Time Flies...

So, with two weeks left in our placements, I figured I'd share some good news. For the first few weeks of my placement, my co-op was very resistant to my ideas and even the idea of having a student teacher. Yes, she signed up for it, but she admits that she had no idea what she was signing on for. For a while, my lesson ideas were shut down or ignored because they were different than the simple "read the book, answer the questions" lesson. Needless to say, I was greeted with a bit of a cold welcome.

However, lately, I have seen a huge change in the dynamic of the classroom. I think that my co-op is realizing that I can be a helpful tool in her classroom even when I am not teaching. My students are writing a research paper, so my co-op is working on the step-by-step grading. While she does that, I can answer questions and guide the students through the writing process. It's been a really exciting experience because I feel like my co-op trusts me with that responsibility whereas before, I think that she was afraid to lose control.

For the first 2 months of my placement, I kept thinking, "Wow, if this is how student teaching is going to be, I'm not sure that this is going to work out." Now I know that my co-op is becoming more open to my teaching ideas, and she seems to be excited to try my lessons. I feel so much better and just wanted to share my excitement with all of you.

Exciting

I'm excited to see that I am contributing something to my classroom. My co-op told me the other day that he really thinks my presence in the room is working out because it has helped him to be rejuvenated about teaching. There are things that he has wanted to do or used to do and just hasn't gotten around to fulfilling for his class. However, he said that I have helped him to get some of those things started in his class. For instance, we now have a stocked in-class library that the students can use for pleasure reading. They can also (with approval) use the library books for their upcoming research project. I also suggested that we have the students do freewrites a couple times a week to get the students more comfortable with writing creatively. My co-op suggested that we use it as a lead-in to a short story unit later in the Spring semester, that way the students see that it is going somewhere. We also asked the students how we could improve the freewrite experience and they gave us a ton of ideas for prompts or inspiration for their writing. It was exciting to see something that I suggested become a major part of the classroom. I mentioned it to my co-op during 2nd period and we started it the same day because he was that excited about it.

Anyone else have exciting ways that they are contributing?

Reflection on 'American Teacher'

Hey gang, so last Tuesday before the break I went to the screening of American Teacher at the downtown campus. This was an opportunity to pre-view and comment on the film that is the "other-side" of 'Waiting For Superman.' It was made by the same people and had some big names attached to it. I was really pumped about this, because 'Waiting For Suprman' really was not fair to us. Unfortunately, this film was obviously made by the same people, and they obviously still do not get it. The entire movie was about money. Basically they expressed that we work a lot and may not get compensated fairly for all that work, uhhhhh duh. Then they showed 4 actual teachers lives, none of whom i thought were exceptionally amazing teachers, and all of whom represented a very small sect of teachers. For instance the Harvard undgrad/Columbia Masters grad who is an elementry teacher and thinks she should be paid a fortune because she went to an Ivy League school. Or the Texas HS teacher who earns $54,000 a year works at a Home Depot 7 days a week all year round and somehow is still in debt up to his ears. Finally the San Fran teacher who they painted to be the greatest of them all who left teaching because he could make double the salary at his familys real estate business, and later said "even if I could make this kind of money teaching I wouldn't go back because the stress level is too high."

What I have to say about all this, is screw the people who made that movie, screw the teachers in that movie and screw anyone who has to watch that movie just to understand that we work hard. You know I worry about a lot of things. I worry about finding a job, I worry that my resume isn't up to par, I worry kids won't like me and I worry that someday I'm gonna pour everything I have into a kid and it won't be enough; that he/she will still fall through the cracks. What I don't worry about, is my salary. Because in the small amount of time I've been in the classroom, I haven't been paid a dime. And being in that classroom makes my life a hell of alot more stressful and I feel liek this is the busiest semester of my life and that I'm constantly burning the candle at both ends. That being said, this is the BEST semester I've ever had, hands down. I love every second that I'm in that classroom and I have already seen the potential we have to make a difference, and when I think about doing that for the rest of my life I cannot wait to get it started.

I'm not an idiot, yes I would love the opportunity to get paid more, and I think we deserve to be paid more. I'm all for teacher evaluations that determine pay or anything else that will compensate GOOD teachers for the work they do. But I can also tell you that my family survived on far less than what that Texas teacher is making. And I can tell you that waking up everyday to go to a job you hate is miserable. So I thank God that I don't have to do that. We're all going to be great teachers and there is no doubt in my mind that we will be richly rewarded, it just may not be monetarily. And if those teachers in the video want to quit over money, then good riddance, cuz you weren't doing it for the reasons anyway.

*I'm sorry to get all preachy and serious on you but I had to get that out

home stretch

My co-op and I have been discussing lesson plans for the final three weeks of my time in the classroom before Christmas break.  He has been very supportive of my ideas and is excited to see me present lessons of my own. All of our classes have started reading A Christmas Carol and this unit will take them straight through to Christmas.  For my first lesson, I have decided to have the students participate in a role playing exercise, similar to our Shakespeare activity in Teaching English, in which students manipulate the actions of other students while sections of dialogue are read aloud.  Tomorrow, I aim to do this with the Scrooge/Marley's ghost dialogue as a way of student's showing their interpretation of Scrooge's terror during this section.  Another initial lesson/reading activity I want to try this week involves students isolating sentences,  phrases, and paragraphs they find value or importance in, and then discussing why students chose the text they did.  This will help students stay focused on the text during classroom readings.  The majority of the novel is read together as a class because of the difficulty of the prose for seventh graders, and students often tend to dismiss the text because someone else is reading.  I'm trying to find ways to keep student's focused on the text and follow along while someone else is reading.  My co-op has suggested that I teach my lessons for the first half of the day and then he'll teach my lessons to the second set of classes, allowing me to observe the changes and alterations he makes to my instruction.  I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, but I think it will be helpful and encourage me to continually improve my lessons.

Absences & Due Dates

My co-op usually follows the structure of introducing a text/theme, assigning independent reading and a worksheet to go along with the reading for her 4th block, "tech" section of English 11, which means students are handing in written work almost everyday. There are a lot of students in this class, probably around 30, and students are frequently absent or in other areas of the school, the resource room or learning support class, during class time. Because of the number of students missing class on a given day, the due dates for the assignments and worksheets are very flexible.

My co-op has a bin where she puts the worksheets for each day so that students know what they missed, but the students still come up to her and ask her to help them figure out what they missed and when it is due. I feel very overwhelmed by this process; I don't know how she stays on top of who missed what and what they need to make-up. Also, because she has flexible due dates for assignments, it means a huge amount of grading work for her at the end of the semester when students realize they need to turn in their work in order to pass. I completely understand why she has flexible due dates with the amount of absences and other things interfering with class work, but I also know that this system is not organized in a way that I feel I can manage in the Spring.

What do your co-ops do? How do they handle make-up work for absent students? What if the students miss an activity in class that they need to do/see in order to complete an assignment? Does your co-op have strict due dates? How frequently are your students receiving feedback (grades or otherwise) on their work?

"Keep Your Head Up"

One of my co-op's biggest pet peeves is when students fall asleep or put their heads down in class. It seems like a sign of disrespect and laziness and she's not alone in taking offense to this act. I never put much thought into the issue until today. It's such a shame that most of them time we fail to put thought into things unless they have some direct impact on us, but such is life. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is...

I haven't gotten a lot of sleep lately. By that I mean, I haven't been able to sleep in days. I wake up every 5 minutes, roll over, groan at the time, close my eyes and pray that this time I'll be able to sleep until morning. I don't think I've gotten more than 2 solid hours of sleep a night, for a number of reasons, and it's draining me. I find myself in conversations, completely listening and trying to digest the information, but unable to recall what happened. I find myself zoning out. Even now as I write this, I can barely focus.

For the first time, I am beginning to understand why these students keep their heads down. They're not being intentionally disrespectful. How can we expect them to learn about themes, imagery, big ideas, and characterization when even keeping their eyes open is a struggle? For whatever reason, these kids aren't getting enough sleep and it's wearing on their academic life. I feel like, at some point, we've all had those days where we know no matter how hard we try nothing is going to get done. We get tired, we get frustrated, and we check out. It's normal. It's natural.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this (probably because in the last week I've gotten the same amount of sleep most people get in a night) but I just wanted to throw it out there that there are so many factors that go into classroom behavior. It's not always disrespect.

Sorry that was so incredibly awful. To be honest, I knew I had to write a post yet this week, and in the half-awake state I'm in, this was the best I could offer.

Time Management in the Classroom

A frequent conversation I have with my co-op is the idea of not having enough time in a period to complete what we want to do. I often get caught up in the mindset that English is the only thing my students need to know, and they should spend all day with me, however, I'm quickly brought back to reality and realize that all of the other subjects are probably thinking the same thing. So, no matter how much I wish, or complain, or get frustrated about it, there's still only 40 minutes in a class period, and I have to do with it what I can. However, sometimes I feel like all of the great stuff we learn in class could never be possible in a classroom when there is only 40 minutes. For example, it would be great to do a free write with my students for 5-10 minutes everyday, but at the end of the week, that's 1/5 of the class time that week that could have been used for something else. Even when planning my unit, I felt like I had to leave out so much stuff, because there is only so much time within the year that I have. I could probably talk about about this for a very long time, but I'm sure you all understand. So I guess my real question for you all is how are you handling time management in your classroom? How much more do you think you could accomplish if you had more time? What kinds of things would you love to do in your classroom, but you don't have the time for?

No, you won't get in trouble for writing something creative.

The other day in class my co-op introduced me to a genius lesson idea. She had this children's book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg (the guy who wrote Jumanji andPolar Express). According to the fictional editor's note, the story is a collection of illustrations by a guy named Harris Burdick, who disappeared before releasing the stories that go along with the pictures. These mystery illustrations are presented in the book. Here's an example:

For the assignment, the students had to carefully examine the illustration as a "setting" and imagine what sort of plot might be inferred from the setting. They would identify if they thought the plot was going to be "happy" or "sad," whether the character seemed evil or good and what in the illustration gave them that impression. I was stoked about the idea, but I couldn't help thinking how awesome this would work as a starting off point, a prompt, for the students to write their own narratives, and the objectives of the lesson could be achieved that way as well. It was my co-op's lesson so I couldn't really make any changes but I did tell one group of students that I was working with (they finished up the assigned work quickly) that they should just starting writing a story with the line in the picture being the first line of their stories. One of the boys in the group looked up at me and asked, "will we get in trouble?" I almost burst out laughing, but at the same time it was terrible that the students have gotten to do so little creative writing in class that they see it as something they could get in trouble for.

I'm looking forward to try and get more creative writing in the classroom I'm a part of. Steve gave me a great idea that I'm going to put into effect this Friday. I'm going to use the 20 minute block of time that my homeroom is waiting for lunch as my own creative writing class. I'm going to start having the students do free writes and sharing their writing with classmates. I'm still working on the details but I'm psyched to get this going. Any suggestions for guiding 7th graders through their (probably) first creative writing experience would be much appreciated, thanks!

-Luke Damiani

Ning Conversation

I have been thinking about pairing a film with the Catcher in the Rye for our unit plan, but haven't really found one I totally love....so I posed a question on the ning, "making curriculum pop," and have been totally overwhelmed with awesome ideas! I posted a question on the ning this summer for my "teaching with film" course, and received a similar outpouring of ideas. I would recommend signing up for the ning and using this as a resource for your unit plans if you are struggling.

As a side note, John Golden responded to my thread (very exciting) and he recommended a film that I had thought about in the beginning, but kind of put on the back burner. Now that he mentioned it, I kind of feel validated and I think I am going to revisit it and really consider incorporating it into the unit.

Link to the ning: http://mcpopmb.ning.com/

Link to my question/convo: http://mcpopmb.ning.com/group/teachwmovies/forum/topics/catcher-in-the-rye-film?xg_source=activity

Grammar Time

My co-op and I have started the grammar unit for our classes. While most English teachers, along with their students, dread this part of the year, I am mildly enthusiastic about it. Fortunately, I am right in the middle of Transformational Grammar, so all of the concepts being taught are fresh in my head. More importantly, I have alternative methods to help the students understand traditional grammar concepts, particulary the functions of parts of speech, thanks to Shields. On Monday of this week, I watched my co-op teach noun functions to the first two periods, and I then taught the remaining classes. As I was watching him, I was frustrated to see that he was mutilating certain grammatical concepts, specifically indirect objects (he kept confusing them with objects of prepositions). Anyway, when I took over, I tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to give the students a variety of methods to identify the functions, often resorting to what Shields has told us in class. I think the most motivating part of the lesson, for me, was that I was implementing more contemporary strategies within traditional grammar, and I felt as though I was rebeling against our schools' preposterous infatuation with traditionally taught grammar. I always imagined myself being one of the teachers who held contempt towards teaching grammar, but after Monday I feel confident that I might be able to succeed in this content area and helps students gain a practical appreciation for it as well.

Homework? What's that?

Okay here is my vent of the day: Why is getting students to do their homework like pulling teeth???

I am leading the honors class through their novel (which is on top of their regular classwork) and every time I assign homework, they always moan and complain. Here's the kicker: the only day they get homework in every other class is on Fridays!!! I'm giving them reading assignments and worksheets to go with it, so it's not impossible and should only take they 30 minutes tops to finish it, but it's like pulling teeth! I "lost it" (okay not really, but I was really frustrated) today in class because they have had the book over a week now, have only been assigned the first four chapters, and yet I still have over half the class who didn't even start the book. When I told them they had a test on the first five chapters on Friday, it was like the floodgates opened and all of the excuses started pouring out. The only thing I could do what stress to them the test is going to be open book, but they were encouraged to read because they would need to know where to find answers in the book.

I had to giggle during class today because I was going over what their homework assignments were throughout the week and the assistant principle walked in and listened to me haven the class repeat back to me what their homework was. It was when one of the students said, "Miss we get it," yet he couldn't tell me what his homework was. I just looked at him and said nothing. It was the assistant principle who looked at the student and said, "Really???" The thing is, it's like that every day!

Now that I've vented longer than I wanted to, does anybody have any suggestions on how to get the students more involved and doing their homework? My co-op and I really don't know what to do at this point.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Who's really failing?

I've seen Steve and Dallas' posts about students under-performing and I can totally relate. My co-op and I have talked at length about the huge number of failing students in each of her/my classes. I wasn't expecting to see so many students completely writing off assignments and blowing off exams, with no regard for their grades or their education. I guess perhaps I was being presumptuous in expecting a school like Manheim Township to have less of this than perhaps an urban school or a less affluent school, but I'll be honest - I did.

I went to an affluent high school much like Manheim (Although many of the students were extremely wealthy, I (and most of my friends) sat comfortably in middle class). I don't know if I was oblivious or it wasn't going on, but I don't recall any of the students being as blatant in their disregard for their grades. I struggle to understand how these kids can (seemingly thoughtlessly) fail the majority of their classes or repeat entire grades. The most frustrating aspect of this is that a good deal of the kids I see failing are extremely intelligent and could easily ace every class if they bothered to put in even a minuscule amount of effort. Which brings me to....

Are they actually bored? I feel like any time an intelligent kid fails, educators slap a "not challenged enough" or "bored" label on them. I don't know if I agree with this idea. I think it's something else, or at least a combination of boredom and something else. (Sorry this is so inarticulate - I'm having trouble saying what I want to say.) Basically, what I'm trying to suggest is that boredom is not the sole reason these bright kids are failing consistently.

These kids come and sit in our classrooms and we see one small dimension of who they are. I think we need to realize and plan for the fact that who we see them as for 40 minutes of their day, doesn't do them justice. I've talked about this with friends I've had classes with for years, who I only began talking to/getting to know this school year -until you take the time to get to know someone, you forget they exist in a world beyond the one you see them in. It's like that surreal moment when you realize your parents aren't JUST your parents. They're someone's kid, someone's spouse, someone's EX, someone's best friend etc. These kids aren't JUST our English students: some of them are athletes, some have problems at home, some are helping pay the rent, some didn't eat dinner last night, some just broke up with their boyfriend/girlfriend, some are sick, some are frustrated, some are depressed, some are addicted to drugs/alcohol, some are homecoming queens, some are last-picked in gym, some are in bands, some are desperate for attention, some are trying to avoid it, etc. etc. etc.

Sorry this is long and rambling - it's a bit stream-of-consciousness. What I'm trying to say, at the end of all this, is that until we take the time (though it might be a long and difficult process) to know who these kids REALLY are, outside of the classroom, we will never be able to help them IN the classroom.

Whew!

Persona=personality ... right?!

So, I may be looking ahead a bit ... a bit too much perhaps, but still, I just want to get this out there ...

How do we show our "teaching persona?" To be honest, I am not even sure if I know fully what that is/what it means. My students have gotten to know my personality, have gotten to see who I am and some of my interests, but is that  my "persona?"

In my head I am equating persona with personality, but is that wrong? If not, how do you show personality when you teach, your quirks and your interests, your little niches that your students love to point out and joke about?

I guess it would just all be in the planning ... at least that is the only conclusion I am coming up with as I ramble here in front of you all ... I'm guessing that the key is to plan a lesson where your life can relate to your students ... and then pray that it goes that way and that the iPad catches it while on record.

Any thoughts on this? I'm really just spit-balling (I'm starting to really like that term, idk why). I'm just looking ahead at what I deemed to be the trickiest of the RPG's and I figured I would share my thoughts in case any of you were having the same ...

DI...or lack thereof...?

I don't know about everyone else, but most days when I walk out of class, I'm thinking, "I want to try that in my classroom". So naturally, I have been thinking a lot about DI in my placement. When I'm in the classroom, I have been paying a lot more attention to even the smallest things that might be considered DI. But honestly, I have yet to really find a lot of substantial evidence. MTMS is supposed to really be implementing the idea of DI at every possible chance. However, the first time I witnessed it was this week when the students were given a choice in their focus group presentations.

Other than their presentations, class tends to be the same way every day. The students come in, write their homework down, go over the book questions from the night before, listen to the next chapter, then begin their questions. This happens every single day with very little variation.

Here's my big problem - we have many students that have focus issues. They are bored in the classroom, and I do not blame them. I would be (and am sometimes) bored out of my mind. The class is not tracked, so we have all levels of students. Not all of them learn the same way or can stay focused when prompted with the same activities every day. When I try to suggest something different, my co-op is hesitant and always has doubts. When I am able to implement my ideas, it always works out fine.

I'm worried that I won't have much room for DI in my own planning for the spring semester. I can tell that my students are starving for it. I know that she has already lost some students. Any suggestions on how to get them back??

I am stealing Dallas and Marybeth's idea

Each of them has provided us with thought-provoking questions about our classroom demeanors and personas as teachers. Kudos to them!

So, I just felt as though it was my turn to toss out a doozy or two of a question. I have been grading more and more lately and I must say, the scores are VERY UNDERWHELMING. I happen to respect my co-op greatly and I think he does a fine job. In fact, I really can't say anything bad about him. Furthermore, I can't really think of anything that I would change about his approach. It's not that he is perfect.. it's just that I don't know how I would alter one thing without throwing a kink in his entire process. So anyway, we just had a quiz last week about a story that the kids either really liked, or really hated (which I love cuz either way, it's an actual opinion). But they performance on the quizzes were scary. It was a 20pt quiz and I'm not going to lie, at least 50% of each class scored below a 10/20.

I told him how much it depressed me to see it. He said that it's just something you get used to. To be honest, I hate that feeling... the feeling of numbness. After 8yrs in TV news, I saw more dead bodies than I can count. The feeling that it left me with after 8yrs was.... numbness. I also realize that I will go mad if I fully invest myself in the success of each student. Don't get me wrong, I totally get that we must let some students fail to succeed if that is what they are determined to do. But I don't ever want to be numb to student failures on quiz scores. Yet, I am perfectly aware that after awhile, numbness is an inevitability, partially because that is just the way the human psyche works.

Has anyone had similar experiences and/or similar mental battles?

Starting Class

So, I am absolutely loving my placement, but I've noticed one thing that really causes me anxiety when I'm there. I really enjoy teaching and I teach every chance that my co-op gives me, but I feel like I am terrible at starting the class. Once I get the class settled, everything is great and the kids stay focused, but getting them to start working is a task and a half. They like to wander around the room, talk to their friends, sit in other people's seats, and just plain talk. I really don't like the cheesy 1,2,3 eyes on me, or the clap if you can hear me because I'm with 7th and 8th graders, and I want to treat them like their age, but it's difficult to do that when they won't listen. They respond to the clapping and 1,2,3 eyes on me stuff because they've basically been trained to do it, however, I feel awkward using that.

So tomorrow, since our mentors will be at the PDS meeting, my co-op told me that she wanted me to run the classroom the whole day. I taught today, so I'm comfortable teaching the material for tomorrow because they will be working on the creative expressions lesson I have them doing for Ollie's class, but I'm super anxious about getting the classes started. I know the sub will be there if I need help, but I'm really trying to think of some different ways to start classes? I didn't realize I was so anxious about it until I took a nap today and had a dream about it! haha So, if any of you have suggestions for me, I'm all ears! Thanks!

Parody of A Certain Breed of Teacher

Before PDS, I had only seen teachers in the act of teaching, fully robed in the persona they had stitched for themselves. I had only briefly encountered teachers outside of the structured school setting, and never interacted with them on any level beyond that of teacher to student. This semester, I've been granted access to the formerly forbidden faculty lounge, along with other rooms (copy, storage, etc.) in which teachers shed these burdensome personas for five minutes here and there throughout the day. It is in these private dens that I have, for the first time, observed the the hideous faces of the people who wear teacher masks. Segregated from the impressionable eyes of the students they teach, these creatures are free to flail their slimy tendrils of immorality, appendages which I previously assumed had been amputated, or completely absent, from all teachers. I have heard deplorable slurs spill from their slit mouths. Like crudely sharpened spears, their disfigured words target students and faculty alike. They find particular pleasure in divulging their perverse reproductive habits and openly exchange their designs on attractive younger teachers who have yet to undergo the transformation. Several of these creatures are in open confederacy with each other and pridefully oppose and criticize rival groups. I emerge from the faculty lounge in a terrified stupor and watch as they, with their personas zipped and fastened, reenter their classrooms and feign interest in their students and content.

Some Scattered Thoughts

Despite the frustration that I sometimes feel towards how this semester is going, I also feel fortunate to be able to be with the students for a full year rather than being thrown into the classroom half way through the year. It's easy to get pulled down by the expectations that our MU classes and our placements place on us but I have been loving my time in the classroom. Sure, some days I'm bored (after the third, fourth, and fifth viewing of the Of Mice and Men movie) and sometimes I'm tired (okay, most of the time), but overall I love seeing the kids get excited during a discussion, and I love when they surprise me with the thoughtfulness of their questions. They have just as much to teach us as we have to teach them. I truly believe the classroom should be a collaboration of learning, and I love when I get to see this mentality come to fruition.

As mentioned in class, too often we are expected to "trick" the students into learning, and, while that may be necessary in some cases and in some grades, most students appreciate honesty. In my high school I never gained a firm understanding of why we were doing the assignments that we were doing. Why not be up front with students and tell them the value of each assignment?

How has everyone been doing with developing a teaching persona? How is your persona in the classroom different from who you are outside of the classroom? I have only taught a few times and I never felt like I was being that different from who I am outside the classroom. Any advice about how to develop a teaching persona? I know it is different for everyone but i'm curious how others act in the classroom.

The conversation about emotional objectivity and reframing in scott's class hit home for me. The other week I taught a mini-lesson on run-on sentences and the 7th period class left me feeling discouraged. A few of the students were disrespectful and were often disruptive and it left me feeling drained. But, I need to not take it personally (I have since moved past it). However, it is difficult to keep a positive attitude when the actions are taking place. I know it takes practice to keep a positive mentality and I hope to maintain an encouraging demeanor despite the actions of students.

I want to create a classroom library for my students. I hope that if I have books in front of them as much as possible they may become more proactive in their individualized reading. Does anyone have a library in their classroom? My mentor and I were thinking of compiling the books that we own and bringing them in for the students to check out at their leisure. I was also thinking about giving them the option to write a short summary of the books they choose to read to help other students know what the books are about. If I had a better knowledge of young adult books and authors I would also like to implement book talks into my classroom. How are students supposed to know what books are out there if no one takes the time to show them? Of course that puts extra work on me since I am not well- informed in what YA books are worth my time. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I also was having a discussion with a friend of mine who just graduated with a degree in video game design. We were discussing the potential for the implementation of video games into the English classroom and how exciting it would be to see how that could be arranged. Obviously, it would take A TON of work and would require hours and hours of planning and strategy but I think it's worth the thought in our current technological age. Imagine an RPG (don't worry, in video gaming jargon that stands for Role Playing Game) that allows students to navigate a literary character through levels that reveal themes, plot, setting, etc. What if their completion of a video game revealed their competency in a subject? I know it may sound ludicrous but I firmly believe it could be accomplished with the right amount of time, thought, and design. I have played games that have taught me about historical contexts and have forced me to think creatively in order to accomplish certain tasks. I have also played games that required me to explore and decipher visual and textual clues in order to act appropriately within a certain context. With tweaking, these skills could be applied to Englishy subjects. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then it is probably hard to imagine video games having any place in the classroom, but I've played enough games to know that it can be done. Anyone agree? Disagree?

Thanks for reading my ramblings.

DI

After the presentation and discussion on differentiated instruction on Tuesday, I began to evaluate the utilization of this technique in my coops classroom and realized it was nonexistent. Not only does every student in a class perform the same tasks, but every class does the same lesson each day, including the ESL section. I'm unsure if my coop is uninformed of the effectiveness and possibilities of DI or if he simply refuses to incorporate it into his lessons. I am tempted to encourage him to at least offer his students choice, which I believe is one of the rudiments of DI thought. In his class, all students must complete the same writing assignment based on identical prompts. As I gradually acquire more classroom authority, I will definitely vary the writing prompts, and even the readings, as to allow students a choice, and empower them in their learning. I would love to initiate a writer's notebook activity, in which students can develop a sense of individuality with their writing, and work at their own pace. Beyond giving students choice in their writing, I would like to extend this to assessment, allowing students to create multimedia projects in place of an essay. Another possible DI implementation could be designating each student specific tasks in group work, instead of the current structure in which there are no roles. I would assign struggling students different responsibilities than those given to their faster moving group members. With even the slightest integration of DI, the classroom dynamic would be dramatically altered, and provide students with a needed sense of ownership in their learning.

Bananas

Much like the average person, I say the word "bananas" when I am referring to something crazy.... or obviously the fruit. Anyway, I am saying it for two reasons right now:

1 - My wife is watching a PBS special on "dark matter". At no point in time am I intelligent enough to figure this stuff out. I wish I were though, cuz this stuff is blowing my mind.

2 - Just got done reading the "Drive" chapter. Wow. The "Do It Yourself" report card is such a phenomenal idea. I would give anything to be able to get my kids to partake in such an endeavor. I remember taking the writing course with Tim last semester. It blew my mind that he valued my opinion on my own education. Then, I realized that it helped me to not only be accountable, but to also take the time to actually set some goals for myself. GOALS THAT I CHOSE!! This whole idea of choice has popped up over and over again in our classes with Tim and Kim, and I gotta say.... it totally works with the kids!! Well, as long as you stay patient. When you first try and implement it, they look at you like you have three heads. But my co-op said that they are just waiting for you to give up on the good stuff because they don't expect learning to be fun. I've stuck with it for 9wks and it's finally starting to pay off.

I am not even sure if I spoke enough about "Drive." In a nutshell, the best compliment that I can give this chapter is that while I was reading, I found myself thinking of my kids and how they would react to these things. Sometimes when I read these types of things, I wonder to myself if the person ever took the time to think of urban students. Not this time. Good stuff!

DI Reflection

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about the discussion we had yesterday and how I can use the format of DI in small group learning that Janet presented to us. At my placement we have a very large "tech" section of 11th graders as our last section of the day. I think there are around 30 students and at least half of them scored "below basic" on reading assessments, but there are also a hand full of students who are extremely good readers who lack motivation to do much school work. My co-op and I struggle with lesson planning in that class and we frequently feel like it is really hard to get them engaged in good discussions, lessons or projects because there are so many of them on such different levels.

I think I am going to discuss the idea of DI groups with my co-op on Friday to see if she thinks it might be a good approach for our class. There are three adults in the room at least two days a week (me, co-op, and learning support person), so it might be feasible to break the class up into DI groups and each work with a group on an activity geared towards their readiness. I know this probably won't be possible everyday, but if we could do this two days a week, we may see some improvements.

Starting Over

So after taking a week to step away from posting here and on Edmodo, I feel (slightly) refreshed and refocused, I thank Mary Beth for her post because I had a sigh of relief knowing I wasn't the only one feeling overwhelmed and lacking sleep. In fact at this point, I should probably own half of Starbucks. Anyone else find the smell/taste of a specialty coffee somehow has a calming effect?

The result of my "break" was this:

I taught a lesson with our honors class on Monday and it was the first time I was successful at getting them actively engaged in a discussion! I was even able to hold their attention until the very end of class, which is almost impossible to do because they get distracted very easily (I love 6th graders!). The lesson was introducing the students to the fantasy genre because they are starting the novel A Wizard in Earthsea. I showed a video clip that included all the elements of the genre and then asked them to come up with more characteristics. We were sharing as a class and built a list together so they could use it as a reference. This went so well, we went beyond discussion and started "debating" whether or not certain books or movies could be considered fantasy! Now it wasn't a critical discussion by any means, but my co-op and I were so excited the students were participating and not acting out that we just kept going. The best part of the day was two periods later, when four of the students came up to me and said they already started the book and it was exactly how I described it! My co-op emailed me today and said that every single student had at least finished the first chapter, and to be prepared because she was turning the class over to me on the days I am there!

It was one of those days when it hit me that I made the right decision and I was meant to be in the classroom. It definitely makes up for all of the stress staring me in the face as of late, and it gives me a little extra boost as this semester winds down.

On another note, the results of the 2011 Reading and Math Assessments of Grades 4 and 8 were released today and while I won't go into the stats (you can check the reading out here: http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2011/), I will say it's definitely worth taking the sample reading test question! It's interesting to turn things around and see what kind of questions the students are faced with. Here is the reading question: http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2011/sample_quest.asp.

Drive Chapter

Well, I began writing my response to the chapter yesterday and lost power before posting. I'm glad that this response comes after some reflective cooling-off, as I was going to blather on about how much I wish I saw "big picture" and "unschooling" methods in the classroom. This morning, perhaps from a clever facebook quote about "making the standards your bitch," I am fortified by the knowledge that the Drive chapter will inform my teaching, along with the likes of Penny Kittle, Natalie Goldberg, Donald Murray, Tom Romano, et al....just not this year as much as I'd prefer. I tuck all of these wonderful teachers away in my filing bins and they wait for me, as I know my future holds them and their methods.

The big question I have is how do I keep my heart in check? Some days the injustice for the students is more than I can bear. It doesn't have to be so numbingly scripted and fill-in-the-blank. Ah, I said I wouldn't go there, so...see you all in class.

Literacy Training

Hi Everyone!

I feel very grateful this morning because we have power at our house again! After over 60 chilly, dark hours with nothing, everything has been restored, including me :). Anyhow, yesterday my co-op and I attended the "Literacy Design Collaborative" at the IU13. It was the first of four workshop days (they are spread out across the school year and I get to attend all of them!) that brings together teachers from all over Lancaster county to talk about the Common Core Standards and how the literacy design tools can be used to implement the standards. I can't even tell you how exciting it was to sit in a room full of teachers and to see them engaging with the process; everyone was so curious about the new tools and really interested in improving their students' literacy skills.

I can't fully explain the LDC tools to everyone yet, but our next session is on Monday and I am hoping that by next week I will be able to share what I am learning with everyone. The IU13 gave everyone a huge binder with resources and templates for lesson planning; a lot of the strategies look very similar to UbD, but there is actually a method to easily build differentiation into every writing prompt- pretty cool! As part of the workshop requirements, my co-op and I are working on a collaborative writing "task" (its called a task instead of an assessment) to use for our unit on Catcher in the Rye, and after we are finished it is going to be part of a statewide effort to add more LDC lessons to the SAS portal.

Although I missed being in the classroom yesterday, it was also really nice to get to spend time with other professionals and to learn about the newest trend in lesson planning and literacy improvement efforts.