Week Fifteen Journal Entry

I suppose I'll make a comment on each of my major units. One unit is Our Town. The challenge I am having in this unit right now relates to the fact that we have a classroom set of the script. In each of my Advanced English 8 classes, we are reading this play in class. The students don't (and can't) take the books home. And yet I've assigned a unit project. I've had to think about how the students can do their projects without a book in front of them. I also need to think about how they will prepare for their unit test. We'll need to do some good review work in class this week.

My other major unit is a memoir unit, which involves reading and writing memoirs. I've been thinking about how to assess creative writing. With my students, I've been stressing the idea that, with creative writing, reader response is critical--it's the measuring stick against which we evaluate our work. Thus far, here is what I've come up with:

Have you written a one-page memoir (due Monday Apr. 20)? worth 25 points
Have you responded to the writing samples of all your group members? worth 25 points
Have you edited your memoir, based on the comments of your group? 25 points
Have you posted your memoir to the Scholastic website? 25 points
TOTAL 100 points

This is a process, as opposed to a product, rubric. It will count for a test grade. At the moment, I'm happy with this plan, but it will be interesting to see how well it works in practice. My cooperating teacher has asked me whether I'm grading anything critically in this unit, or whether I'm simply giving participation grades. I'm giving her question/concern a lot of thought. I think that, with creative writing, I'm on the right track, but I'm not sure she would agree.

I'll keep you posted, gentle readers, on how this memoir unit turns out.

Week Fourteen Journal Entry

As I have started teaching my own material to Ms. B's classes this week, I've had to be very careful about the level of my vocabulary and the level of my material. I've started editing my materials, especially in my English 8 classes, with my students in mind. I've kept a mark-up of one particular document, Dr. O'Brien, and I'll be glad to show it to you. I feel like I'm adjusting to my audience. It's a cool feeling to now have my particular students in mind as I create my materials.

My fifth and sixth periods are both Advanced English classes, but the personalities of the classes are very different. Fifth period is active and conversational, sometimes difficult to control. Sixth period is generally subdued; sometimes it's even difficult to get class discussions rolling. I find myself lowering my volume and slowing down my presentation speed with sixth period. As with the vocabulary issue I discussed in the paragraph above, this is an issue of adjusting my manner and presentation style to my students.

I am ready to have my own students and get to know them and keep them all year instead of changing classrooms and adjusting to new students every eight weeks.

Week Thirteen Journal Entry

It's been interesting, in a bang-my-head-against-the-wall kind of way, to be in the school during standardized testing. Every teacher I've been around struggles with the issue of what to do with the students after morning testing. Administration discourages the teachers from covering new material or giving homework. So the teachers review basic material that is likely to be on the tests. This practice--testing in the morning, followed by an afternoon review in preparation for more testing--actually makes the monotony of standardized testing worse than it has to be. And this goes on for two weeks! Unbelievable.

Of course I am trying to form my own opinions as to what I will do when I am in charge of a classroom. Here are a few ideas--

• I think it would be a good time to play word games, like Scrabble.
• I'm collecting funny grammar bloopers that could be developed into mini language or grammar lessons (making grammar FUN is the eternal dilemma).
• The post-testing afternoons would also be a great time to let the students do sustained silent reading. I realize this might not work in every class. One of Mrs. B.'s honors classes has 28 students, with a high concentration of boys. They come into the classroom with pent-up energy, and I really can't imagine them settling down with a good book. But SSR would work in some classes.
• Maybe we could learn some jump-rope rhymes and go outside to jump rope. It's a poetry lesson in disguise, right? (This is beginning to sound like a multi-disciplinary P.E. unit in the making.)

So those are a few ideas. I hope to add more.

Contrary to our agreed-upon schedule, I told Mrs. B. that I would start teaching on Monday. When I initially agreed to this, I thought I would go ahead and begin teaching my 10-day units, but then I realized that I would see 5th period every day (the lunch period stays constant), but I might not see 6th period for two days in a row. The classes would get really out of synch. So I'm developing a fall-back plan. I think we'll study onomatopoeia on Monday; write haikus on Tuesday; and I'll start my 10-day units on Wednesday. These are self-contained lessons, and it won't matter if 6th period misses one of them.

If nothing else, I'm learning to roll with the punches.

Week Twelve Journal Entry

I am now in the process of preparing the three units that I will teach at Hampton Cove. These include a unit on Reading and Writing Memiors for regular English 8; an Our Town unit for advanced English 8; and a unit on reading comprehension strategies via A Child Called It for remedial reading.

My planning process is beginning to feel more familiar. I really can't say yet that it's getting easier, because there are different challenges with each unit, but it's becoming more familiar because I'm beginning to know how I like to have things organized.

In terms of the material, I have been very pleased to find that there is material on the 8th grade level that I enjoy. The book Ms. B. recommended for English 8, King of the Mild Frontier, is a lot of fun to read. In it, Chris Crutcher recounts his memories of growing up with his brother. Their antics--typical boy stuff--are hilarious. Ms. B. thought this book would be a good choice to keep the students' interest at this late date in their middle school careers. My second text, Our Town, was generally familiar to me, but I'm not sure I had ever read it. This celebration of everyday life has been a joy for me to read, and I hope it will be for the students, as well. I had previously read my third text, A Child Called It, which recounts one of the worst child abuse cases in the state of California. It's an inspirational story that should convince all readers not to judge the proverbial book by its cover. I believe it will not only be a vehicle through which I can teach some reading comprehension strategies, but also promote the idea of accepting the people around us. I had not thought I would enjoy middle school material, but these texts have been very pleasant surprises.

Week Eleven Journal Entry

Spring Break: I'm a big fan :)

Week Ten Journal Entry

OK, the thing that blew my mind in the high school atmosphere was the prevalence of drugs in the teenage culture. Now in the middle school atmosphere, the thing that is blowing my mind is the level of cheating I’m seeing among the students in class. Here are a few of the things that have happened since I began second placement: I've quietly spoken to J. and M. for looking on their neighbors’ papers during a test. Mrs. B. caught a student filling in answers to his homework as she called out the correct answers. Another day, as students graded each other’s papers, a girl asked her neighbor not to mark all of her incorrect answers. The girls agreed that if Mrs. B. really cared about this work, she would grade it herself. They knew that I overhead their comments.

I know that I have to walk a fine line here with Mrs. B. I don’t want to come across as being critical of the way she conducts her classroom, but at the same time, I have to find a way to reign this in during my teaching days. I know that I will have to cruise the room a lot and stop allowing the students to grade each other’s papers--at least in the way they are currently grading.

This brings up another issue. The amount of grading a teacher has to do is overwhelming. I experienced this for a mere four weeks during my first placement. I didn’t want to collect all the work the students did "for a grade," but I found myself saying, “If I think that you guys aren’t really doing this work, I’ll be taking it up for a grade.” I often felt that taking a grade was my only leverage to get students to do their work. The result was that I was swamped with work in the evening, when I really needed a break and a little rest. To avoid this trap, many teachers do let students grade their fellow students’ work in class. I know that, in addition to the types of dishonesty I’ve described above, student grading also presents privacy concerns.

The best solution I’ve seen came from Mrs. K. at Bob Jones. After her students had done a particular assignment, Mrs. K. would tell them to put away their pencils, pens, and all their personal things. She then handed out red pens and told the students to correct their own papers as she called out the answers. Mrs. K had eliminated the privacy concern, but it would be more difficult to eliminate student dishonesty. I only observed two of Mrs. K’s classes, so I’m not sure how she was implementing this practice over time. In order for self-grading to work, it would be important for the teacher to spot-check the student grading and come down very hard on cheaters. I would like to hear your opinion on this issue, Dr. O’Brien. As I’ve said, one of my goals for my second placement is to find ways to work smarter, and this is one problem I would really like to begin solving.

Week Nine Journal Entry

This is the end of my first week at Hampton Cove Middle School. The atmosphere here is much different from Bob Jones. First, it's much smaller--there are only 500 students here, as compared to 2200 at Bob Jones. Second, the atmosphere feels much more relaxed. The teachers arrive at work later, and they visit with each other in the hallways. They seem to enjoy knowing each other. And because this school is so much closer to my house, I'm spending less time on the road and seeing my family a lot more. So, in sum total, this placement feels much more relaxed for me.

With all that said, the slower pace right now is a bit frustrating. I have to observe my cooperating teacher until the spring tests are over. At that point, around April 9, I will begin teaching my unit. Then I will have to quickly wrap up all the loose ends and add the required material to my portfolio. Late April will be busy.

As I read back over this post, I realize that I'm contradicting myself. I want to find ways avoid the often stressful, hectic pace of teaching, and yet right now I'm frustrated with my slow pace. The perfect balance is hard to find and even harder to maintain.