I don't want to ruin the TI I'm going to present on Tuesday by going into great detail , but I thought I would blog a just little bit about what's going on in my American lit class. My first day teaching, I had the students complete a writing sample so I could assess their individual abilities. As I started reading them, I knew right away that I was working with a very diverse group of students: some of them couldn't write in complete sentences and used no punctuation, and others were obviously really comfortable with writing and ready to take it to the next step. Without thinking, I pulled out a post-it note and grouped the students together according to writing ability. Because grammar is such an important part of our classroom, it didn't seem fair to make the high-level students sit through grammar lessons each day because their writing samples reflected their understanding of the concepts. On the other hand, some students really needed help with simple sentence structure, so it is important (according to L-S) to teach these students the basics of simple grammar by drilling them every day. I knew right away that differentiation would without a doubt be vital to my success in this classroom.
Before the second week ended, I already had confrontations with students from the high-end and the low-end of the academic spectrum. The gifted girl went home and complained to her parents that we weren't moving through the material fast enough for her; she was bored and didn't feel challenged in our classroom. I met with her parents yesterday (more about this on Tuesday). The same day, a struggling student grumbled under his breath, "I hate this class!" When I pulled him aside and asked him about it, he said we needed to move slower. He felt completely lost and hopeless in our classroom. Each day, he completely shuts down; he puts his head down on his desk and usually refuses to participate. His body language suggests that he is unengaged, and maybe has had a bad experience with school for a long time.
The pressure is on for us to come up with something that works for all of our students. The social structure of this classroom is really dynamic, even complicated. There are students that openly proclaim they hate each other, so we have to be really careful about creating groups. I will share more with you on Tuesday when I discuss my TI. I have been trying different strategies, and I look forward to hearing your suggestions!
