Weekends. Those two days never seem long enough. You get one day to yourself and then another where you are grading papers and lesson planning for the next week. Because let's face it, you tried to get ahead during the week but it never goes as planned.
As a teacher I live for the weekends. It's my time to rejuvenate, hang out with my pup and just relax. This weekend especially, getting Monday off, makes it just a little sweeter. I could say it's a four day weekend away from the kids. Today we had a professional development day.
You know, some of the times, I dread P.D. days. They don't offer sessions that are meaningful or beneficial to my teaching. Well, today was different. I left feeling like I gained some things I could bring back to my classroom.
First, we watched a movie called Paper Tigers and it was very eye opening. It talked about trauma and how to be trauma sensitive. With the kids I serve everyday, I have to realize that most of them have trauma of some sort. We had a chance to respond to the movie with our school and there are somethings that irritated me about what people said. Sometimes you have to be passive aggressive in your responses if you want to see any changes. And, that's all I'll say about it.
My two sessions after lunch were just as productive and meaningful. I learned more about using the Gradual Release model. This was great because the way the lesson was taught was using the RACE method and it was interesting to see how someone else taught it. I love when I'm able to bring things back to my class and actually use it. The other session I was in was The Grid Method, which I saw firsthand at OCTELA. It was great seeing it again, especially after it being one of my last sessions during OCTELA. I learned more this time around than last.
Overall, it was actually a decent day. Hopefully this weekend I can hit the reset button along with my students and we can all come back on Tuesday ready to roll. We have a few weeks left of the quarter and then testing the week after. We're getting into the nitty gritty of third quarter and testing season.
Love from the girl who is going to be more optimistic starting with this weekend.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017
The Good Days outnumber the Bad
Lately, I've felt that I have been complaining more than normal and that the bad days have outnumbered the good. There have been several rough days in a row for this reason or that. Sometimes it's the discipline, sometimes everything that can go wrong, does. It just seems like some days never end.
Then, you get those days when things click, things go so well that you actually leave with a smile on your face. Instead of that headache ridden face. Somedays you leave going, damn, that went way better than I thought.
Today, was one of those days. The writing standard for eighth grade for this quarter is argumentative writing. What eighth grader doesn't like to argue? This is one of my favorite standards to work with. Like last year, I started off by giving the kids a list of topics for them to consider. Things that are popular and "hot topics", they get a chance to choose their own. While they are doing this, they're researching both sides of the topic and coming up with how they feel about it, then we go into making a claim and using evidence to back it up.
This year, after reading The Cult of Pedagogy, I decided to change things up. In the article I read, it said to give them two high interest articles to compare and see which one is producing the better argument. So we did this. They did very well on it. The next step was to play "This or That," where you give students topics and they choose this or that. Well, I decided to make it a little more interesting and got questions that have yes or no answers. This way the students had to pick a side and then respectfully argue their cases.
Yesterday and today we tried it out, only after setting some rules and guidelines on how it was going to look. The students understood that everyone was going to get a chance to talk, if the wanted to, and there would be no interrupting each other. Because my students love to argue, I wanted to make sure they knew they could in our "safe space," but they needed to do it appropriately.
Both days my fifth period class surprised the hell out of me on how well they did with this activity. The kids had so much fun arguing with each other and were respectful, for the most part. It actually was pretty funny when the one question turned so heated that they almost couldn't wait for their turn to rebuttal. They kept trying to speak, but stopping mid sentence to let the other side finish. We were in the middle of a debate on "Should schools have a dress code?" when I had to stop them and reevaluate everything.
The kids were so passionate about this topic and had such great evidence to back up their claims, I decided I had to take a vote. So I asked them, did they want to continue researching the prompts we had been working on, or did they want write proposals and argue this dress code issue. I was shocked the moment I saw every single hand go up for the dress code issue and not their own topics. As a class, they made the unanimous decision to fight for something they all believed in.
In those moments, you have to throw out the lesson plans and go along with the students. It was almost liberating to see them be as passionate as they were. This is when you know their best work and their best writing will come into play because they had the choice and a voice in the decision. Today was a good day. I cannot wait to see what their voices do in the next few weeks as we write these proposals and argue, the write way.
Love from the girl who now has to change her whole lesson plan so her class can do what they love most, to argue.
Then, you get those days when things click, things go so well that you actually leave with a smile on your face. Instead of that headache ridden face. Somedays you leave going, damn, that went way better than I thought.
Today, was one of those days. The writing standard for eighth grade for this quarter is argumentative writing. What eighth grader doesn't like to argue? This is one of my favorite standards to work with. Like last year, I started off by giving the kids a list of topics for them to consider. Things that are popular and "hot topics", they get a chance to choose their own. While they are doing this, they're researching both sides of the topic and coming up with how they feel about it, then we go into making a claim and using evidence to back it up.
This year, after reading The Cult of Pedagogy, I decided to change things up. In the article I read, it said to give them two high interest articles to compare and see which one is producing the better argument. So we did this. They did very well on it. The next step was to play "This or That," where you give students topics and they choose this or that. Well, I decided to make it a little more interesting and got questions that have yes or no answers. This way the students had to pick a side and then respectfully argue their cases.
Yesterday and today we tried it out, only after setting some rules and guidelines on how it was going to look. The students understood that everyone was going to get a chance to talk, if the wanted to, and there would be no interrupting each other. Because my students love to argue, I wanted to make sure they knew they could in our "safe space," but they needed to do it appropriately.
Both days my fifth period class surprised the hell out of me on how well they did with this activity. The kids had so much fun arguing with each other and were respectful, for the most part. It actually was pretty funny when the one question turned so heated that they almost couldn't wait for their turn to rebuttal. They kept trying to speak, but stopping mid sentence to let the other side finish. We were in the middle of a debate on "Should schools have a dress code?" when I had to stop them and reevaluate everything.
The kids were so passionate about this topic and had such great evidence to back up their claims, I decided I had to take a vote. So I asked them, did they want to continue researching the prompts we had been working on, or did they want write proposals and argue this dress code issue. I was shocked the moment I saw every single hand go up for the dress code issue and not their own topics. As a class, they made the unanimous decision to fight for something they all believed in.
In those moments, you have to throw out the lesson plans and go along with the students. It was almost liberating to see them be as passionate as they were. This is when you know their best work and their best writing will come into play because they had the choice and a voice in the decision. Today was a good day. I cannot wait to see what their voices do in the next few weeks as we write these proposals and argue, the write way.
Love from the girl who now has to change her whole lesson plan so her class can do what they love most, to argue.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Confirmation of Why I became a Teacher
A little over a year ago my RESA mentor told me about this conference that I should check out. Sharon Draper was going to be speaking and she thought it would be awesome for me to have this opportunity. Little did anyone know at the time that it would become one of the most important and influential pieces of a first year teacher who was barely making it, and questioning everything.
Fast forward to now and I find myself sitting in a similar position. For teachers, February seems to be the shortest number of days but the longest month of the school year. For me, it's where I feel I get into a rut. I get discouraged. I feel like I can't do anything right. This conference changes all of that.
OCTELA is a chance to meet other English teachers from all over the state of Ohio. It's a chance to network and connect with new people. As teachers, we like being able to hear from other teachers who are going through similar situations, or the teachers who've actually made a break through into an issue that we have had. We get to hear from authors on how they got their start, how for most, they were that reluctant reader hiding in the back of the room. No matter the situation, there's a way to connect to it no matter what it is.
This weekend has been no different. The theme, diversity. Appropriate with everything that is going on around us. Diversity. It's not something that we can push under the rug, it's something that we need to accept and bring to life in the classroom.
A.S. King said "We don't grow or feel if we don't express." If we don't give our students opportunities to speak or write their stories down, we are restricting them. She left us with, "It's time to build our own common core of compassion and put it in every lesson." They need us to be that outlet of expression. Yes, there are standards and there are lessons to teach, but first and foremost we teach students.
The many breakout sessions I was able to attend taught me many different things, strategies, ideas, stories and so much more that I can bring back and use in my own classroom. It's such a refreshing weekend with fellow English teachers, past, present and future.
The Keynote speakers have been phenomenal is their own ways. This year, I didn't know much about any of them before getting here. Which turned out to be a mistake. Why hadn't I heard of these extraordinary people before? They inspired me to get back into my classroom and give my students their voices back, to give them as many opportunities to write and express and to give them a safe place to do all of this. Matt de la Pena said, "Sometimes when you give someone a book, you're not just giving them a book, you're giving them a way to live."
There's so much more that I could say, but as I'm still digesting all the information myself, I will leave it here for now.
Love from the girl who is currently adding more books to her ever long reading list.
Fast forward to now and I find myself sitting in a similar position. For teachers, February seems to be the shortest number of days but the longest month of the school year. For me, it's where I feel I get into a rut. I get discouraged. I feel like I can't do anything right. This conference changes all of that.
OCTELA is a chance to meet other English teachers from all over the state of Ohio. It's a chance to network and connect with new people. As teachers, we like being able to hear from other teachers who are going through similar situations, or the teachers who've actually made a break through into an issue that we have had. We get to hear from authors on how they got their start, how for most, they were that reluctant reader hiding in the back of the room. No matter the situation, there's a way to connect to it no matter what it is.
This weekend has been no different. The theme, diversity. Appropriate with everything that is going on around us. Diversity. It's not something that we can push under the rug, it's something that we need to accept and bring to life in the classroom.
A.S. King said "We don't grow or feel if we don't express." If we don't give our students opportunities to speak or write their stories down, we are restricting them. She left us with, "It's time to build our own common core of compassion and put it in every lesson." They need us to be that outlet of expression. Yes, there are standards and there are lessons to teach, but first and foremost we teach students.
The many breakout sessions I was able to attend taught me many different things, strategies, ideas, stories and so much more that I can bring back and use in my own classroom. It's such a refreshing weekend with fellow English teachers, past, present and future.
The Keynote speakers have been phenomenal is their own ways. This year, I didn't know much about any of them before getting here. Which turned out to be a mistake. Why hadn't I heard of these extraordinary people before? They inspired me to get back into my classroom and give my students their voices back, to give them as many opportunities to write and express and to give them a safe place to do all of this. Matt de la Pena said, "Sometimes when you give someone a book, you're not just giving them a book, you're giving them a way to live."
There's so much more that I could say, but as I'm still digesting all the information myself, I will leave it here for now.
Love from the girl who is currently adding more books to her ever long reading list.
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