus, in my SOPH LA class, we are in the middle of Gateway prep. I actually enjoy teaching this unit because it's basically a culmination of everything I've been teaching the students about writing all year. So, it's cool to see all of their work come to fruition as they work on practice prompts, group-work essays, and individual-work essays. For the past week, we've been working on a group-work SC/LA practice test that has to do with Biology ("The Ecosystem and Food Webs"). I'm taking them through the entire process of Gateway testing. We began by looking through and reading the entire test (the students are given a scenario, 2 writing task choices with bullet-point topics, and a variety of documents to use as concrete detail), then we brainstormed in outline form how much they collectively new about both writing tasks so they could see how to visually assess which topic choice would be the best for them. Afterward, we reviewed the format of an introduction paragraph and got started with our writing!

I'm trying something new this year: as we group-write this essay, I'm projecting everything they do on the overhead screen from my laptop. That way, as students call out sentence ideas, revisions, or and questions, they see every change and every addition. Every day, they learn something new about what to do and what not to do. Plus, they are seeing the importance of revision...something they previously thought was the same as editing. I'm finding that it's one thing to tell students how to write well, but it's a whole other thing to show them how to write well. Of course, the success of this activity is yet to be seen, but I already feel confident in saying this is something I should continue to do in years to come.

The thing that makes this successful, in my opinion, is that I give students sufficient "wait time" as they are processing the Gateway topic, the information in their test packet, and what I say to them. If I ask them to think of a topic sentence for the first body paragraph, and to look to their thesis statement and writing task information for help, I'm not afraid to give them 1-2 minutes of wait time to get their thoughts in order. In our education classes, you know they always tell us how important wait time is, and it is so true! Many times, if students are silent, teachers think they need to fill the quiet with extra explanation or rephrasing. On the contrary, students often need us to just quiet down to let them think. :) It is the greatest feeling to set my students up with a task, give them a little bit of direction, and watch them come up with the answers or solutions themselves! When I know they can do it on their own, I know I have done my job.

...Not to leave out my JR LA class, today we began our study of T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Modernism is my absolute favorite literary period, and my students are always shocked to learn that it's the darkness, dispair, and disconnectedness that draws me to it. "But Miss, you are so nice! Why do you like such depressing things?" LOL I have no idea! To me, though, Eliot is tops. Once my students know that I would name my first-born Eliot (with one L, of course), they know that they better respect the poet's work.

To take them through "Prufrock," I give them two documents: a copy of the text and a handout that walks them through explicating the work stanza by stanza. On the copy of the text (by the way, yes, it is in their textbook; but you can't really study Eliot without marking up his texts!), they highlight and take notes on the imagery, simile, symbolism, and vocabulary he uses. This helps them better understand how the tenets of Modernism are exceptionally represented in this poem. On the handout, we answer questions about the text together.

Students are always overwhelmed by Eliot when they are first introduced to his work. So, it's always a bit of a bumpy start. By the end of explicating the first stanza, though, most of them are hooked and are taken in by the genius of this man's style. Of course, that always makes me very happy. :)

Student-Teacher Conversation:

"If there were any author who I would marry because of his genius, it would be Eliot."

"Miss, didn't you say that already about Langston Hughes?"

"No, D__. I have a crush on Mr. Langston Hughes, but that's different."

"Yeah right, Miss. You just say that every time so we'll treat the literature with respect. That's what you say right? 'I love this author's work, so treat it with respect.'"

"That's definitely what I say, D__. I'm glad you remember it." :)

Can We Read More Stories Like This?

This is the question I was asked today during 3rd period JR LA. We are in the middle of A Raisin in the Sun, and the students are loving it! I don't have to give instruction to take out their books or force students to read lines...they are all one step ahead of me by taking out their books when the bell rings, calling out the page number to each other for where we stopped reading the previous day, and volunteering (sometimes a little TOO insistently) to read lines for their favorite characters.

The language of the play is simple enough that I don't need to explain much to my ESOL students. They keep up with the dialogue, and there's actually been quite a bit of laughter during the exchanges between characters. Sometimes, I'm surprised that the students are paying close enough attention to get some of the more subtle comments, but they are!

A couple of days ago, I picked up the made-for-TV version of the play. I watched it a few years ago when it first aired on ABC, and it was a decent production. The women were strong and convincing, but P. Diddy did not pull off Walter's character, in my opinion. Anyhow, I asked the students: "Would you like to read Act I and watch the video of that part, then read Act II and watch it, or would you rather just read through the play and watch the movie afterward?" The decision was unanimous: "No, Miss, the movie will ruin it! Let's read it all first and then watch." I was floored....

I haven't done anything special to teach the book. We're reading it in conjunction with our study of Langston Hughes's poetry (with particular attention, of course, to "Dream Deferred"), but we're simply reading, answering some discussion questions, talking about the characters' motives and feelings, and taking a test in the end. The students will probably write a short essay to expand on the themes of the play, but other than those things, the characters and words are what make this piece so easy to teach. The students truly connect to it, and that is a wonderful event to witness.

As for my SOPH LA classes, we are completing our study of Inferno this week. The students say they have enjoyed reading this text and appreciate that Dante would have such vision and imagination to create such places in his literature. There are only a few Cantos in our textbook, and we only read Cantos I, III, and XXXIV; but I also gave the students a tour of the entire Inferno as I discussed in my previous post. As we read each Canto, I put up on the overhead projector "reading check," "literary analisis," "critical viewing," and "critical analysis" questions which I have taken from the margins of the textbooks. We'll read a section of the Canto, I'll summarize what has happened or what was said, and then we'll answer these overhead questions together. The students have not once complained about copying these questions and answers. In fact, they are asking questions, adding comments, correcting each other, making literary or historical references, and making jokes as we analyze the Canto.

After we finish reading the Canto and the discussion questions, the students answer certain "Review and Assess" questions from their texts. These they have to do on their own because they require deeper thought, and I want them to challenge themselves. We go over them together, though, and peer grade their work.

This Friday, the students will write chunk paragraphs about a topic related to Inferno. This will be part of their test on this unit. On Monday, they will take a 50-question multiple choice test to complete the assessment. After that, we'll get to work on a practice Gateway Exam (with a focus on medieval life). Then, the last few days before Spring Break, I think I'll reward the students with a viewing of What Dreams May Come, a film that uses some of the ideas of the afterlife and punishment from The Divine Comedy.

Quote of the Day:
"Mrs. Greene, it's hotter than the 8th circle of hell in here! Could we turn on the A.C. please?" Yay! Literary jokes! :) This student was one of my lowest performers last semester, but with Julius Caesar and Inferno this semester, he has been on top of his game and has a high B in my class now!