This year is particularly challenging in Journalism. We're not allowed to do any interviewing during class time, and the students DON'T do much interviewing on their OWN time.
Their articles for the school newspaper are understandably much more like personal essays. And some of them haven't completed the article requirements and as a result are failing.
I'm scared because I feel like I'm going to be hauled in and fussed at for something I can't really control :(
... may drive me insane.
Yearbook deadlines loom. Actually, only the final one at this point. One way or another, in two weeks, it'll all be over.
Also, random updatey thing: whenever I feel crappy, I read my reviews on fanfiction.net. Very cheering. People are so positive. :)
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:
Formative assessments: (These will be entered as quiz grades)
Summative assessments: (These will be entered as test grades)
What they can do on their own:
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/
I hate asking for things. I almost always feel like I'm pestering and/or imposing upon the person (or people) I'm approaching. See, I am pretty darn good at saying NO. But I know that often others are uncomfortable turning people down, and I don't want to put people I like in that position unnecessarily.
Like yesterday when I asked our registrar if she'd print up address labels to the parents of our seniors so that I could mail out forms for the senior yearbook ads. As I was leaving after thanking her profusely, I kind of overheard her asking our head secretary, "was she really that nervous about asking?"
Well, yes!
HOWEVER.
Sometimes it's worth it! If I can get 5 new donors to give $1 to my project by SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, I earn $50 towards it! Sounds like a good deal to me.
Because of where I teach, I already qualify for Gates Foundation fund matching - I'm kind of hoping that the $50 is match-able, but I'm not holding my breath. *grin*
So, if you'd like to help, pop on by! If not - well, thanks for reading! ^.^
("You're crazy!")
But seriously, folks...
According to BlogCarnival, our favorite weekly standby, the Carnival of Education, has been discontinued. You can look through a blue bajillion past entries, all the way back to 2005, but it looks like there will be no new ones for the foreseeable future.
This seriously bums me out. :( <-- sad face! see?
The CoE was like this lovely little get-together every week where I could catch up with everybody. It's so easy to get sucked into the slipstream and just dragged along with hectic pace of planning and reviewing and teaching and scheduling and grading and professional development and memos and .... eegh! It was simply wonderful to have a professional pick-me-up in the middle of the week. The Carnival has helped me examine my principles as a teacher and stay true to them, even when it's hard to do so.
And I don't want to lose that! So while I feel a bit presumptuous about doing so, I've created a new carnival - EduCarnival v2 - to pick up where the Carnival of Education left off.
Full disclosure: I'm very nervous about this. I've only ever hosted a carnival once, so I really don't know that I'm the best person to pick up this trail. I'll do my best, of course, but I can't do much of anything without some help.
What's a carnival without articles, after all? Email me at uncomfortableadventures at yahoo dot com with a direct URL, or use this handy-dandy form to submit your article.
Since we've had a bit of a break, I'd like to start off with a "Summer Reflections" edition. Look back through your summer posts and choose your favorites. The deadline is next Monday, August 24, at 6:00 PM EST. The carnival will go live that Wednesday!
Finally, if at all possible, please let others know. The best way to have a great carnival is to have lots of people participating, so help me get the word out there!
See you soon!
PS: If you want to comment & can't, please email me (uncomfortableadventures at yahoo) or tweet? (Clix)
Our first unit will be on Beowulf and so I'm still trying to figure out just what it is that I think students need to learn from this unit.
I think a BIG part of it is going to be reading comprehension. Our lit book uses the Burton Raffel (?) version, which tries to keep the narrative in epic format. So you've got line breaks and funky syntax and artistic grammar and incredibly long sentences and it is FRICKIN HARD to read.
Beyond that, I want to consider our ideas about heroes and villains. How similar are we to the people who told this story? How have our values changed over the ages? Grendel is just bad because of who he is. It's... shoot, what's the Aristotelian idea... ontological! wooo, go me, I remembered :) Evil is an intrinsic part of his being - I don't think we believe that anymore, for the most part. Ditto the bit about it being because of his ancestry.
Beowulf, OTOH... how is he like a modern hero? How is he different? Oo, I should totally see if I can find some WWE promo speeches on YouTube. Maybe that could be their end-of-unit assessment: comparing a modern fictional hero to Beowulf in some way. I'd like to try to avoid an essay. Maybe I could sort of fuse it with Dana's resume assessment and have them create a resume for the modern hero to take over after Beowulf's death, and show the comparison in the annotations. Or something.
One of the things that intrigues me is that - AFAIK, I could use some help here - this was, to its original audiences, a foreign story. Don't get me wrong, I think Pan's Labyrinth and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are masterful films. But they're not the blockbusters that, say, Independence Day was. In fact, that isn't a great analogy, because it'd be more like... CTHD being created in English, which IMO would have made it LESS successful.
Also - and this continues to a lesser degree in Shakespeare - you had to be royal to matter. Otherwise all you're good for is comic relief or redshirting. If that. I'd LOVE to look at how & why that ideal changed; many of our heroic stories today are about people who succeed because of hard work and talent, often in spite of fortuitous birth.
And I'm curious about the church's role in preserving this story. WAS this a successful epic? Was it one people WANTED to hear? Or was it one that people sat through because they had to, resenting the church's editing? Did it survive because it was popular or because it was propaganda?
More ponderings behind the link. I need to have this done for tomorrow. AUGH!
Image thanks to http://www.designyourway.net/blog/inspiration/digital-art/christopher-peters-illustrator/
Students come tomorrow. Accepted a new course assignment (British Lit) today. So. Tired.
Dana, I'm totally filching your Beowulf unit.
Now to finish revising my Journalism syllabus.
Teacher nightmares started weeks ago. One week from today I'll be back at school. First day with students will be next Friday.
Got a phone call from the AP today. Why is portrait day so early? Well, it's because it worked exceptionally well to have it early last year. Might need to be changed. Okiedoke. Same conversation as last spring. Why is it so early? Helps with remembering, helps with deadlines. We can change it if you want.
We got furloughed for three days. I guess it's a better choice than getting a pay cut, because it means we don't have to be at the school those three days. Still, it ticks me off. I resent the assumption that teachers don't need planning time - or, at least, don't need to be compensated for it.
I have two donorschoose proposals under review, one that's been approved and materials will be sent as soon as school starts, and four more in the works. It is SO HARD to write those stinking proposals - especially without being repetitive, when two of the four are to add more to my classroom library. I like to think that I do a fairly good job of it, that they're enjoyable to read... they've at least been effective so far.
But lately writing has been an absolute CHORE. And maybe it's just that I haven't been sleeping well, but I'm pissed about that. I love to read, and I know why: because I choose to read books that don't suck. And because I know how to pick those books, I can teach students how to do so, and then THEY rediscover how much fun reading can be.
I just can't seem to do that with writing. So, come Labor Day weekend, I hope to enlist the help of this man, who is part of my potential harem. (Is it still a harem even though I'm female and they're male?)
You know he's plotting mischief. Just look at that twinkle! I figure, if anyone can teach me how to love writing, it's someone with the right balance of softness and snark.
My thoughts are all a-jumble. Has anyone heard anything from/about EdWonk? I haven't seen a carnival in weeks. :( I miss them!
Proof that summer break isn't really a break...
School has been out for just over a month. It is just under a month until teachers go back. Students return one month from tomorrow.
I've been having school-dreams for the past week - just about solid. What's got me nervous right now is feedback. I really want to give timely, detailed feedback, and I'm not sure how (or even if!) I can.
Management doesn't worry me too much, except that students would rather watch TV than read (or write) something challenging. There's a lot of contradictory, unhelpful fluff out there: you need to make it interesting/relevant for the class (never mind that each student is going to have different perspectives on what's interesting/relevant); your expectations should be high but not TOO high (how high is that? - and don't forget that each student has a unique ability level).
I have one of Carol Tomlinson's books to look over - hopefully gonna read that in the next few days. We'll see how much of it is practical rather than polemic.
Just got back from flat-water kayaking (finally!) and have learned that ALL of you needs to be sprayed with mosquito repellent. They can bite through three layers of clothing, apparently. Yikes!
I think I want a kayak. I like it a lot - the Hunk says flat-water is boring, but I find it peaceful. And I think it probably gives you a better workout than whitewater. Between that and dancing, I could get myself in great shape! (Maybe.)
Image thanks to http://www.ideallives.com/
Yearbook Day is here.
After a year that, a lot of the time, felt like this:
it's nice to know the end is in sight. Coach got to class early (for him) and so I retreated to the work room to deal with a seemingly-endless line of students and a pile of receipt books.
ETA: The buzz is in - and the books are a hit! Hurray!
ETA2: I made a parent cry - and for the first time, it was a GOOD THING! she was so pleased with the book and so proud of her lil senior that she got all choked up!
