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!!!