Feathers Again

I went back through my 'hope' tag and found my end-of-year self-assessment series. I hadn't realized it was so long since I'd revisted it!

There's a lot that's still relevant. Portia is still a nauseatingly sexist portrayal of womanhood. Composition books are way better than binders or spiral-bound notebooks. I still haven't kept in touch with parents as often as I feel I ought to (although I've improved and I probably call at least as much as I need to). We still do silent reading each day, although I switched it to the start of class instead of the end. I punted the journal-style writing assignments to homework, because the plain truth of the matter is it's far more challenging to fake those!

But a lot of things have changed, as well. As I look over the list, it's very reassuring (even encouraging!) to see that the changes have been positive. I don't really notice anything where I'm like "oo, I used to be awesome at XYZ, and now I suck at it! bugger that!" Like, last year I didn't do small-group literature circles as much, and for a little bit I felt bad about that... but then I realized I did more with individual choice reading. So there was something of a tradeoff there. However, one of the things I'm going to attempt for THIS year is kind of blending the two. (Keep your fingers crossed for me.)

I'm also trying to be as specific as possible with my goals. I hear that's important. So here they are:

1. Go to the library each Monday. Return all of the books from the previous Monday. Read at least the first ten pages of each book and log it in Goodreads.
2. 20 parent calls per day first 4 days. 10 parent calls each Monday beginning 9/9.
3. Review coding lessons on Tuesday.
4. Unit plan reviewed and revised if needed each Wednesday. Plans for upcoming unit emailed to department head the Wednesday before it begins.
5. Write a chapter of fanfic on Thursday.
6. Homework grades input daily; quizzes, projects, tests, essays graded by Friday.
7. Check that focus question, standards, and quickwrite for the next day are posted before leaving.
8. Progress reports handed out every Tuesday. (I have planning at the end of the day, so I’ll print them Monday and hand them out Tuesday.)
9. More student work posted to the class website. This is going to be iffy – we’ve lost access to one of our two labs as it’s been set aside for online classes. This is important to me but I can’t count on students having their own internet access, so if it works, it works, if not… I’ll just hope for next year.
10. Try using individual choice books in literature circles. Not sure how that's going to work when there's a mix of novels and nonfiction, but I guess I'll find out!

The coding thing is because I'm still mad about blogger screwing up my click-throughs. I'm working with Codecademy and so far I've reviewed HTML (I really need to get rid of some of my bad/old habits, but it's harrrrd!) and moved into CSS. I think the problem is in the definition of the "fullpost" descriptor. But I haven't yet learned how to define descriptors. I suppose that's more advanced.

The writing thing is harder. I mean, I started trying to write more because Penny Kittle said so, but she (and Mardie! *hearts*) also say that it's important to write WITH them. And I just don't know if I can do that. See, the thing is, I'm not by nature a Professional Person. I'm pretty casual and quirky. And I have to squish that part of me at school. I can't wear jeans except on Friday and then only with a professional-casual shirt, because the T-shirt featuring Chernabog that we got at Disney was deemed inappropriate. If I dye my hair, it has to be normal-looking colors. So when I've tried to model writing for my students, I have to have "writing something that won't get me in trouble" as a priority ahead of "writing truthfully."

Hm. I hadn't actually realized that before. Interesting. Clearly I'll have to give it some more thought.

So I have ten new goals for this year. That sounds reasonable. And I think I'll submit five of them to my evaluator. We aren't required to do so, but I don't find rubberstamp evaluations particularly helpful. I would rather take charge "pursuing professional excellence," as I put it in my tag, on my own, rather than waiting around for a bunch of legislators to tell me how they've come up with some kind of computerized algorithm that's going to rate me based on how well my students do on tests. No thank you!

Now I'm going to take my own advice and go back and update the HTML in this post.

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nane-zwerg

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Reading Goals

Sometimes as I'm reading blog posts I see in someone's sidebar that they have a reading goal that they're tracking through Goodreads or Shelfari or something. And I've been thinking about that. I mean, I read a fair amount. And I certainly want to promote and encourage reading, not just with my students, but in general.

But the thing is, there are a lot of crappy -- okay, mediocre -- books out there. And I feel a little bad about putting them down after I start or even just passing them by completely, because I know that someone worked really hard on them. Usually quite a few someones, I'd guess. However, I don't feel bad enough about it to force myself to slog through them. I'm sorry, hardworking writers and publishing folks of the world. I really, really am. But I'm just not gonna do it. Life is too short for that.

Instead, I'd rather set a different sort of reading goal for myself. My goal is to find and read as many four and five-star books as I possibly can. I'm thinking three per month, starting in September? I have no idea how easy or difficult it's going to be to meet that goal, but three sounds like a nice number. It's sort of magical.

The tricky part, of course, is going to be finding them. Because once I find a book I really-and-truly love, I find that I look up to catch my breath and holy heck how did it get to be so late? That's the feeling I get with a fantastic book, that feeling like when you're swimming and you take a big breath and then let it out as you sink underneath the water and you can still hear but the sounds from above are muted and muffled and instead you hear the swushies of everyone else splashing and kicking and the gentle schlub-schlub-schlub of the waves.

So I think I will also commit to going to the library each week to look for new possibilities and return the previous ones. It'd probably be a good idea to have it be the same day every week. That way I won't have overdue fees (yikes!) because I've lost track of time and gotten caught up in things and holy heck the summer's gone and I owe fifteen bucks!

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

And finally, I will commit to reading at least ten pages of each possible fantastic book and logging each one with my Goodreads account, even if my review is simply: "Ten pages. Didn't grab me. Oh well!"

I guess the next step is to take a look at our schedule and see which day of the week would best suit! It will be interesting to see if I actually end up reading any more than I otherwise would, or not.

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Not Ning

One of the things I'm pretty proud of is that I actually have a functioning class website this semester. Two, actually; one for my English II classes, and one for Journalism.

For next semester, I want to do a bit more planning-ahead of how I can use those sites more effectively. It's especially important for English II, where the class is large enough that I need to sign out a laptop cart if everyone is to have a computer to use. I really don't know what I'm going to do next year when I don't have daily access to the Journalism computers as well. It's sheer idiocy that the school bought laptop carts that are significantly smaller than the classes are.

I can't rely on students having internet access from home. So I need to make sure that I plan to use computers in class for the work that we do. I can, however, offer extra credit for work done outside of class time.

Pages

Pages allow students to add short examples with explanation that fit the page's topic.

* Class Log - This page keeps track of what we do in class, including notes, descriptions of assignments, due dates, etc.
* Word Sleuths - Earn extra credit by providing connections to words that are intriguing and challenging! Describe where you came across the word and include a link to its definition.
* Celebrations - What's going well? What are you thankful for? What makes you happy? This will be a single page where students add entries onto the page.
* Phenomenal Phrases - Song lyrics, poetry, or a mesmerizing sentence, sometimes a group of words fits together just right. What word combinations have you noticed lately? What made them stand out?
* News & Views - When you pay attention to the news, you understand what's happening in the world around you. Use this space to have your say about it! Include a link to an interesting news article and describe what's significant about it.
* Link List - Here's where you can list websites with helpful resources. Be sure to explain why they're useful.
* I Thought Of English - Making connections strengthens what we already know and helps us learn new ideas and information. When something outside of class reminds you of something from inside class, write about it here!

Hubs

Hubs are central pages that include a list of links to pages that focus on a subsection of that topic.

* SSR Book Talks - This is a place to discuss stories you love and stories you love to hate! A central page will provide links to pages that discuss different books.
* Lights, Camera, Action! - Movies, TV series, individual episodes - film provides an incredibly diverse medium. Discuss what works and what doesn't. Central page provides links to a page for each title for discussion.
* FAQs - If you have questions about navigating or using this ning, why not post your questions here in case others are wondering the same thing? Rules & grade guidelines are listed here. Questions posted in comments; page itself will (hopefully) not be able to be edited by students. Students can submit requests for pages to discuss school policies; links will be added to hub.
* Journals - This will provide a place for students to craft more personal writing. Students will create their own pages and write their own entries, but can comment on others' pages.

Assignments

(1) Weekly blog post - Students will share original writing in a semi-public space. 150-250 words. Topic and content must be school-appropriate. Main page will include links to lists of topic ideas.

(2) Weekly comments - Students will respond in an appropriate and thoughtful way to three discussions. This may be challenging to keep up with; I haven't decided how I'm going to be able to track it.

(3) Extra credit - For up to 5 points per week, students may contribute a useful new example to the Word Sleuth, Link List, or Phenomenal Phrase groups, or a new discussion to the SSR, LCA, or News&Views groups. Posts should be at least 50 words, including explanation and supporting information. For up to 2 points per week, students may respond to any current posts in a way that adds new ideas and encourages further discussion. This may be challenging to keep up with; I haven't decided how I'm going to be able to track it.

Guidelines

1. Work hard: It's okay to have fun in this space, but if others are having a learning conversation either add to it positively or make your comments in a new post. Anything you post here should be somehow related to the course. The connection can be direct or indirect. If you're asked to explain the relevance of what you have contributed, you should have an answer. The level of usage here is "informal standard English"--which is what is used in business, government and education for everyday work. No texting abbreviations. Use complete sentences and standard spelling. Remember, the whole world is watching.

2. Be kind: We are helpful, polite, and appropriate at all times. Remember that many students, teachers, and others will view your comments.
Anyone is welcome to comment or join a discussion as long as he or she is respectful. If I could disable the Friend feature of this ning, I would, but I can't. So, let's have no "Friend-ing" dramas. If another student requests to be your ning friend, you must accept that request before you do anything else on here.

3. Follow directions: Keep the school's internet use policy in mind. Be reserved about revealing private details on web sites. You don't need to use your full name, but use enough of it so that everyone in your class will know who you are. Though this is a password-protected site, it is digital information that anyone could copy, forward, save to hard drive etc. Anything you type into a digital forum may last forever, so respect your own and others' privacy. Arrange your personal site to your taste, but keep it school-appropriate. Please, no gross, disgusting, immoral or irreverent photographs. Avoid designs that makes your text hard to read. Communication is a primary purpose of this site, and style should enhance rather than obstruct communication.

I'm a little bit nervous, because I don't know that I'll be able to rely on having access to a lab or laptop cart every week. We only have two labs for the entire school, so it feels like I'm being a little greedy.

On the other hand, my journalism classes are smaller, so I've been able to have them on the computers in my room every day, and the amount of improvement I'm seeing in their writing is fantastic. I feel confident that part of that, at least, is because they know that others are reading what they write. We do daily writing in English II as well, but it just goes in their writer's notebooks... I wonder if I need to do more sharing from there. Dunno.

(Many thanks to Mr. Michael Umphrey, author of The Power of Community-Centered Education: Teaching as a Craft of Place, and Mr. Gary Anderson for their help with this work.)

Image thanks to http://videoproductiontips.com/

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Keep On Keepin On

Well let me tell ya. It has been one CRAZY year, what with cancer and my first NCTE and blizzards and tornadoes and OH YEAH I STILL GOT THE YEARBOOK DISTRIBUTED ON TIME WOT WOT!!

Also, another reason I am amazing? I got my checklist turned in at 9 AM this morning - BOOYAH. I packed up my room VERY carefully, separately re-filing materials for language arts and journalism so that the new hire (hopefully! fingers crossed!!) will have those all together and I can just take my stuff and get started right at the start of the year without having to do the sorting THEN.

Fortunately I had one of the janitors unlock my room so that I could put away some shelves, because I had a couple of parents come by to pick up a copy of the yearbook. *facepalm*

I've also been updating my unit plans over at the UbD Educators Wiki. I'm feeling kind of uncertain and nervous about it, because technically I don't know that I'll be teaching sophomore English next year. I'll be kind of frustrated if I've put all that work into that particular course and I wind up with freshmen.

Not that I have anything against freshmen, or against freshman English; I think I even favor their required content a bit. The whole not-having-to-teach-Caesar is pretty awesome.

And the process of thinking through these units is just as helpful as the end result. Heck, maybe I should ask for a copy of the scope and sequence for the other grades once I've finished my unit planning for English II and work on unit plans for the others!

I think mostly I just don't enjoy feeling adrift. I very purposefully did NOT include Journalism on my list of courses-I-am-willing-to-teach. It would be nice to KNOW what courses I will be teaching next year. Especially because if they DO stick me with Journalism again, I'll be a little off my game because I didn't set up yearbook camp over the summer... though I'm in contact with most of the students on Facebook so I bet I could get things in order pretty quickly.

The Hunk has reserved rooms in New Orleans for the ALA convention. I'm pretty stoked. ^.^ In the meantime, we've got a few weeks to relax, do some housework, and ... well, relax some more!

Image thanks to http://img4.realsimple.com/

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Book List

I try to keep a running list of books I'd like to get for my classroom library. I'd love to hear additional suggestions! I've also had people say "get anything that this person wrote!" Here are some authors that have been mentioned - some of them I've read, others are ones I still want to look into.

Walter Dean Myers, various
Sharon Draper
Gary Paulsen
Malcolm Gladwell
David Macaulay: How Things Work, Castle etc.
Bruce Catton
Sarah Dessen
Oliver Saks
Lewis Thomas
Tony Horwitz
Gary Soto
Julia Alvarez
Ivy Sparks
Nicholas Sparks
Bill Bryson
Patricia Cornwell
Christopher Pike
Vivian Vande Velde

Click here to see the complete list of titles I'd still like to buy. Warning: it's a long list!

I do wonder if the 'span' tag is working at all...

Whew! I hope to get back to more frequent posting now that we've wrapped the yearbook. I would love to hear additional suggestions for my classroom library, too!

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Feathers on the Fly

It's times like this when I am just horribly sure that someone's going to realize that I don't really know exactly what I'm doing. AURGH!

I have a love-hate relationship with change. I love the idea of doing new things. I mean, change is good, right? Isn't it?

Except when it isn't, of course. *Sigh*

ANYWAY. My next unit is coming up in a matter of DAYS and I am not DONE with it. AURGH. So frustrating. So I'm dedicating this weekend to hammering out the details.

At least, that's the plan. Of course, there's piles of dishes and laundry to do, plus I left the Atwell stuff at the school and maybe I need to go get that to help and if I'm heading that way I probably should take the drill and put the table together while I'm there so that it doesn't get destroyed on Monday because it's still in pieces and ... everything else.

Oo, I wonder if the library has my books in...

Yeah, I pretty much suck.

So after some time off I'm returning :)

First of all, unit goals:

• Students will read out loud fluently and with appropriate inflection. Most students' presentation skills SUCK. I want to minimize my suffering during our Julius Caesar unit.
• Students will correctly identify literary elements and poetic techniques. Hopefully these will be review. We've looked at some of them before, but fairly briefly.
• Students will demonstrate understanding of script format. One of the challenges (opportunities?) in studying Shakespeare is that his scripts rely almost entirely on dialogue. This allows producers a great deal of freedom in set design, staging, and stage direction, but it also means more work for the student reading the play, since those details aren't provided for you. A strong understanding of how scripts work will help students make sense of the play.

Formative assessments: (These will be entered as quiz grades)

• Book talks - Each student will describe an SSR book in front of the class. These should be fairly short; hopefully we can do three per day.
• Technique quizzes - Given a list of techniques and a set of short passages, students will identify and explain examples of each technique.
• Sonnet reading - This will have to be later in the unit. Students will have a weekend to look over the sonnets if they choose to and time in class to practice.

Summative assessments: (These will be entered as test grades)

• Monologue - Each student will perform an individual dramatic reading in front of the class. I need to find passages to offer; students may also choose passages of their own as long as they're approved by me.
• Script - Each student will choose a scene from an SSR book and put it into script format.
• Persuasive essay - This will actually be the first test grade of the unit because it'll build on the 1984 unit. Students will propose and defend a major change to national policy based on the idea 'the way the world SHOULD be.'

What they can do on their own:

• Read their SSR books. I need to make sure I leave time for this at the end of every class period.
• Quickwrites. This is how we start every class period. I'm going to use some instrumental "Story Music" to look at tone; might also use the Harris Burdick pieces as prompts.
• Grammar homework for each class period, using their SSR books as example texts for sentence combining exercises.
• Blog commenting, once I get them started. Not quite sure what I want to do with this. I'll also need to make sure that I make some kind of arrangement with students who don't have an internet connection at home.

What instruction they'll need: This is the part I need to finish working on. I know I'm going to be doing some choral reading, and I'll need to walk them through commenting on the blog. We'll read some short stories and create at least one script together.

We'll be finishing up the 1984 unit this week, so I've got a little bit more time to work the kinks and create or edit the handouts I plan to use. I need to look through the files on my laptop to see what I've already got.

Image thanks to kennymasenda.blogspot.com/

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Further Resolutions

Okay, I am not taking ANY student work home anymore. AT ALL EVER. I'm going to have to do ALL my grading here at school. Period. That means I'm going to have to be VERY careful about scheduling when I collect writers' notebooks - I need to make sure that for the next TWO DAYS there will be no interruptions to my planning period.

Also resolved: I am going to input assignments into the gradebook when I create my lesson plans. Which I need to do TODAY for the next two weeks. Uhoh. And I only have ten more minutes of planning. DANGIT! And I didn't even get my field trip form. DANGIT DANGIT DANGIT!

AURGH!

And I need to make a quiz for my J1s on the photo-uploading thingy. Which will be next block.

WHY AM I SO FULL OF FAIL?! AURGH!

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Feathers for 1984

Sooo, my 1984 unit is winding down.

[Side note: I just gasped so hard I almost puked. I put my head down to think and as I opened my eyes I saw this HUGE SPIDER right by my eye. As I yanked myself upright, I noticed that it flew away... along my arm? Spiders don't do that... Turns out it was a big ol' ball of lint on the sleeve of my sweater that had picked up a hair or two... maybe coming out of the dryer, I dunno. Ugh. Heart rate is beginning to return to normal now, so back to the unit reflection.]

Crap. My concentration is shot. Vitamins and breakfast first, then I'll come back.

So, yeah. The scaffolding is throwing me off. I'm not entirely sure how to set things up so that the students know what is going on during the story. The opening lesson worked REALLY well, but I didn't have any additional supports set up.

1984 is NOT an easy book. I'm wondering if I'm asking too much of sophomores.

I think next term I'm going to do the first lesson, then have them go read, and in the very next lesson introduce SparkNotes. And then have the literature circle jobs set up so that they have to quote, cite, and explain a passage for each example they create. That way SparkNotes kind of sets a foundation for them, but there's no way they can JUST use the SparkNotes.

As we go along, I'll have a set of comprehension questions that they can answer using the chapter summaries. We'll do those in class, and then hopefully that will prepare them for doing the literature circle work on their own.

Then again, I should probably check with these classes at the end of the unit to see how they felt about it. Maybe I'm selling them short.

I just don't know. And that frustrates me. *sigh*

You can find my earlier 1984 post here and my earlier planning posts below:

I. Continuing: Ideas that worked well
II: Repeating: Ideas I didn't implement effectively
III: Discarding: Ideas I implemented that weren't effective
IV: Tweaking: Ideas that worked but might be improved
V: Exploring: New ideas for next year!

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The Thing with Feathers (5/5)

I went to Barnes & Noble and leafed through Doug Lemov's book Teach Like a Champion last weekend and took copious notes. It was encouraging to see that a lot of the techniques were ones I already used and thought were kind of common sense. Then again, after reading them, there were ones that I have NOT been using that ALSO seemed like common sense! I had several "oh yeah, why didn't I think of that?" moments.

Adding

18. Student responses online - I have a ning set up, but unfortunately the site is blocked on the school network. Also, free nings are going to expire, and I'm not going to pay for a service that I can get for free. So now I'm working on setting up a blog instead.

28. Parent contacts & parent support - I say this EVERY TERM, and every term I just let things slide. It worries me; I'm not sure what to do to get myself to keep in touch with parents. One thing I did this term was to include a spot on the syllabus where parents could circle if they could come in and volunteer or send in supplies.

29. Weekly progress report printouts - Hopefully this will help encourage me to keep grades updated regularly, and it will help students keep track of what they can do to improve their averages.

31. Shakespeare workshop - This worked REALLY well with both last semester's seniors and this semester's sophomores, even though this term I didn't have "real" actors. Next year I will tap some of the students I had this term to help me run the workshop.

32. No opt out/Cold call - Ask students if they CAN answer the question, which requires a yes/no response. If they say no, call on someone else for a clue, then return to the original student for the answer. Call on students regardless of who raises a hand; students only respond when called on.

33. Backup SSR - Students should have TWO books for Self-Selected Reading at all times. This way when they finish one, they've got the next already. As part of our start-of-class procedure they'll have both books stacked on their desk for me to check while they do their daily writing.

I can't wait to feel better. I'm tired of being sick.

I. Continuing: Ideas that worked well
II: Repeating: Ideas I didn't implement effectively
III: Discarding: Ideas I implemented that weren't effective
IV: Tweaking: Ideas that worked but might be improved
V: Exploring: New ideas for next year!

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nane-zwerg

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The Thing with Feathers (4/5)

So today is yearbook distribution day, and we are gearing up for "dogs and cats living together - MASS HYSTERIA!"

So far TODAY two students have come up and said that they weren't on the list of students who'd purchased a yearbook, and they hadn't gotten a receipt (last semester, my friends, LAST SEMESTER), nor had they checked the list posted last month on the bulletin board outside my room, nor had they checked with me personally, but they were SURE that they had paid.

*headdesk*

Distribution for underclassmen will be at the end of the day. I've got my fingers crossed and I'm praying HARD.

Tweaking: Ideas that mostly worked

1. and 4. Bulletin boards - More often. I will change them monthly. & have a plan for what will go there. I would like to post student examples with feedback, but then, hot-gluing them to the walls (after getting them laminated) has worked quite well.

9. Course calendars - Unit work calendars instead. I did this with Caesar & it wasn't really hard; I've done a schedule like that for our research unit as well & it helps students keep track of what's due when. Things change way too much over a semester for a course calendar to work.

10. Regular grammar work - One of the things that's really worked has been using SSR books as exemplars for grammar. It's great because it's individualized for both interest and difficulty. YAY ME! So rather than doing worksheets where students read a sentence and circle the prepositions in it, they copy sentences out of their SSR book and circle the prepositions. Also? I make them cite the sentences they copy using MLA format. YAY ME! But I need to do this more consistently.

11. Daily SSR - I added daily writing at start of class, so now we're ending with SSR. I think this will work out better on the A/B schedule because it will be about a week before we actually get to go use the library. That way I won't have to wait a week before implementing my start-of-the-class procedures.

12. Technical Document: Literature Guide - I want to set this up as the final project for the term. I think it'll be a great way to review literary techniques as we wind up the year. The only thing is I need to figure out just what I'm going to do with it! I think I want to set up something like the "Glossary of Literature Terms" in the back of the textbook. Students will write out an explanation (NOT a definition) of the term in their own words, provide an example, and then explain how the example illustrates that technique.

19. Daily participation grades - I've gotten used to keeping my clipboard with me and recording attendance, daily work, participation, pass requests and other events on it. I'm debating whether or not it's worth the INTENSE amount of work it would be to log all of that on the computer so that parents have access to it.

25. Focus Question - One of the things I'm working on over the summer is being more specific with my standards. I have them marked out by unit but I haven't gone through each unit and said, "okay, on this day we'll focus on this standard with this lesson." I think having standards (and focus questions) clearly connected with each individual lesson will help me remember to reference them at the start of EVERY class, which is what I'm supposed to be doing. (But, as with my reading below, I often forget.)

27. Transitions - I love sharing books and poems with my students, but I don't do it as much as I'd like to. I haven't made this a habit, but when I actually DO read something after their bellwork, they seem attentive. I want to do this every day. I think it's worth it. I'm also wondering about whether or not I should have them respond to the reading, or just read. Your thoughts?

This time of year is inevitably exciting, as I'm thinking and dreaming about next year and begin fleshing my plans out. But it's also a little sad. I had one of my senior editors ask me to sign her yearbook. I haven't yet figured out what I'm going to write.

Goodbyes are hard. We've got just over a week - next Thursday and Friday are half-days for final exams, and then students are gone.

Of course, I won't be sniffly for too long, because the week after, we're going to DISNEY WORLD!

Posts in this series:

I. Continuing: Ideas that worked well
II: Repeating: Ideas I didn't implement effectively
III: Discarding: Ideas I implemented that weren't effective
IV: Tweaking: Ideas that worked but might be improved
V: Exploring: New ideas for next year!

You can read about some of my earlier plans here; it also has a link back to the one before it. If I can keep this to a weekly schedule, I'll be finishing up just before finals.

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nane-zwerg

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The Thing with Feathers (3/5)

So now I'm halfway through! I wonder if this is something that I'll actually finish. :P

I've started going through my units for next year and looking for connections with the standards. I'm also re-organizing so that the writing assignments build on each other.

This week was a bit harder than last week, because these ideas are ones that I've tried to use and they just haven't worked out completely. They might be salvageable, but I'm not sure I'm the person who can do it.

Discarding: Ideas I haven't been able to incorporate effectively

6. Course Alignment Review - I did this and students were able to make connections between the skills they practice in language arts in elementary, middle school and high school. But I didn't go back to it enough for it to stick. The thing is, I don't know that it's so important that I want to continue to spend time on it. I just don't think the payout is ultimately worth the instructional time that could be spent other ways.

15. Microsoft Word - Ok, this one? Not my fault, and not a big deal. I got the runaround on the old copies of MS Word, and then we got an offer to replace some of our dinosaur PCs with slightly-less-old Macs. So the dinosaurs are now gone and we have no use for Word for Windows. Not really a big deal; some of our newer Macs have it, and there's always TextEdit.

16. Organizing student library as lesson - Again with the question of time versus result. To really make this work, I'd have to have students read the books and fill out like a log sheet or something. And I don't want to turn it into AR.

17. Sharing the library haul - I forget. Plus I tend to get a fairly big stack when I go, so we're talking a significant amount of class time. And again, I just don't know that it would be worth the instruction or practice that would be lost.

20. Department-wide reading group - When I've sort of touched on the idea, the response has been ... considerate. Kind of like, "I'm glad you're so involved and passionate!" But then there's no interest expressed after that. And I'm just not secure enough to come right out and say "I think we should do this."

22. Phone call parties - As above; I've talked about it with one other teacher for next year. But it's not like it's something I can MAKE others work with me on, and I'm not sure I'd want to do that even if I could.

Alas, I don't have anything witty to say. Mostly that's because of the yearbook. We're distributing next Wednesday and we are NOT READY!

I still have students who haven't paid for their yearbooks yet. And our bill is coming due. Stress? Me? YES!

Here's the schedule - you can look at earlier posts in the series by clicking on the links below:

I. Continuing: Ideas that worked well
II: Repeating: Ideas I didn't implement effectively
III: Discarding: Ideas I implemented that weren't effective
IV: Tweaking: Ideas that worked but might be improved
V: Exploring: New ideas for next year!

You can read about some of my earlier plans here; it also has a link back to the one before it. If I can keep this to a weekly schedule, I'll be finishing up just before finals.

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nane-zwerg

Continue...

The Thing with Feathers (2/5)

This is the second in a series of posts reflecting on the ideas I had this year to improve my teaching.

This week, it is time to buckle down, bite the bullet, put my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel and employ other painful cliches as I look at what I just plain got wrong.

Goals that failed

2. Parent contacts - I always make this a priority and I have yet to follow through as diligently as I feel I need to. Part of it is that I work really hard to (try to) keep my teacher-time and my personal-time separate. And in order to actually TALK TO parents, I have to call in the evenings, when I could be spending time with the Hunk. It's not even that I don't work in the evenings or on weekends; I guess I just resent feeling like it's a REQUIREMENT. I'm not sure. I feel like I need to explore this some more. There's something here... some sort of mental block. And I'm not really sure why.

21. Teaching paragraph writing - I need to re-work the order of my units. I think if I take a week or so to examine good paragraphs in our SSR books, and THEN go into our extended writing unit, that'll help. Of course, a lot of that depends on when we get to schedule our research in the library. I'm not really happy with the research unit, but it's one that I have next to no freedom on, so... I suck it up & soldier on. :P

26. Portfolio - This ties in with (21), above. We didn't really do a lot of writing that built on previous writing. My writing curriculum NEEDS to be better. One of the things I should do this summer is actually create a plan for how the writing should progress through the semester, tying that in with our literature units.

You know, adding things to this section sucked, but going back and looking at the list I ended up with was actually quite encouraging, because it's way shorter than I thought it'd be! Plus I like feeling like I've got a plan for improvement. I hate feeling trapped. Figuring out what I can do to make things better gets me excited about the challenge of doing it!

The fun continues next week! Check out the schedule below:

I. Continuing: Ideas that worked well
II: Repeating: Ideas I didn't implement effectively
III: Discarding: Ideas I implemented that weren't effective
IV: Tweaking: Ideas that worked but might be improved
V: Exploring: New ideas for next year!

You can read about some of my earlier plans here; it also has a link back to the one before it. If I can keep this to a weekly schedule, I'll be finishing up just before finals.

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nane-zwerg

Continue...

The Thing with Feathers (1/5)

So as this school year winds down, it's time to begin looking at what has worked, what hasn't, why, and decide what I should do for next year.

I really wish I had some way to remember to re-visit those plans throughout the term. It's always helpful, but once it's out of my head, it's like it's just gone until the end of the year looms close again. And now - goodness! it's a mess trying to go through all of these ideas. Some of them show up more than once, in different variations. Definitely confusing... but at the same time encouraging. I can really see my progress! yay!

Because it is SO easy for me to get down on myself, I'm going to start by taking a look at things I've tried that have improved my classroom.

Continuing: Things that have worked well

3. Weekly grade updates. You know, it is a LOT easier to keep up with this now that the yearbook is done. Who'd've thought? *g* I know that when I'm behind on my grading, I'm physically tense all over. I feel irritable and guilty. I've also assigned more writing-as-practice and fewer graded essays, which are a huge time sink.

5. Detentions for uncompleted work. This has been especially effective this semester, since teachers have to make up the time we lost due to weather by staying at school later. Since I now HAVE to stay at school, guess what? Students can stay with me! It's not a punishment, it's an opportunity. >;)

13. Curriculum. Over the years, I have tracked down some short pieces that I really like, & as we've pretty much got carte blanche with anything vanilla, I've been able to shape most of my curricular materials to my tastes. Okay, so Julius Caesar still sucks (Portia is particularly nauseating as we study Act II) but I am SO stoked about the unit I've created. Seriously. It's so damn good I'm considering pitching it to publishers as part of a Shakespeare series.

14. Classroom library. I always want more books. ALWAYS. I have a purchase order to get cloth so that the Home Ec class can make us more beanbag chairs. I get SERIOUS library envy when I look at (some) other teachers' rooms.

24. Writer's Notebooks. Previously, I'd planned to have a binder that stays in the classroom and a notebook that stays with the student (see ideas [7] and [8] back at the earliest post). But after we were required to use composition books as part of the America's Choice program, I fell in love. They're incredibly portable; combined with a 6x9 envelope slipped into the middle to hold half-sheet handouts they're MUCH better than a binder. I'm going to change the organization system a teeny bit; AC had us numbering the "table of contents" pages with roman numerals. Forget that. Next year we'll just number the pages 1-200 and then start writing on page 5.

23. Literature Circles. Last time I had sophomores, we studied various dystopian novels. They could choose from a list & were divided into groups based on what novel they were studying. The problem was, though, that the novels were at or above their reading levels, and I wasn't able to figure out a way to give all the students in all the different groups the support they needed. So this time, we ALL read 1984 early in the term (though they did get to discuss in groups), but after we finish Julius Caesar, the students will get to choose a recent(ish) YA dystopian novel to read for their literature circles.

Next week, I'll be considering some of my failures. :( But, hey, I'll be able to look back to today's post for encouragement. :D Check out the schedule below:

I. Continuing: Ideas that worked well
II: Repeating: Ideas I didn't implement effectively
III: Discarding: Ideas I implemented that weren't effective
IV: Tweaking: Ideas that worked but might be improved
V: Exploring: New ideas for next year!

You can read about some of my earlier plans here; it also has a link back to the one before it. Wow. I'm looking back and feeling all warm and gooey inside.

Then again, maybe that's just the ravioli...

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nane-zwerg

Continue...

Hopes for next year (yes, already)

Added 5/19

22. Phonecall Parties. Invite teachers to the workroom after school once or twice a week. If you're coming, bring snacks or a 2-liter (mark it with tape & leave it in the fridge). Gather for half an hour to an hour calling parents, munching on snacks, and trading management/instruction ideas.

23. Literature Circle Roles. Teach these using short stories; practice as a class before splitting up into small groups and working on them individually.

24. Writer's Notebooks. We're using the America's Choice format; I'd also like to add an SSR log at the back, a Homework ToC ... not sure where, and... vocabulary chart, working backward from the Glossary.

25. Focus Question EVERY DAY. Use it for opening/closing.

26. Portfolio: Manila folder. STAYS IN ROOM. All writing goes in here; new draft stapled on top of old. Homework/classwork checked for completeness & stored here; turned in on Friday.

27. Transitions. Use book talks and poetry readings (one of each, alternating every other day) to move from starter to instruction.

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You've probably noticed that the list starts at 22. To see ideas 1-21, go here.

Further suggestions? I will periodically review this list (I hope) and add updates. *grin* We can see how much THAT happened during this past term... sheesh! ;)

Continue...

Reviewing ideas & how things went - hope it isn't too painful!

Added 1/1/09

18. Post SSR responses on a wiki. Hopefully the Beatles (my new-to-me first-generation iMacs) will be new enough that a good response can be crafted and saved in the 15 minutes(ish) students have for SSR. I'll probably want the sidebar to have interesting/useful links - like to goodreads and shelfari, other student blogs or wikis, that sort of thing. Haven't found a good way to organize this. How often are these responses due? How do we schedule & share time? Still an idea.

19. Log and record daily participation grades; these can be saved in the online gradebook in a category that doesn't affect the average but allows parents who log in to keep track of the student's behavior. Also shows up on progress reports! I think this will be tough to do on a daily basis, but I'm going to try. Didn't happen. I found myself trying to remember & I didn't want to go by that. I've created a chart that I can carry around with me on a clipboard so I can make notes as I go.

20. Department-wide reading group: I really enjoyed discussing our reading at the America's Choice training workshops. I'd like to continue doing something along those lines at our department meetings. Maybe we could rotate through - each time we meet, a different teacher brings a short article or story or poem or something with enough copies so each of the other teachers can have one, and then we read them, and then we talk about what we've read. I haven't brought this up. I still feel like the bumbling n00b of the group. I need to be less of a weenie.

21. Teach effective paragraph writing more thoroughly before beginning essay writing. Yes, they should know this, but they don't. Out of my hands now; I'm to follow the America's Choice curriculum.

Added 7/11 (technically!)

17. Bring in my stash the day after I go to the library. Take out each book, one at a time, and explain why I pulled it from the shelf and why I decided to check it out. Revised; see #27.

Added 6/5

16. Idea: categorize books that are in student library? create info sheets that provide basic plot hook, description of main characters, the problem faced, and the setting, grade level reccomendation & reason, who might like the book & why; I liked/disliked (or would/would not read) this book because ___. Didn't do this - but I might be able to work it in as part of their SSR responses. STILL didn't do this; it just sounds like it would be great if it worked, but that if students weren't already trained to use their time wisely and work together EFFECTIVELY in groups, it could just be a disaster.

Added 5/29

13. A new curriculum that doesn't suck. Julius Caesar with making hard choices (friendship/patriotism) and dramatic techniques as big ideas; Night with supplemental material from The Hiding Place and hopefully literature pertaining to other genocides; an Arthurian unit; and shorter drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I want to do more with short pieces that we can read out loud, especially with this new group. A lot of them are "reluctant readers," and I want to focus on skills rather than struggling through content. Continued improvement here.
14. More books for the class library. Possibly some beat-up armchairs. I've got a new classroom, and it is FRICKIN' ENORMOUS. Yay for used bookstores! Of course, there's always room for more - plus I think some of my books grew legs... Also got quite a few books from donorschoose. Yikes! I need to finish up my thank-yous.
15. MS Word installed on the new-to-me computers - I heard there were copies of Office 2000 that were not thrown out when the computer lab upgraded. Heh - right. I can't seem to get much cooperation lately; I've sent in a tech request to install Linux on the computers. From there I'll see about Open Office. No luck here, but I've gotten some Macs that have it.
16. No repeater-repeater-repeater class... only "true freshmen" will be sequestered in the academy. This means that while in most cases students who repeat English class are sort of scattered throughout the next set of English classes at that level, the English I repeaters will be in a class of their own, quite literally! I really, REALLY don't want to deal with the additional motivational/management issues that come with that class, on top of the new curriculum and the yearbook. Well, I got moved to sophomore English, so this didn't apply to me - and it's not like I can do anything about it anyway.

Added 5/9

10. A grammar quiz EVERY WEEK. This has definitely been in the use-it-or-lose-it category. I like the grammar starters better; we did continue to re-do preposition & HV quizzes. Still liking starters.
11. Start each class with SSR (self-selected reading). 10 minutes? Amazing. This rules. Transitioned to SSR on M/W only for 30-40 min to build stamina. Works even better - students can f* around for 10 minutes without too much difficulty.
12. Technical Document: Literature Guide. Explains & analyzes elements of literature, figurative language, and sound techniques using student selected literature and student created examples. (This is an expasion of the poetry project. I'm thinking I may want to move it to the end of the term and put the essay unit in the middle. We'll see...)I did this and am hoping to make improvements for next term! yey! Like this. Tweaking for next term.

Added 4/17

7. English Binder - stays in class. Includes notes (pages numbered) and a folder for returned work. I think (hope!) it will be easier to keep things in order when there's not the temptation to store papers for other classes in it. Didn't work; some stayed in class, others didn't. They do what they want. Revised; see 24 & 26. There's not enough room under the desk for a literature book and two binders.
8. English Notebook - spiral-bound, goes home. Pages numbered. Includes ToC homework list; start homeworks from the end of the book. We may glue/tape/staple an envelope or something to the inside of the cover for any papers that need to be taken home.Didn't work; got forgotten. I'm scrapping this.
9. I have a course calendar that shows how long each unit is and gives an idea of what we'll be doing each day. I'm not sure if I want to give it to students or not. I think it will definitely help them see the big picture, but I'd want to be certain that I could keep up with updating any changes - I couldn't just make adjustments as I went. I'd want to keep them informed.Didn't do this, and glad I didn't - I think it would've been overwhelming. Putting a list of units and rough dates on the back of the syllabus.

Original post (4/11)

1. I need to keep up with my bulletin boards. I did ... better ... with this. Still need to improve. More improvement! yey! let's continue. :D
2. I've done fairly well with parent contacts. I want to continue that. Ditto. *wince* Ok, this one went downhill. :( Hopes for improvement next term (see #22).
3. I need to make sure grades are updated every week. Done! Yay! Though I don't know that I'll ever master this. Is it possible to grade all research papers over a weekend?! Still dislike grading.
4. I would like to showcase more student work. Definitely done, but still room for improvement. Okay, the struggle here (for me) is assigning student work that is "showy" without becoming arts & crafts.
5. I want to assign immediate detentions for uncompleted work. Not allowed; must contact parents before assigning detention. This sucks. However, I think I can NOTIFY them of the detention right away, contact the parent that day, and then inform them of the detention date the next day?
6. At the start of the term, I will have students identify what they learned in English class in previous years, and what they expect to encounter this term.Done, but not as smoothly as I'd like it. The students definitely saw the connections between the skills they learned at different levels, but there was a definite sense of "where does it go from here?"I've put it as a homework for next term; that way I can look over their responses & decide how to address the issue.

What you said previously:

cupcake said... I like your list. I especially like the last point and will steal your fabulous idea. Given some of the darling students I've had this year, I wouldn't be surprised if their answer was "Nothing and nothing."

Good luck with the bulletin boards. I loathe - loathe, I tell you - creating bulleting boards. 4:02 PM

Clix said... Hi cupcake! Mostly I want to show off student work. I really don't care about them looking good, but I wanna brag on my peepz. ;) 6:50 PM

cupcake said... I am laughing so hard. It's always nice to show off the kiddies, because if THEY look good (bless their hearts), WE look good.

And it's all about US. 7:07 PM

Clix said... *furious blush* Oh dear. I really need to be more careful about pronoun/antecedent clarity... by "them" I meant the bulletin boards! *^.^*

Although I'm not doing it to give them warm fuzzies, but to have one more way of encouraging slackers to DO THEIR DARN WORK! 5:25 AM

mybellringers said... Can't tell you how thrilled I am that at my level we don't have to have bulletin boards… :-) You go girl! 11:44 AM

HappyChyck said... I'm not a bulletin board person, either. Sure, I'll use it for student work, but I forget to change it for MONTHS! My student teacher did 3 different bulletin boards this spring. Overachiever.

Course calendar...At my last school we had to post our curriculum. Mine looked like a time line (used 2 poster boards) with the months across the top and the subjects on the sides--literature, writing, grammar, vocabulary, etc. (You know, because teaching English is like teaching 5 subjects.) You could use quarters instead of months. Across from the subject and under the month, I drew a line and wrote the name of the unit. I also wrote the numbers of the standards addressed under the lines. Continuous things like vocabulary simply had a line across the whole poster. Students knew the upcoming units ("What books are we reading this year?") and we could all see if we were on track. 7:11 AM

John said... I actually started a post last night about reflections of the school year but then deleted it thinking it was a bit too early. I think after reading your ideas it has pushed me to try, try again.

Oh, by the way...I teach 5th grade where we are literally surrounded by bulletin boards while walking down the hallway of our elementary school. Too funny. 6:34 AM

Melissa B. said... Bravo on the "to do" list! My journalistas keep what I call a "stringbook" in filing cabinets in my classroom. This is basically a running portfolio of all their work in the journalism program. They start as 9th-graders with a little ol' 3-ring binder, and are up to 3-4 inchers by senior year. They complain a lot, but by June of the senior years, they're very impressed with themselves. It's also a good way for them to look at the progression in their writing. Not my original idea. My high school journalism teacher did this many, many moons ago! 5:55 PM

Earlier ideas & comments behind the 'continue' link.

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