Sad To Say Goodbye

Friday Afternoon. Driving out of North Providence High School. First thought, "I really hope I'm back here for student teaching."

I can honestly say that I had an amazing experience this semester at NPHS. What I thought was going to be a difficult and daunting experience was exactly the opposite. I learned more in the past four weeks with Mrs. Bachini than any other experience I have had in the field thus far. I learned more about classroom management, how to handle students of different levels in one classroom, and most importantly about myself as a teacher.

Out of all the lessons this week, my mini lesson on thesis statements was by far my favorite. students started the class with a chalk talk where they brainstormed everything that they knew about the word "thesis". Next we created a definition based on the key words students had come up with and then created a general thesis statement that students could use as a guideline to writing their own thesis that fit their paper. Then it was time to let their white board markers fly! Students each had their own whiteboard where they could write a thesis, erase, and change as Mrs. Bachini and I walked around the room. I never thought this would be so affective! Each and every student had a thesis when they walked out of the room that day which made the rest of the week of drafting papers that much easier.

The fact that Mrs. Bachini emulates everything that I want to practice in my classroom is what made us a great pair. She was not the stern, by the book teacher. Instead, she smiled and joked with the students while still maintaining the respect of the students. She managed to have the students get work done while keeping a comfortable environment. This is one of the things I admire most and can not wait to practice in my own classroom!

I am excited to continue on my path to becoming a teacher and I hope there are a few more stops at NPHS along the way.

Working with a Common Task

This past Friday I taught my first lesson at NPHS with my period five freshman. When I found out I was going to be teaching a common task, I was a skeptical. I had horrible experiences with common tasks when I was in High School and was also a little disappointed that I would not be able to create my own lessons and teach something that I came up with. However, with a little reworking, my cooperating teacher and I turned the static common task into a scaffolded assignment that helps students through the process of the poetry common task.

Day one was not much of a "teaching" day but more of a "facilitating" day. I presented the first piece of the assignment to the students. they would be researching poets from the list on the common task. Since my TC and I decided to scaffold, we decided to only introduce the first part of the assignment. With the instructions "find a poem from the list of poets (or another teacher approved poet) that you can find poetic elements and a theme/meaning in" the students got to work on the computers.

It was interesting to see the different dynamic floating throughout the room. There were a group of boys who immediately gravitated towards Tupac's poetry (surprise!) and a group of girls who looked to their childhood favorite Shel Silverstein. Some were done quicker than others and even began analyzing, as we had done in class the day before. There were some students who needed suggestions and the extra push. But by the end of the period I collected a poem from each student and am excited to get to work with them in tomorrows class!

The Light At The End Of My Tunnel

After a long, stressful week of trying to work around my class schedule, my cooperating teacher’s schedule, and the NECAP craziness, I was FINALLY able to come up with a solution that not only worked, but worked out to my full advantage. Because my CT only teacher two English classes (the other two are reading classes specific to testing) I was not able to see her two classes every time I was available to be at NPHS. However, the solution ended up working to my advantage. During Mrs. Bachini’s prep periods, she has been kind enough to set me up with other teachers in the English department so I can observe their classrooms.

At first I was a little skeptical. How was I going to learn about the class I was going to teach if I was spending so much time in random classes during my observation and assisting time? Truth is, bouncing around different classroom and seeing different methods of teaching has actually given me the feeling that I could stand in the front of almost ANY classroom and teach a lesson. I have seen the period five class that I am going to teach about 3 times now (and will see them once more before I teach) and that is sufficient enough for me. I have learned their names and have learned that there are no extreme modifications that need to be made and I am willing to challenge myself to teach students that I don’t know all that well. That is what teachers do in the beginning of the year anyways isn’t it?

This week I have been lucky enough to sit in on Mrs. Bachini’s English classes a few times each as well as Ms. Masso’s College writing class and Mrs. P’s Writing Workshop class. All of my experiences have given me some great strategies to use in the classroom. In Ms. Masso’s College Writing class, I heard some of the most awesome literacy narratives ever! It is amazing to me how well her students could write. Being that writing is my favorite part about the English classroom, their reading of their pieces was like music to my ears and I did not want the period to be over. Likewise, I heard some journal entries that tenth grade students wrote in Mrs. P’s Witting Workshop class and felt the same excitement.

As I enter my third week and North Providence High School I am excited to begin planning my weeks worth of lessons. Mrs. Bachini and I have been talking a lot about the common assessment the students have to complete and think that it is a good idea to break it up and work on it step by step in class with the freshmen. I am excited to adapt a common task to my own teaching strategies and come up with ways to help students feel that the common task is more than simply something they have to do in order to pass the class. I felt this way about common tasks in high school and wish someone had taken the time to try and adapt them to make them more interesting for me, so that is exactly what I plan to do. 

Good Teachers Think On Their Toes

Ten days. I have to wait ten whole days before I can get back into the classroom and really begin what I have set out to do. The first day was totally observational. I took a back seat (literally) and watched. Period one, reading class. Period two, test and power outage. Period four, reading class. Period five, test. While it was disappointing that I was not able to observe much "teaching time", I feel like I learned a lot about classroom management skills and how to deal with spontaneous situations that you as the teacher have no control over.

Mrs. Bachini took the extended class time due to the power outage and used it as a teaching opportunity for the freshmen. When the lights went out and the students had to stay in Period two for an extra fifteen minutes, I was worried that the classroom would turn to chaos due to the curiosity and unplanned nature of the power outage. However, I was pleasantly surprised that this mishap was used as a teaching experience.

The students sat in their desks intently listening to every single word Mrs. Bachini had to say as if she were telling them how to win a million dollars. Topic of conversation: the lockdown drill. Mrs. Bachini began with going over the general procedure but then (after getting the reassurance from the dean that it was due to a fallen telephone pole) she told her students that if there were an emergency and no way of communicating with each other, they may be in danger. When I say that you could hear a pin drop in the room, I'm not joking. Each and every student sat in their desk with their eyes fixated at the front of the room. After Mrs. Bachini was done with her "this is serious business" speech, the power came back on and the students carried on with their day.

I could not believe how quickly Mrs. Bachini thought to use the time. If she had not had something to say to the students who knows what the classroom would have looked like. I'm excited to see more of her teaching strategies and add to my teacher toolbox.