Saturday, April 18, 2009
For those who can't post...
I believe that you cannot start a thread except through accessing the blog through your dashboard, which requires a gmail account. For those of you who do not have an account with gmail, and who don't want to open one, you can, I believe, still respond to already existing posts. So let's use this post for that purpose!
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Keeping up the motivation
ReplyDeleteI find Sunday to be the hardest day of the week as a teacher. The Sunday after a long break is even harder.
This Spring Recess was a much-needed time for rest, recovery, and relaxation. However, we are now all in the same position of returning after a long break. Everyone has told me that your first year as a teacher is the hardest year of your life. I would certainly agree with that statement. We are now entering the final stretch of this year and I want to make sure that I finish it strong, instead of just making it to the end.
Because our ELA test took place in January, I have already seen many students level of engagement drop. It has been very frustrating to hear students say things like, “We’re done with the test, why do we have to do anything now?” I really want to make sure that I keep my students and myself accountable for the rest of they year. However, I have heard many horror stories about the month of January and the chaos that ensues.
I was hoping some people would post ideas about what they are planning on doing in the final months, how they will keep students engaged and accountable despite the temptation of teachers and students to start the summer vacation during the last semester.
What about a big class or individual project? For example, I remember that when I was in the eighth grade my ELA class focused on Shakespeare because of the teacher's fascination with him. After we finished all of our exams, my teacher started to get his classes ready for his annual "Shakespeare Festival." It was the culminating project of a year of Shakespeare study in which the students of his classes broke up into groups to reenact their favorite scene from any of Shakespeare's plays. From what I remember of it, most of the students had a fun time with their scenes and several even added unique spins to their pieces, such as a purposely risqué rendition of a Romeo and Juliet kiss scene with two males as the leads.
ReplyDeleteGranted, productions of Shakespearean theatre can, and really should, only work when students have been studying him or a particular piece over an extended period of time. But what if a major theme of the year is identity, for example? Students could be asked to think about their favorite piece of literature that they have read during the school year (at school or at home is decided at the discretion of the teacher), and then have the students come up with creative ways to show what they learned about identity from the book, or their favorite works, such as by writing a continuation for the text, putting characters from the texts into a play and acting it out, or even by making a picture or a dance (if the classroom has provided for aesthetic learning). (Using above example because I've heard that "identity" is a big topic in seventh grade).
With the end of the year blahs, why not have students try to work for a goal that they might enjoy? Even if there is no "official" reason to keep learning, if students have fun and are once again presented with a "challenge" to overcome (the last one being the ELA exam), then they might be motivated to keep reading, think critically, and to develop some abstract, and creative, reasoning skills. A big and fun project could be the new goal of a class just coming off of working their butts off studying for an exam that could make or break their scholastic career (in their minds). It could be seen as a “reward” by students, while at the same time allowing for a teacher to educate students that otherwise would have begrudged any more work.
"Lorax Hunter"- I agree with you that Sundays are BY FAR the hardest days for me. I, too, am struggling with what to teach my 9h graders during the last month of school. Currently we're focusing on "heroes" and eventually want them to write about and research their own selected hero. I'm HOPING they will be engaged and interested in my mini unit, so I need to figure out a way to really draw them in.
ReplyDeleteAs for my sophomores, we're in the middle of Othello, and I think that will take us into mid-May. I'm thinking of teaching Persepolis (graphic novel) in the last weeks of school if time allows.
Because I've spent a lot of time with my freshmen on vocabulary I think I am going to have them work in groups for the last few weeks to write a story using as many vocab words as possible. I'll probably have them present their stories somehow- either through something visual, dramatic, etc. I'm going to give them prompts to launch from, which will hopefully both help them review their words and also create a fun and engaging story that follows the "plot structure" and elements of short stories.
I hate grading and giving feedback on student writing. Ok, some of the reason why is because I am tired and lazy sometimes. But mostly I don't like to because the state of my classroom environment. Right now, I cannot conference the way I would like with students about their work, and because the environment is not calm and I am constantly having to deal with management, I cannot give a student the attention they want at the moment. And most of them are extremely dependent on me to walk them through an assignment. As it is that I am one teacher in a general education classroom, instead of a small group instructor, I cannot always be there to provided meaningful feedback for a student. So the written feedback I give provides no relief for my students.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Throw Away that Correcting Pen," I began thinking about ways that I can give meaningful feedback to students and also to hold students accountable or help students hold themselves accountable for their writing. The author provided some cool techniques for providing feedback such as giving verbal feedback through audio recordings. However, I wondered about the feasibility of such a strategy. I am also working on holding myself accountable to completing tasks that require consistency, so if I ever were to shuck the pen while grading, I would need a system that I could live with. I think that a good idea to hold both myself and my students accountable would be to have a type of checklist that the author mentioned in the essay about certain grammar/mechanical errors that students make in their writing. I would like to do something of that nature so that instead of telling exactly what students did wrong and where, they are compelled to re-read their writing and look for it themselves instead of the "search for the red ink on the page strategy" which the author describes as mind-numbing.
This strategy, although grammar focused, if tailored to more aspects of the writing rubric also serves as a good data tool. As a teacher, I would like to know of better concrete ways in which I can track overall class progress in writing, but also see where major problems lie across the board. The author also created a system for giving each student support in their major problem areas when it comes to writing through a numerical folder system which contains worksheets that deal with a variety of topics about writing. This is ideal for me, as a person with students, no matter how good writers they may be, crave my one on one attention, that at this stage in my career, I cannot give.
A few weeks ago the ELA teachers have merged and decided we would have the entire eigth grade work on author studies. Students are provided with laptops and work during class and out of class alike. They are given a rubric and need to follow guidelines that will most positively keep them busy.
ReplyDeleteThe author study consists of choosing an author (assuming you have read at least two of their books which need to be compared in the study.) Myers, Anderson, and Hinton are the most popular so far. Students are first asked to create a power point providing biographical information. Following that is a four page paper comparing and connecting two novels read by the author chosen. In the paper, students are also encouraged to provide biographical information and any preferences the author may have to characters and/or themes. At the end, the students are to hand in all completed work in a binder. The binder needs to be decorated in a manner that represents the author or book comparison. At the very end, students are given a reflection sheet that ask questions pertaining to their project and what they learned.
Finally, they are given dates to present their author study in class. Presenting their projects buys us another week or two since we give them a 10-15 minute time limit, anyhting sooner results in less points. It has been great so far except that the librarians are going crazy trying to keep up with all the novels and references that are being borrowed. My advice at this time of the year, keep it detailed and lengthy in time resulting in one end project, or if the students aren't motivated keep it simple introducing short stories or poetry and trying some interesting strategies that will keep the motivation level high. The strategies should vary depending on the personality of the class.
This week was the first full week of poetry, and I used up basically all of the easier forms I know. I've done haiku, cinquain, and free verse. I'm nervous to try sonnets (that may take two days), and was hoping some other people could help me out and let me know what they've done with poetry that works. A lot of my students love poetry, but get frustrated and give up quickly if it's not easily accessible. SOS! HELP!
ReplyDeleteTeshonne - This probably doesn't really solve your problem or speak to the suggestions of Get Rid of Your Editing Pen, or whatever the exact name is, but something that my school does that is a quicker way to give written feedback (and I feel exactly the way you do about not being able to conference because of the frequent presence of general craziness) is to use printed labels--square ones that come from Staples with six on one sheet--with criteria printed on the labels. You just circle whatever comment you want to give, and you can give the student a detailed, comment-filled grade quickly based on the label. Does that make sense? I can explain it to you in class, if not.
ReplyDeleteMeg, I love using label stickers, too! They make for easy mass commenting. I've also used them as rubrics I can highlight and attach to writing I'm grading. Another idea is to actually give printed labels to each student.
ReplyDeleteI've done it for big goal investment-type-things such as stickers on the inside covers of their notebooks to remind them of their beginning-of-year reading levels, space to write in where they want to end up and the levels they achieve over the course of the school year.
--Dana :)
ReplyDeleteLorax -
ReplyDeleteI think during the final months my plan is to really push reading levels by way of trying to focus lessons more on texts and interesting writing rather than skills (as I did pre-state test). I just find good writing does a lot more to spark the skills my kids need anyway. We are going to throw in some very interactive and collaborative activities into our units--some performance and competition, for example. I've heard that the top floor of my school (where my class is located) gets unbearably hot very soon due to the lack of air conditioning and the black tar roof directly above us. My school is already filled with chaos and I can just imagine what kind of antics the heat will bring. I HOPE to alleviate these issues (even just a little) by switching up the routine with some of these kinds of special events. Slams, drama, and movies (crits and/or screenwriting)are ways for us to move out of the class and down into the auditorium for a refreshing change of environment and change of temperature.
As another tactic, maybe a somewhat lazy one, I want to also get a trip or two in before the end of June. I really want some breaks in these final months as a way to have rewards/incentives and things for us to look forward to as a class.
-Dana