Monday:
“A Flip-Flop Day”
Flip: The first class of the day was quiet. Students were just starting their whole day of recovery from a long break, and we got the first round. It was my American Studies class, and they were doing a history lesson. They were still really quiet and had a hard time paying attention.
Flop: I had announced to my SAT class that next Friday was my last day, so I would have them last on Thursday. One of my students came up to me afterwards, upset that she wouldn’t be there for my last day, and that she would have to come and say good-bye to me some other time. It felt nice knowing that she had wanted to give me a proper good-bye and took the time to basically say that she would miss me. That felt wonderful.
Flip: After 2 planning periods, I had my coop’s Honors class, where they were all very giggly and had a hard time focusing on the activity and reading assignment.
Flop: The very annoying, very whiny study hall I have was pretty good. I had brought in some books from home that I was hoping would get the attention, particularly of two boys who never have any work to do and never want to do anything else. To one of them who complains about how long and complicated things are to read, I gave him a book I have of six-word memoirs, called “Not Quite What I Was Planning”. He seemed hesitant at first, but sure enough he kept that book and read it through the whole class. To the other, I told him that if he liked the website “F My Life”, and then handed him a book called “Mortified”. This book has longer stories about adults recalling mortifying instances in high school. At first I thought that he wouldn’t enjoy it because of the length of each story, but I caught him laughing out loud a few times. Both of these boys were reading the whole class. They didn’t talk to each other or draw or be nuisances, but they were actually reading. That felt wonderful.
Tuesday:
“Observed”
I had my SAT class observed today by the English department head of the school I’m at. The students were doing a student-directed activity, similar to what we did in class yesterday. Awhile ago, they had said that Reading Passages and Math were still the two parts of the SAT that they weren’t comfortable with. I thought, for the Reading Passages, knowing what was going to be asked would help them. So I made a list of 5 things about the passages that questions were often asked about (The Set-up/Introduction, Vocabulary Words used in Context, The Overall Theme, The Purpose of Examples Used, and Inferences made about Statements), and had them make up their own questions.
In partners, they read a passage (each group had a different one), highlighted various words or phrases that they felt could be potentially asked, and then created their own multiple choice questions. The groups switched and had to answer the questions created about the different passage. Afterwards, I gave the questions from the SAT about the passages given to the group members who originally created the questions. Most of them did very well, and some had similar questions that they had asked compared to what was on the SAT. Thursday, when I give a timed section, it should be easier for them to know what’s coming up for questions knowing now what to look for.
I haven’t had a chance yet to talk to the woman who observed me, but I felt that I did pretty well. At one point a group had a question while I was working with another group, so she got up and went to help them, though I think it was just because I was busy rather than she thought I couldn’t do it.
I also got to help a student brainstorm for a poem he had to do for class, which was great because that’s what I feel that I’m best at. If I had the choice, I would teach only creative writing classes, or poetry classes, or any other class that focuses extensively on creative pieces. This is why I absolutely love my Shakespeare class, because it’s less about the mechanics or other aspects of English than it is just about the literature. Anyway, this student was on the right track, but just needed guidance for brainstorming to get his feet on the ground to write a good poem.</em
