Vacation Frustration

After a long three weeks of I-Search projects, the Friday before vacation was finally here. Because of the snow days, presentations would have to be postponed until after vacation. With only one section of my English classes meeting Friday, I decided in honor of vacation we would take a day off from drafting papers and do a few fun writing activities with my students. Plan backfired.

When I told the students that we would be taking a break from I-Search they were ecstatic. BUt when they learned that it wasn't a break to watch a movie or play games, the excitement quickly exited the room. I tried to describe the lyric weave activity in a way that would make it sound appealing. I even told them that their experiences and related songs could be funny! I even modeled one before the class to demonstrate that it could be fun. They just weren't having it. I had the most frustrating first half hour of class ever. Then the bell rang and I couldn't help but think "saved by the bell."

I walked into the teacher room with the look of defeat. Stacey said, "How'd it go?" and I almost burst into tears of frustration. It was in that moment that we decided that the classes' chattiness would best be dealt with by moving seats. While this wasn't something that I wanted to do, it had to be done. So after lunch we switched seats. They were PISSED. After I switched their seats I took a few minutes to talk to them about why I did what I did. A few students were still extremely defiant, but for the majority of the students it worked! They produced their writing, shared their writing, and knew that I meant business.

I got a taste of the disciplinary aspect of teaching last week. I was reluctant to do so, but I'm glad I did. Now I just have to follow through after vacation. #actofBESTRONG

A Rewarding Moment

Have you ever had someone explain something to you and you get it, but don't exactly know how it feels? It's not reality until you experience it for yourself. People can tell you teaching is rewarding over and over. But until you get that "Aha!" Moment, you really have no idea what they're talking about.

I've had my fair share of "Aha!" Moments throughout my experiences in schools thus far, but last week most definitely trumped them all. A student in my period five class has been struggling to pull his weight in the class. My cooperating teacher has expressed her difficulties with trying to get him engaged in her classroom and completing the work that is expected of him. He transferred to NPHS towards the end of first semester and was having trouble getting settled in. His shyness had kept him from asking for help or accepting offers for any assistance.

"He's really taking to you", Stacey said as she walked in on one of my lessons. He was so into his work that his pen furiously flew back and forth as his paper as he recalled the moment his dad taught him how to throw a football. I convinced him to write his I-search paper on the history of football and together we came up with he idea of him incorporating his own story into the introduction paragraph.

This week he has been coming into my classroom with a smile on his face and ready to work everyday. He asks me questions. We talk about his writing. He is excelling in the classroom and is even getting more comfortable around his peers.

Seeing his growth over the past few weeks is the biggest reward of teaching I have come across this far. Now, when anyone asks me the infamous, "why would you want to be a teacher," I know exactly what I am going to say. "One rewarding moment trumps a hundred difficult ones." That is my final answer.

#Hacking

After our discussion about #hacking in class on Thursday, I realized that I had done exactly that when working with the I-Search common task in my classroom. When I was in high school, I can remember Common Tasks always being the most boring, cookie cutter assignments that I had to do in order to graduate. The teachers would throw a packet of "stuff" in front of us and expect us to produce a proficient product with little direction. As long as the rubric showed that you demonstrated proficiency, you were all set. Just another thing that you moved on from and forgot all about. No real learning was done. Now four years later, my little brother is still doing the same Common Tasks that I completed in high school. How original. 

When I learned that my first task as a students teacher in Mrs. Bachini's 9th grade English classes was to work with the I-Search Common Task I was actually excited. I was determined to #hack the packet that Stacey had photocopied for me (TEN whole pages might I add). As I flipped through I highlighted the important parts. I talked with Stacey about some things I was concerned about and was thrilled when she told me I could do whatever I wanted with it as long as the students produced a paper and made a visual as a final product (and assessed them based on the rubric) I could teach it in any way I wanted to. 

I began by giving them the benchmark that was in the Common Task packet. It was Elie Wiesel's nobel peace prize speech with a writing prompt. The goal of this benchmark was to see where the students stood with annotating, pulling out information from the text, and citing and incorporating it in their own writing. However, there was also a rubric attached to this piece. When reading through the papers I received and talking it over with Stacey, we both agreed that it was not fair to put a grade on something that was meant to be helpful for us as teachers to figure out what our students needed from us. We decided to throw away the rubric and give a grade based on effort. Students received a check for completing the assignment and a check plus if they went above and beyond the expectations. 

My next #hack was to throw away the graphic organizer and have the students create foldables. These are organizers that are made on colored paper (my favorite!) and help students to organize the different parts of their paper. An I-search paper is weighed heavily on three things. What students already knew about their topic, what the wanted to know, and what they learned. so, instead of the typical KWL chart, I decided to have the students make foldables. when they sit down to write their papers this week, they will have all their information in front of them already broken up into sections. 

This week the students will start writing and Stacey and I will be doing mini-lessons to target things such as introductions, citing sources in MLA, and other conventions of writing that will not only help them do well on this paper but also help their writing in general. My plan is to work hard to make sure that my students enjoy what they are learning about while growing as writers. I want to make this Common Task something helpful that they will remember, unlike my experience with Common Tasks as a student. 

#Hack away fellow CTs! It's fun and rewarding :)