My students came in Monday with their own metaphor poems/songs modeled on Paul Simon’s “I Am A Rock.” I allowed them to read it in front of the class for a few points of extra credit. Nine students wanted to read. I reminded them how to be a good audience and support with applause. This is not the time for criticism or commentary, I reminded them. The students were great. They had written awesome poems and songs. One student compared herself to a tv with so many different things playing. One boy compared himself to his istrument – the flute. He didn’t totally get it, some of his verses made very little sense to me, but were really similar to “I Am A Rock.” That’s okay

One girl, who has been really quiet all year, came up with song and without making eye contact with the class announced: “I need to get more comfortable singing in front of people.” She proceeded to sing her own composition “I Am Your Pillow.” It was BEAUTIFUL. The music she had written, the lyrics, the singing itself. It was so sincere and touching. The class was rapt. I was nearly in tears. It wasn’t just that she was singing this beautiful song, it was that she was sharing this beautiful song with US – with our class. It got me. The class gave her a HUGE round of applause, complete with whistles and verbal affirmation.

Wow. It was a moment. That’s why I’m a teacher. I found, as the readings/performances went on, that I had to remind the students that support didn’t mean shouting out “come on! You can do it!” really forcefully. Maybe it meant just waiting while that person got started. I had to shape their responses a little bit and model what was appropriate. But it was well worth it. And I think we have a much tighter community now.

So what did the kids learn? Besides how to support each other? How to use figurative language? How to  describe themselves? How to appreciate music and poetry? I hope so. The universality of the human experience? Don’t go too far, Miss.

After my online course in differentiated instruction last year, I made a HUGE effort to differentiate – particularly in my workshop. One of my innovations was the vocabulary menu. Part gimmick, part differentiation, part quest to teach study skills, this prix-fixe menu offered two options for appetizer, entree, and dessert for students to engage in during class. Options included creating vocabulary notecards, drawing pictures to relate to vocabulary, and writing mystery stories featuring the words.

The initial response was positive – students thought it was cute and it gave them choices. They also seemed to be doing well on vocabulary quizzes – pointing to success. I wasn’t sure, however, if it was just using classtime to study vocabulary, or the particular methods they were learning that were successful. I still don’t know.

This year when I gave out the first vocabulary list and showed the students how to write sentences with context, etc. etc. I completely skipped the vocabulary menu. Why? I don’t know. I think I was so busy establishing other class routines like the do now, mini-lesson, and independent reading procedure that I didn’t think to start anything new – stupid decision. The kids did poorly on the first vocab quiz and were clearly stressed out about it. I could have alleviated that stress and started them out with great study routines. Guess what’s happening this week? You guessed it – the vocabulary menu!

Chatty Cathys

One of my goals in that workshop class is a really comfortable environment that accepts all the students’ levels, strengths, and weaknesses. It’s also my goal to show that English can be a positive experience, even if you struggle with it sometimes. I think I was TOO effective in creating that comfortable environment – my kids were NUTS this week. They were super chatty and degenerated really quickly after every instruction I issued or every time I turned around. We had a “talk” on Friday about htis. I explained that I was frustrated because I wanted them to be comfortable and able to ask questions, but that the level of noise and distractions was so great that we were not getting through work. They responded and discussed strategies that they thought would help. We’ll see. They were very receptive to it, though, and resisted my suggestion that I get stricter.

I am a ROCK!

After our “talk” on Friday, we proceeded with our Catcher in the Rye pre-reading by listening to and annotating lyrics of “I Am A Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel. They did great and loved listening. Although initially some thought the song was cheesy and sort of made fun of it, they were enthusiastic enough that after we discussed the song they wanted to listen AGAIN and sing it out loud. They also did a great job identifying figurative language and discussing the meaning of the song.

So when we read “Jabberwocky” it’s an exercise in using context clues and part of speech indicators to define unfamiliar vocabulary. I know this is not original – millions of teachers use this very lesson – but it’s still a great idea. I also have a set of questions from the book Hip Hop Poetry and the Classics which I find helpful to use with this. I first read the poem twice and I ask the students to circle any words they do not know. There are a lot. After the first reading, one student who I’ll call Jermaine, and is the sweetest, slowest (I’m not making a criticism of his intellect, he is literally slow in everything he does – taking the notebook out, writing his name, etc.) boy in the world, held up his paper and he had circled the entire poem – the ENTIRE POEM. He just drew a big circle around it. Adorable. Most of the kids were sort of looking around and chattering nervously, because they had circled tons of words and did not know what the poem was about. They had a freak out moment. But, this was exactly my plan. Ha ha ha.

I quieted them down a little and then we went through the poem and started figuring the words out. We used clues like “Beware the” before Jabberwock to figure out that the Jabberwock was probably a thing – because it had “the” in front of it. We also decided that it was a bad thing because the speaker said “Beware” it. And so it went. Most of them realized they could in fact figure out a lot of the new words by the way they sounded or how they were used. Then I handed out the questions and asked the students to respond in complete sentences to the poem. That helps me insure that each student really understands what we went over in the class. Sometimes they nod along very convincingly, but clearly have NO IDEA what’s happening.

In my sophomore class, the kids were doing a decent job analyzing patriotic songs to figure out their messages so we can compare actual American lit to the “myths” portrayed in the songs. I did not do the best job structuring that lesson. I got cocky. I did it last year so I didn’t do all the questions on the overhead and modeling I used last year. That’ll teach me.

Now, in utter nonsense, I got a bunch of transcripts of students I had last year in my mailbox. A memo was attached asking me to correct the grades. What? It’s now the next school year and someone JUST REALIZED that these grades are incorrect? Really? I also didn’t understand why they were incorrect. Some of these students “never reported” and the code for that is “0.” So, I had given these students a “0″ and it showed up as such. Now, apparently the lowest grade we can give a student is a “40.” Fine. So I change them all. But is this really happening? I know it’s not a huge deal, but why am I spending my time in the NEXT SCHOOL YEAR going over grades that are done. There were other teachers who received transcripts from three years ago – did you hear that? THREE YEARS AGO. Some of the parents were upset about the grades – I’m guessing the kids are seniors now and applying to college. These teachers had to go back to their records from three years ago and justify their grades.

This has been a public service announcement reminding you to document everything. Teacherlady out.

We’re Teaching Books That Don’t Stack Up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202398.html

As a teacher of a remedial reading class (if that’s the politically correct term), this particular paragraph definitely resonated with me:

“If ever there were a teaching conundrum, today’s high-school English teachers are smack in the middle of it. It’s our job to take digital natives — teens saturated with images in video games and on YouTube — and get them to strike up a relationship with pictureless chains of black print and focus on the decidedly internal rewards of classical literature. More and more, this mission feels like blind idealism.”

It’s not that I don’t acknowledge that developing a relationship with these books is important – I do think it is. The sense of history – the spectrum of literature – that I want my kids to see and the magic of literature that I want them to feel is there, certainly. However, for a lot of my kids, there needs to be a different entry point for them to love books. Once they appreciate reading, then they can start to explore the classics. I do know that this is a touchy issue for many, though. In my department, our summer reading choices are frequently reviled by some of the more traditional teachers as trashy. Many suggested Dickens and Austen for the summer. As much as I can appreciate these books, I don’t know if that’s how my kids should spend their summers. I want them to read a book they’ll love and fall into  – not be tortured by. And a lot of them already see summer reading as trying, even with a contemporary book.

1) Is the legal class size of 34 really acceptable?

2) How is is that freshmen are so young?

3) Pacing is tough

4) Don’t smile ’til Christmas? Fact or fiction

5) What not to wear for teachers?

Here we go – ready or not.

1) 34 students in a classroom seems ludicrous to me. Now, I’ll agree that there’s a critical mass – maybe 18-25 – below which the class feels like special ed to the kids and they don’t feel like they’re in a class. Thus their behavior changes and there’s no formality to class, which I think is important. I had this problem at my first school where I inexplicably had several classes between 18-18 kids despite our underfunded, high-need status. I think this was mainly due to attendance issues and programming inability. Regardless, many of my students felt that it wasn’t a *real* class and they behaved accordingly. I eventually won them over with my winning personality and extraordinary instructional methods (hmm) and I think they learned a lot. However, it was difficult to combat that feeling of casuality. Is that a word? So I do appreciate having a good number of kids in my classes. But 34?

I can barely fit 34 desks in my classroom and still have room to walk down the aisles without scooching sideways. And at my current school, if you have 34 kids on your roster they almost all COME EVERY DAY. That means you really have 32 bodies in that room every day. Very cozy. Not only is it physically crowded, but that’s a lot of names to learn at the beginning of the year. If you multiply 34 x 5 classes, which is what most teacher teaches, that’s 170 children with 170 first names and 170 last names and 170 kinds of handwriting and 170 different needs. That’s overwhelming. Thankfully I have far fewer names to learn than the average teacher – I teach one double period of 25 kids so I’m already down 46 individuals. Plus, this semester I have a student teacher who has taken one of my sections from the first day, so I’m down an additional 34 people. That is worth its weight in gold, believe me, but not every teacher has that luck. So, clearly teachers have a challenge with this class size, but what about the kids?

I’m certain class size isn’t solely responsible for a student’s achievement, but clearly it has some affect. In a class of 25 I can identify a student who struggles on a quiz and see them to set up tutoring or offer some individual help or guidance. If a student is late three days in a row I can call home and speak to Mom or Dad. But with the amount of kids the average teacher has, how can all those phone calls get made? How can the work get graded efficiently and the feedback get back to kids quickly so they can learn from it. How can I know that child individually and tell whether they are having a bad day or truly struggling with the skills they need. It’s a challenge. Just some beginning of the year musings.

2) On to the freshmen. They are so little! They are so needy! So inexperienced! So eager for feedback and affirmation! Everything I tell them generates 100 questions. What if we don’t finish on time? What if we don’t know how to do it? What if our printer breaks? What if you ask me so many questions I lose my self-control and murder someone? It could happen. That said, their eagerness to please, to do well, and to improve is so inspiring. I really appreciate that enthusiasm. I could learn a lot from that. It does take me an inordinately long time to do things, though. Just to tell them how to do an entry in their reader’s notebook is a p r o c e s s.

3) I had 10,000 lessons planned this summer. I had Do Nows and all kinds of good stuff and the minute I got back to school I forgot how long everything took to do. I also forgot how lazy I am and that it takes time to prepare good lessons. There are so few hours in the school day – especially when you are teaching and making phone calls and filling out forms. Yuck. Just making sure you get those copies in ahead of time to teach the great lesson is exhausting. Whew. 40 minutes goes by fast. So does a week. Maybe eventually I’ll be one of those people who can make a calendar and follow it. Maybe not. I do need to work on this though. I want to be able to get stuff done and I want to be able to plan my year and know what I can accomplish.

4) You know the old adage, don’t smile ’til Christmas. I’ve always found that difficult to abide. I enjoy my students, I enjoy my job, and I feel that – to use another cliche – you catch more flies with honey. I also hate confrontation. On the other hand, in my first few years of teaching I have discovered I like discipline. I like structure and order. I thought I’d be a chairs in a circle, let’s discuss, etc. teacher. Nope. Not so. I want to be in charge and set the tone and the pace. I want to control the lesson and the class. I want order. and I think the students respond to that.

Last year a parent informed me at conferences that her daughter said I was strict. After I stopped laughing at the thought that I was strict, I stopped to think about it. Perhaps I did smile and talk to the students and joke, but there were clear guideliness and expectations. I handed back work that was not up to par and demanded revision. I toed the line with my attendance rules and made phone calls home. I called home when work was missing repeatedly and I had high standards for the work handed in. So maybe I wasn’t a disciplinarian, but I was a teacher with standards. That made me proud. I still realize that I need to do more to create a structured classroom, but this is a good, if unexpected development.

I certainly can’t refrain from smiling ’til Christmas, but I do take the job of setting up my classroom very seriously. I teach the behaviors and routines that I expect, as well as the calibur of work I expect, explicitly at the beginning of the year and follow through consistently on infractions. I think I’m doing a good job. Go me! Interestingly, having a student teacher is a good way to affirm what you’ve been doing. You have to transmit that to someone else and that encourages you to take stock.

5) There’s no dress code at my school, per se. The deans will call students with inappropriately short skirts or profane t-shirts into the office, but other than that, anything goes. It is an art school after all. For teachers there seems to be a wide range as well. Many male teachers wear a shirt and tie every day. Many male teachers wear jeans and a t-shirt. Female teachers run the gamut, too. Some wear business casual, others jeans and shirts or similarly casual attire. Birkenstocks and flip flops are acceptable footwear.

I vacillate in my feelings. On the one hand, I am a professional. In that sense, i think I should dress the part and not wear what I’d wear on the weekends to go shopping. I should be a little bit uncomfortable and a little bit buttoned up, because I’m the adult and I’m in charge. I do think it instills a little bit of respect in the students. On the other hand, I love that I DON’T work in business where I have to dress up and look professional. I love being able to wear jeans and feel comfortable and I think having a comfortable, if structured atmosphere, is good for the goods. They shouldn’t be afraid of teachers. They should respect them.

So this year, in my quest to look nice and not just wear jeans everyday, I’m trying to be creative! I have a few cute dresses, some fun tops that are nicer than t-shirts, but more relaxed than button-downs and I’m going to try to be inventive, but classy. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Post-script. I forgot about grading. Planning units can be fun, but I’m not sure I’d classify grading that way. However, it is inextricably linked to the business of being an English teacher. That said, I’m off to grade vocabulary quizzes and diagnostic essays.

This has been a banner summer for me as a teacher. After four full years of teaching and one of student teaching I finally had a summer in which I did not dread going back to school. What? How is that possible? Well, I think the answer is two-fold: one, I sort of know what I’m teaching next year and I know where I’m teaching – at a swell place. My last school, for all the great kids nad people, was not a happy place. There was gang activity, a balky, slow administration (people and processes), and a lot of anger. My current school is a place where many people are happy to be working or learning. The second part of the answer is that I had some great summer programs to attend. The trick for me seems to be a few short programs that really energize me, without wearing me down with too much work or too much time.

This summer I studied Zora Neale Hurston, the slave narrative as a genre, and the Lower East Side’s history, religion, and culture. All were great experiences and they really got me excited about learning and teaching. I had time to do a lot of reading for each course and did some lesson planning as well. I was totally jazzed for planning my American Lit course (AL) and my Reading Workshop (RW) after finishing courses August 2. And with nearly a whole month I got busy working on a course outline and website, as well as a lot of reading. More on those to come.

The most disappointing part of this summer – schoolwise – was the news that Teacher’s Choice was going to be cut by 40%. Obtaining supplies is so difficult as it is, this year will be a huge challenge. As a high school teacher, I certainly need Teacher’s Choice less than the primary/middle school teachers. My classroom does not need nearly as much – manipulatives, decorations, calendars, etc. However, I do rely on that money to secure much-needed supplies, sometimes as basic as extra looseleaf and tissues for my classes. Sometimes that money goes towards an art project that we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. Other times the money funds lesson plan packs or curriculum resources that the school does not provide – items that  allow me to enrich the lessons I present to my students or enrich my own knowledge so I am a better teacher. With such limited funds, I’m now very nervous about what to spend that money on. What do I need the most? To be continued….