Journals

This week we watched Ms. Fox implementing journals into her class. She is going to have the students journal periodically in class about a book that is either being read in class or independently at home (student's choice).  The students are writing each entry in the form of a letter, it must be addressed to Ms. Fox or another student. The students then deliver their journals to the student the letter is addressed to or Ms. Fox. That person than has to write a letter back in response to the original letter. I like the idea of having students communicating with one another about what they are reading but I can see journals getting lost in the near future....
She has done the best she can about getting these journals organized and making a "safe place" to keep them when they aren't being used. When the students were putting the journals together she had them staple, glue, or tape the directions, writing prompts, and chart of books read right into the journals. Ms. Fox showed each class where their class journals would be kept and made a spot for students to place the journals that are addressed to her. She reminded each class several times to only give their journals to other students to take home if they know that the student taking home the journal will bring it back. (I kind of felt bad for the super disorganized/messy kids...no one is going to address their letters to them now in fear of never seeing their journals again)
I am interested to see how these journals work...hopefully none will disappear!

Middle school Week 1

Lauren and I went to Nathan Bishop Middle School this week. It has been a good experience so far. We are with Mrs. Fox , she is the seventh grade English teacher. She is really high energy and alot of fun, it is clear that she has built a community with her students. She laughs and jokes with the students but at the same time they are able to get through a lesson and stay on task.
Her classroom fits her personality. She has student work literally strung across the room. The students had made masks for different characters in King Lear, those are displayed on one side of the room. The walls have more student work from class activities and colorful posters. Bloom's Taxonomy is also up there. It is definitely a fun place to walk into. I can see why the students enjoy being in her class. After watching a few classes I could see why she had the classroom set up the way she does. During every lesson she would remind students: "We talked about this theme when...." and she would point over to a paper on the wall or when they were reading prompts for an essay they are going to write she pointed to the questions that are strung across the ceiling. Most of the "decorations" around the room are reminders that the students already tackled the information for the  final essay. We were in the class when the essay was assigned and the prompts were given out. As soon as Mrs. Fox started pointing out that they were choosing from topics that they were discussing all quarter the mood switched from stressed to super confident.
The classes are not split up into levels, there is no high level or low level class. Mrs. Fox teaches four seventh grade English classes, her fifth class is an ELL class that she co-teaches. We watched all of the classes and Lauren and I were both surprised with the material they are learning. This week Mrs. Fox has been doing mini lessons on how to cite information with MLA format for their essays about King Lear. They are practicing using short and long quotes and making the quotes flow with their writing....we were both like what??? we never used MLA till college and I don't think I was asked to use quotes until high school! Then when she assigned that essay, the students were asking if they could come up with their own themes to write about rather than using the ones she had listed....the students were like "can I write about justice instead?" and "I would like to do sibling rivalry". I was sitting there thinking this isn't even happening. They are so engaged!
She does have one class that is behind the other three. When she was talking to us about that class she had said that it is tough with them because of the way the periods rotate with the three day schedule. No matter what that class is always either the first period of the day or the last period of the day. I didn't realize how much of an impact that could have on a class. In the morning students are late or not really awake yet and then last period of the day they just want to get out.

Teach Week

This whole month went by so fast! I can't believe we are done with the high schools already.My week of teaching went alright it wasn't perfect but I felt like for my first time teaching alone it went fine. I was all prepared to go like the week before because I was nervous about it. I taught Tuesday-Friday because on Monday Katie, Meagan, Brittney, and I did a writing prompt with a group of students before Sen. Jack Reed came in to speak *It went awesome! just wish more students got to share*. To keep with the writing theme, Ms.Usenia asked me to plan my lessons around persuasive writing.
I really liked the lessons I came up with and most of them went really well. The students were engaged, answering questions, asking questions, and completing the work I gave them. I think the worst day was Thursday, I had the students doing a group activity. Every time I would walk away from certain groups they would just stop working. In that class only so many of them can work independently and don't constantly need a teacher motivating them to work....so when I asked both teachers to make groups for me I probably should have told them more what I was looking for especially because when they are sitting near friends the class gets pretty rowdy. Every group did finish in the end and got to present what they had written to the class on Friday. Most of the groups did exactly what I asked them to and their persuasive writing pieces were good. The groups that didn't do so well were groups of people that I knew wouldn't, they were the students that come in to class sit down , listen to music, and never participate.

Pocahontas

This week in the American Experience class I have been going to, the students have been learning about puritans in the history portion of the class. In the English half Ms.Usenia has been having the students compare actual puritan life to the Disney version of Pocahontas. It was interesting to see which students were really into the lesson. She started off with a lesson that had the students comparing portraits of the actual John Smith and Pocahontas with the Disney version of both characters. Many of the students that do not always seem so engaged were fully participating in this worksheet. I noticed that one of the boys, who never seems interested in class, took out an extra sheet of paper because he didn't have room to write his full answers on the paper we had given.
The students were making connections between the actual portraits and things they had learned in history about the puritans ( which is another reason I love the American Experience class). They were also bringing up things we had talked about the previous week regarding Christopher Columbus being a hero or villain and how that applied to John Smith.
On Friday the students viewed the Disney movie Pocahontas. Every twenty minutes or so Ms.Usenia would stop the movie and ask the students questions regarding the historical accuracy and why Disney may have decided to change it. Ms.Usenia had also given the students handouts to fill out while watching the film. I found that even though many of the students had said they had scene the movie they were engaged. They were watching it from a new perspective. Pausing the movie periodically gave them the opportunity to catch up with writing and to talk about the effect of certain scenes. I think because they had never watched the movie and thought about the historical accuracy or the effects of not having an accurately told story geared toward children, the students wanted to share thoughts with the class.
We are going to also be watching Pocahontas 2 next week because according to Disney this newer version is historically accurate. I am interested to see what the students have to say about the next movie because they were able to point out so many inaccuracies within the first movie.

First Week!!!

I don't really know how to start this blog about the first week. I have so much going through my head after this week.It is hard to reel it all in. I was in Ms. Usenia's class at North Providence High (She is amazing by the way!). I wanted to see all of the classes that she teaches before deciding which class I would want to teach in week 4. She teaches for four periods, she told me that at North Providence the English teachers don't teach a fifth period because they are given an extra period to grade compositions. I had never heard of a school doing that so I found that interesting, especially since we are learning that writing should be an emphasis in all content areas but then only English teachers are given an extra period during school hours to grade writing.
After watching Ms.Usenia's classes I think that I want to teach her American Experience class. It is a two hour period because the class is co-taught by an English teacher and a History Teacher. I love the energy in that classroom and mixing the two contents is clearly beneficial to the students. Both teachers have created an environment that the students feel comfortable sharing in. I could tell at first that this class saw me almost as a intruder in their safe zone. I think the more time I spend with them the more they will feel comfortable sharing with me and in front of me. At the moment this class is covering Puritans so Ms.Usenia is planning on sparking their interests with some writing activities on Pocahontas and Disney next week. Can't wait!!!

Where are my jitters????

I am waiting to hear back from my teacher at North Providence high school about coming to observe on Monday. I feel like I should be freaking out at this point with nerves but I'm not.... yet. I think it is because it hasn't sunk in yet. Monday seems so far away still. I still have to work thirty hours between now and then so maybe that's why. I am positive that come Sunday night I will be having a melt down about what I am going to wear, how I will style my hair curly? straight?, and what I am going to say on my first day. Oh, first impressions why are you such a bother?

I'm not just anticipating feeling nervous, I know that as the week of teaching alone gets closer and closer I am going to get that anxious excited feeling. I have been waiting for this forever, I want to teach. I want to know how I feel about teaching when I have done it for a week. I want to know that I can do it...that I can plan lessons, teach them, and feel that accomplishment. I think that is one of the reasons that I am glad that I don't have a partner going with me to the class. Even though I will have the actual teacher there with me, at the end of this experience I will feel more confident in myself as a teacher. Don't get me wrong though I am nervous about not going in with a partner. I liked having a partner to teach with last semester, less pressure that way...I miss you already Faith...but I know I am going to have to learn to be comfortable running a classroom alone eventually. At least this way the teacher is there with me if I need help.

Can't wait to meet my teacher!