Some Basics

Not surprisingly, the time has flown by and the end of the first term is tomorrow.  I feel super fortunate to have the students I have this term, as they are all very easy to get along with, something that isn't always true.

My home room and first block is the largest class, with an enrollment of twenty-seven, but it sets a really positive tone to my day.  It's Honors English 10, and they are a pretty happy group.  I have about ten AVID students in the mix, and so far I haven't had personality issues with any of them, nor have I seen any occur.  One student had to go on home bound services at the end of the second week due to surgery, and a new student transferred from a different class to due a conflict with another student, but it seems to be going well.  I provided color paper and markers earlier this week following a test and encouraged them to make a get well card, but only a couple did it.  One or two of the boys suggested I make a large one and just have them all sign it, which seems like a good idea, so I am planning on doing that tomorrow.  So even though it's a large class, it's easy to manage.

My second block is my Transition English 10 and only has a total of fourteen students now.  My roll had started with sixteen, but one was a no-show and the other one moved during the second week.  The interesting thing is that there are only three girls in that group, which definitely affects the management.  But they are a nice group and most are working hard, although two are not passing at this time.  Two of the boys are repeating English 10 with me even though all three of us had the chance to make a change if we wanted to.  One of them is still doing the same behaviors of sleeping and not working much, mainly due to his home life, but the other one is killing it!  He said he just decided to make a change and do it right this year and that is exactly what he's doing.  He has an A and lots of praise.  Pretty cool.

Lastly is my English 11 class, which is inclusion with a co teacher, and it's working well.  We have twenty-two students, ranging from very low to two who should be in Honors.  We had the one student put into Honors today, and the other one is still having his schedule manipulated to try and make it work.

More on instruction later.

Graphic Novel: Magneto

I gave my Honors English 10 class the graphic novel, Magneto, to read this week.  Most of them read it on Wednesday, the first day, and the remainder finished it the following day.  I grouped them in groups of five, trying to mix them so there was a balance of genders and were also from different areas of the room.  I also tried to place one outgoing person per group so that there was some balance that way as well.  I used a set of Literature Group job sheets for each group, letting them decide the roles within each group.  On Friday I gave them a set of five discussion questions, in the hopes of guiding the discussion somewhat, and it seemed to go well.  I also gave each person a project choice board from a book I have, and allowed them to work on the project in class after their discussions.  I told them they will have one more day in class to work, and then the rest of the projects will need to be done outside of class and due next Monday.  They all seemed to be interested and engaged, and I'm hoping this will lead to further interest in the theme of social justice.  For instance, I'm thinking about including the issue of current day genocide in the list of research project topics this year.  Interestingly enough, I heard on NPR last weekend that Germany is having a rise in anti-Semitism again, something I told my students about when I introduced the novel.  Hard to believe.

Trying to follow through on my ideas from this summer has been difficult as I adjust to three preps and new textbooks, but it's also been exciting to plan these types of relevant activities.

So Many Resources, So Little Time

As I sat and reflected on the upcoming week, I remembered to look on the Teaching Tolerance website, and found a unit on Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice, as well as a number of other fabulous ideas.  I'm not sure where I'm going to fit this in, but I know that I will.  I need to take some quality time to plan outward, to think beyond the next week, which is hard with the new preps and the new textbook and corresponding curriculum framework.  I need to sit down and map out the entire semester, at least loosely, so I have a better idea of what I'm doing and how to include the "extras" I so want to teach.  I also am realizing that the first semester is going to be as much error as trial and error, and I have to be okay with failing a bit more than I am comfortable with.  What was the phrase?  Spend more time in the unknowing?  Oh, but it's oh so hard to do that.

Also, I received the Virginia Holocaust Museum loan of a class set of graphic novels, X-Men: Magneto Testament; a timely resource, especially with what's happening in Germany right now.  

New Year

Three great days completed; I'm loving the fact that I have my Honors 10 class for home room and first block.  They are so cooperative and calm, compared to my last two years at the high school.  The tone of the class is making me think I can do some really fun things in there, since I don't have to review as much as I'm used to doing.

Having said that, I explained the concept of a Writer's Notebook to all three classes, Honors, Transition (at risk for dropping out) and Inclusion, using Kelly Gallagher's words that "just as an athlete practices far more frequently than he/she plays in a game/competition, the Writer's Notebook allows for the practice of writing without judgement." (My summary of his actual words).  I then showed a TED Talk clip of  Malala Yousafzau's father speaking about how a patriarchal society affects everyone to all three classes. I then had them orally define a few terms before asking them to write in their Writer's Notebook.  Every class participated and more importantly, seemed enthusiastic and engaged, which is the point, right?

I'm hoping this will be a good foundation to further explore the topic of social injustice and the power of writing.  I think it's a good start.

First Day

Interesting moment today. While having my students participate in a paired AVID activity entitled, Pet Peeves, one of the portions required the pairs to discuss and write down three areas of commonality and three areas of differences.  A student asked me if race could be used to describe a similarity or a difference, and I said of course, because race and gender are definitely part of our identities.  I'm hoping this sets the tone for allowing race to be part of our conversations.  I didn't realize it would begin on day one, but I'm so glad it did.

The Night Before

Double checked my bag, car is packed with even more stuff, and my stomach is queasy.

Yes, it's the annual back to school jitters, right on schedule.

Labor Day Weekend

This year our pre-school week had more meetings scheduled than usual, which left me with very little classroom prep time.  If I were a new teacher, I would have been in high stress mode the entire week, but luckily, I am an eighteen year veteran and realized that regardless of how crunched I was for time, I would somehow manage to be ready for Day One.  Thankfully I made the decision to go in a couple of times before I had to, and so my room was pretty well set up by the day I had to report back.  This allowed me to make copies of the first week activities in fifteen minute blocks of time, which was truly all the time I had.  I finally got the stacks of papers organized on Friday before I left for the day, but because we adopted new textbooks and a new scanner system to track them, I have 180 textbooks spread all over my room, which means I am going into the building on Sunday to shelve them.  It's either that or do it before class on Tuesday, and Sunday is definitely the lesser of two evils.

I hate that I spent very little time on the curriculum, but that just means I will stay late a lot the month of September.  I did find a website that I'm browsing through this weekend: the National Wriring Project.  And I still have the books I bought in July and August to study, so all is not lost.

How are your first few weeks looking?