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!