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.
Showing posts with label seating chart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seating chart. Show all posts
Friday, September 9, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Ah...A Whole Week of Preplanning!
I don't even know how many years it's been since teachers in my district were allowed a full week of preplanning. With furloughs being the newest, most popular way for school systems to save money, planning days are often the ones to be cut. So, we've had to accomplish (or do what we could) in 2 days what usually takes 5.
This year, I feel READY! :) My biggest "to-do" items where:
1. Plan at least 2 weeks for each class, implementing some of the new ideas I got from the Literacy Institute and other professional learning this summer.
2. Make seating charts for each class
3. Fit enough desks into room for largest class
4. Organize room so I'm ready to go on first day
Among all of the other chores, tasks, meetings, and required activities I did this week, I accomplished all of these big tasks as well! Even better, I planned the entire month of August for both my World Lit and American Lit classes; AND was able to arrange my seating charts so that almost no one is sitting next to more than one person who speaks the same languages as he or she does! This will be a huge help in the lower-level English language classes. I already feel so much better about this year than I did about last year.
A colleague and I were talking today, and we agreed that we are going to be more positive this year. We both had pretty challenging experiences last year and refuse to repeat the anger, frustration, and depression. We agreed that if we say something negative about work, we have to say 2 positives as well. :)
This morning, the last day of preplanning, we were treated to a presentation by Mr. John Antonetti. I wish there was a video clip online of him speaking, because he is one of the most engaging and relevant speakers on education I've heard. His comments and stories were honest and moving, and he had the whole crowd laughing the entire time. The focus of his presentation was on engagement: that students aren't going to pay attention to something they don't have an emotional connection to or a personal experience that relates. So, we have to present the material in such a way that makes it relevant and then allow them time to FIND those connections. He said so many interesting things that I took pages and pages of notes! I'm sure I'll refer to him again in future posts.
Incidentally, my motto for this year (More on them, less on me.) goes along very well with this year's focus in my district on student engagement. Huzzah!
On a different note, I am super excited about a new addition to the Media Center: the Ladybug Lumens. I've wanted one of these since my first year of teaching when one of the presenters at my county's "New Teacher Orientation" used one. I've already checked it out to use on the first day to show my levels 2 & 3 students examples of an activity they'll complete. More importantly, though, I'm going to use it to teach my SOPH and JR level students how to annotate their texts. So, I'll make copies of certain texts that will be especially challenging or dense, and we'll work through it together (with Ladybug's help!) to annotate, discuss, and make sense of it!
Honestly, I can't wait to get started. :)
This year, I feel READY! :) My biggest "to-do" items where:
1. Plan at least 2 weeks for each class, implementing some of the new ideas I got from the Literacy Institute and other professional learning this summer.
2. Make seating charts for each class
3. Fit enough desks into room for largest class
4. Organize room so I'm ready to go on first day
Among all of the other chores, tasks, meetings, and required activities I did this week, I accomplished all of these big tasks as well! Even better, I planned the entire month of August for both my World Lit and American Lit classes; AND was able to arrange my seating charts so that almost no one is sitting next to more than one person who speaks the same languages as he or she does! This will be a huge help in the lower-level English language classes. I already feel so much better about this year than I did about last year.
A colleague and I were talking today, and we agreed that we are going to be more positive this year. We both had pretty challenging experiences last year and refuse to repeat the anger, frustration, and depression. We agreed that if we say something negative about work, we have to say 2 positives as well. :)
This morning, the last day of preplanning, we were treated to a presentation by Mr. John Antonetti. I wish there was a video clip online of him speaking, because he is one of the most engaging and relevant speakers on education I've heard. His comments and stories were honest and moving, and he had the whole crowd laughing the entire time. The focus of his presentation was on engagement: that students aren't going to pay attention to something they don't have an emotional connection to or a personal experience that relates. So, we have to present the material in such a way that makes it relevant and then allow them time to FIND those connections. He said so many interesting things that I took pages and pages of notes! I'm sure I'll refer to him again in future posts.
Incidentally, my motto for this year (More on them, less on me.) goes along very well with this year's focus in my district on student engagement. Huzzah!
On a different note, I am super excited about a new addition to the Media Center: the Ladybug Lumens. I've wanted one of these since my first year of teaching when one of the presenters at my county's "New Teacher Orientation" used one. I've already checked it out to use on the first day to show my levels 2 & 3 students examples of an activity they'll complete. More importantly, though, I'm going to use it to teach my SOPH and JR level students how to annotate their texts. So, I'll make copies of certain texts that will be especially challenging or dense, and we'll work through it together (with Ladybug's help!) to annotate, discuss, and make sense of it!
Honestly, I can't wait to get started. :)
Monday, August 23, 2010
I Hate My 6th Period!
The Class from Hell
I'm sure that I've had issues with a class period in the past, but none of that matters when I feel the frustration that I do towards my 6th period SOPH LA class. This class has a variety of age groups in it (one of the poor souls is a very mature senior), but the majority of the students are new sophomores. Until recently, they were rambunctious freshman who ran their teachers ragged with all of their energy and lack of focus. I am definitely not used to dealing with such immaturity and expect my students to conduct themselves like young adults. So, I've been trying to figure out what to do about this particular class that doesn't seem to know how to stay on topic, focused, or quiet.
Today, I'm rearranging their seats for the 2nd time to see if that will help. I've made notes about which students seem to get off task and talk to each other. Those students will be separated. I've also put out a stack of detention forms, ready to fill out if I have to speak to any one student more than once. Since they seem to have difficulty staying on task during our daily grammar warm-ups, I'm going to tell them that if they don't stay quiet and get it done, I'm just going to count that day wrong on their weekly grade.
This class has made me so upset that I don't even want to talk about school when people ask me how it's going. When my 7th period class arrives at the end of the day, they look at me and ask things like, "Miss, what's wrong? Is it your 6th period again?" I am visibly worn out and upset to my 7th period students! That is not acceptable, and I need to change it.
Other Things...Happier Topics
Some thoughts I had last week:
1. I need to stop lying to myself when I think I'll do grading or planning over the weekend. It's just not going to happen, so I need to be sure to get all of this done by Friday before I leave for the weekend.
2. Dr. Scholl's inserts are a miracle. For the first time in 2 weeks, my feet aren't killing me; and I can move my toes without my foot going into a cramp! Thank you, Dr. Scholl!
3. I must make all of my copies for the following week by Friday before I leave for the weekend. Oftentimes, I'll leave them until Monday morning thinking, "No one else will be at the copy machine." Inevitably, there is always something to do at the last minute on Monday morning, so I need to limit the number of factors as much as possible.
4. Now that I am only teaching ESOL classes, I can move at a little slower pace. I used to have to rush my ESOL students to somewhat keep up with my regular students (for my own sanity). I need to remember things like: don't try to give verbal information while they are copying notes--they can't process both at once; and stop more frequently while reading text out loud in class to assess comprehension and ensure understanding.
Individual Class Activities
SOPH LA: This week, the students were introduced to Ancient Middle Eastern Literature. They did comprehension questions for the unit introduction, looked at some picture books for ancient Mesopotamia and Sumeria, and viewed a Ms. Greene original PPT that introduced the Epic of Gilgamesh. I feel like I rushed through my beautiful PPT, though. I must remember to take it a bit slower. Maybe next year, I'll have the students read the slides aloud before I embelish.
JR LA: We read all 4 of the Native American origin myths in the text and had some great conversation about them. To help them pay attention to the details of the Navajo Origin Myth (see a similar version here), the students worked for 2 days on storyboards of the myth. It was pretty difficult for many of them because of the specific colors, directions, and movements. In the end, though, I think they saw how important it is to focus on the details. Some of them have some great artistic ability, too!
LDC III: For speaking day this week, we played Talking Cards. The students loved the game, and I learned a lot about each of them through it. They asked if we could play again sometime, and I promised that if we had free time one day, we'd play it again. This class also went to the Media Center to choose their silent reading books. To my surprise, many of the students were excited about picking their own books! A couple had never checked books out from a library before, and that's always a special experience to witness. :) On Friday, we started reading the parallel text of Romeo & Juliet. Some of them had already read it last year (and were bored), but each of them had a part to read aloud, and we made it through Act I, Scene i.
LA II: This class is pretty easy because I just follow the schedule laid out by Visions. This week, we read a story about a journey through Antarctica. We've been learning new vocab words, practicing grammar, learning writing skills, and pronouncing words aloud. This group seems especially interested in improving their English, so I think I'm going to have to veer off from the Visions curriculum sometimes and do more verbal activities. I picked up some flashcards from the $1 section at Target. They are for phonics, sight words, and rhyming. I gave each of the students 2 phonics cards each and they had to pronounce all of the words on each card. They did this with very little effort. So, I'm going to have to kick it up a notch somehow.
I'm sure that I've had issues with a class period in the past, but none of that matters when I feel the frustration that I do towards my 6th period SOPH LA class. This class has a variety of age groups in it (one of the poor souls is a very mature senior), but the majority of the students are new sophomores. Until recently, they were rambunctious freshman who ran their teachers ragged with all of their energy and lack of focus. I am definitely not used to dealing with such immaturity and expect my students to conduct themselves like young adults. So, I've been trying to figure out what to do about this particular class that doesn't seem to know how to stay on topic, focused, or quiet.
Today, I'm rearranging their seats for the 2nd time to see if that will help. I've made notes about which students seem to get off task and talk to each other. Those students will be separated. I've also put out a stack of detention forms, ready to fill out if I have to speak to any one student more than once. Since they seem to have difficulty staying on task during our daily grammar warm-ups, I'm going to tell them that if they don't stay quiet and get it done, I'm just going to count that day wrong on their weekly grade.
This class has made me so upset that I don't even want to talk about school when people ask me how it's going. When my 7th period class arrives at the end of the day, they look at me and ask things like, "Miss, what's wrong? Is it your 6th period again?" I am visibly worn out and upset to my 7th period students! That is not acceptable, and I need to change it.
Other Things...Happier Topics
Some thoughts I had last week:
1. I need to stop lying to myself when I think I'll do grading or planning over the weekend. It's just not going to happen, so I need to be sure to get all of this done by Friday before I leave for the weekend.
2. Dr. Scholl's inserts are a miracle. For the first time in 2 weeks, my feet aren't killing me; and I can move my toes without my foot going into a cramp! Thank you, Dr. Scholl!
3. I must make all of my copies for the following week by Friday before I leave for the weekend. Oftentimes, I'll leave them until Monday morning thinking, "No one else will be at the copy machine." Inevitably, there is always something to do at the last minute on Monday morning, so I need to limit the number of factors as much as possible.
4. Now that I am only teaching ESOL classes, I can move at a little slower pace. I used to have to rush my ESOL students to somewhat keep up with my regular students (for my own sanity). I need to remember things like: don't try to give verbal information while they are copying notes--they can't process both at once; and stop more frequently while reading text out loud in class to assess comprehension and ensure understanding.
Individual Class Activities
SOPH LA: This week, the students were introduced to Ancient Middle Eastern Literature. They did comprehension questions for the unit introduction, looked at some picture books for ancient Mesopotamia and Sumeria, and viewed a Ms. Greene original PPT that introduced the Epic of Gilgamesh. I feel like I rushed through my beautiful PPT, though. I must remember to take it a bit slower. Maybe next year, I'll have the students read the slides aloud before I embelish.
JR LA: We read all 4 of the Native American origin myths in the text and had some great conversation about them. To help them pay attention to the details of the Navajo Origin Myth (see a similar version here), the students worked for 2 days on storyboards of the myth. It was pretty difficult for many of them because of the specific colors, directions, and movements. In the end, though, I think they saw how important it is to focus on the details. Some of them have some great artistic ability, too!
LDC III: For speaking day this week, we played Talking Cards. The students loved the game, and I learned a lot about each of them through it. They asked if we could play again sometime, and I promised that if we had free time one day, we'd play it again. This class also went to the Media Center to choose their silent reading books. To my surprise, many of the students were excited about picking their own books! A couple had never checked books out from a library before, and that's always a special experience to witness. :) On Friday, we started reading the parallel text of Romeo & Juliet. Some of them had already read it last year (and were bored), but each of them had a part to read aloud, and we made it through Act I, Scene i.
LA II: This class is pretty easy because I just follow the schedule laid out by Visions. This week, we read a story about a journey through Antarctica. We've been learning new vocab words, practicing grammar, learning writing skills, and pronouncing words aloud. This group seems especially interested in improving their English, so I think I'm going to have to veer off from the Visions curriculum sometimes and do more verbal activities. I picked up some flashcards from the $1 section at Target. They are for phonics, sight words, and rhyming. I gave each of the students 2 phonics cards each and they had to pronounce all of the words on each card. They did this with very little effort. So, I'm going to have to kick it up a notch somehow.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Day Two: Boring and Crazy
How can one day be both, right? Well, for the first half of the class period, students had to take their summer reading test. This took up about 25-30 minutes. I hate test time because time just drags and drags. After their tests were turned in, I led students in a "Chalk Talk" to get them moving and to start opening up. The original purpose for the "Chalk Talk" was to have students think about and agree upon classroom rules for our period together. But, we didn't get around to the rules. I have a collab. teacher during 1st period (the "Talk" was something she did last year), and she wanted to get an idea of weather the students were excited or scared about their sophomore year. So, we just wrote "School" on the board, and the kids commenced writing their thoughts on the board about this year. Rules came up only at the end.
I think we might have another "Chalk Talk" on Thursday (tomorrow they have to write their summer reading essay) to come up with the classroom rules together. I think that would be a cool activity, and it will get me out of my bad habit of trying something once, having it not turn out exactly the way I wanted, and never doing it again! I need to get the students used to doing activities like this so they are more comfortable with speaking their mind, getting up and moving around, responding and interacting with each other, and thinking outside of the box.
On top of what I wanted to do with my students, I was also taking care of paperwork that is necessary at the beginning of the school year. That put an added level of hectic to the day.
A thought: I didn't put the kids into a seating chart yet because we didn't have enough desks on the first day. I'm finding that some in my ESOL class, especially, need to be isolated from their friends, and need to be around people who don't speak their L1. Tomorrow, I should go ahead and get the students settled into a seating chart. I don't want them to get comfortable with doing whatever they want. I'm going to put numbers on the desks ASAP, but I think I should get them in the assigned desks NOW.
We'll be starting a research project soon, so I want to have the class organized before that. It will make me feel much better when I let the students move around to work together.
I think we might have another "Chalk Talk" on Thursday (tomorrow they have to write their summer reading essay) to come up with the classroom rules together. I think that would be a cool activity, and it will get me out of my bad habit of trying something once, having it not turn out exactly the way I wanted, and never doing it again! I need to get the students used to doing activities like this so they are more comfortable with speaking their mind, getting up and moving around, responding and interacting with each other, and thinking outside of the box.
On top of what I wanted to do with my students, I was also taking care of paperwork that is necessary at the beginning of the school year. That put an added level of hectic to the day.
A thought: I didn't put the kids into a seating chart yet because we didn't have enough desks on the first day. I'm finding that some in my ESOL class, especially, need to be isolated from their friends, and need to be around people who don't speak their L1. Tomorrow, I should go ahead and get the students settled into a seating chart. I don't want them to get comfortable with doing whatever they want. I'm going to put numbers on the desks ASAP, but I think I should get them in the assigned desks NOW.
We'll be starting a research project soon, so I want to have the class organized before that. It will make me feel much better when I let the students move around to work together.
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