Journey Through the First Year

After reading “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, one of my students painted a visual representation of the bird that has so much meaning in the story.

Some wonderful blog moments that happened outside of the classroom:

1. A student’s grandfather commented on her independent reading posts.  He acknowledged her ability to recognize social traits in a specific character and how those traits convey real life issues.
2. A student, who missed a couple of days due to illness, took advantage by reading a number of books and blogging about them from home.  She ended up going above and beyond her independent reading requirements simply because she was having fun writing about literature.
3. A student’s mother sent her an email.  She told her daughter that she was extremely proud of her blog and the writing she produced on it.
4. A former classmate of mine, also a first year teacher, may be interested in integrating more technology into her class.  She is able to explore my classroom blog for ideas and view my students’ blogs.

I recently read an article by Maja Wilson entitled “Responsive Writing.”  In this article, Wilson talks about creating narrative responses to students’ writing.  In this form of assessment, Wilson realized she could “show students how their words affected me [the reader] and help them compare these effects with their intent.”

I really liked this idea and this form of assessing students’ writing.  What I personally find difficult though, is stopping in the midst of reading, jotting down my feelings/thoughts while still fresh in my mind, then continuing the reading process.

I thought it might be benifical, for the students, to create a voiced recording of my comments, such as a Podcast.  Then the students could read their paper while listening to specific comments, feelings, thoughts and questions I had about the different parts of their writing. 

This would also allow the students and teacher to maintain communication over the Internet, specifically email.  In other words, if the student forgot their paper at school, they could still hear my comments through an emailed recording.

The start of each class period can be a very hectic time.  Students slowly trickle into the classroom and find their desks; students socialize as long as they possibly can; students find every excuse to not begin working.  How can this be avoided?  Routines.

In one classroom I observed, the students had a very set journal routine.  The students knew that at the start of every class period, they were to create an entry in their journal.  The type of entry, which was placed on the overhead projector, changed on a daily basis but the task itself didn’t.

In another classroom, the students had a blogging routine.  The students knew that when the bell rang they needed to open their teacher’s blog.  They were to read the day’s objectives and begin the assigned tasks.

In a third classroom, the students understood that each class was to begin with silent reading.  Immediately after the bell rang, the students stopped talking and pulled out their independent reading books.  Since the students were able to read books of their choosing, there wasn’t a fight to get them settled in.  They wanted to open their books and engage in the reading process.

Ultimately, I learned that there is a settling in process, a transition into learning mood that takes place at the beginning of every class period.  However, this transition can run more smoothly and take up less time if the students develop a specific routine, which dictates how the class is to start.

Once again I found myself observing a veteran teacher’s classroom.  I was inspired by the teacher’s ability to create a lesson that resulted in engaged students actively learning.  

On this particular day, the lesson goal was to help students construct the meaning of a poem.  Each student was assigned a line in the poem.  They were instructed to rewrite that specific line in their own words.  They then typed their new line into a word document along with the other students’ rewording.  

When everyone had finished their line, the teacher read the new version of the poem.  This ultimately helped the students develop an understanding of what the poem was about, what the author was saying and the meaning behind it.

Today I had a student approach me with a question about her literary analysis paper that she is working on.  Within her question she mentioned that she would be quoting an entire paragraph. 

I asked her why I thought she felt it was necessary to quote the entire paragraph, why was this particular paragraph so important?  She explained in her own words why this was an important paragraph.  I told her that is what she needed to write in her paper because it was her words not the authors.  

I then asked her what part of the paragraph really supported her explanation.  She picked out a mere sentence.  I then told her that was her quote.  

Her eyes grew wide and she exclaimed, “That is going to help me with the rest of my paper.  I know how I am going to write it now.”

I am currently in the midst of grading my students’ first quarter blog assignments.  As a whole, I am extremely happy with the work my students have produced.  I am, however, very unhappy with myself for not realizing that I should have been grading their writing at the same time that I was approving it.  In my lack of doing so, I have essentially doubled my work load.  I have already seen most of these posts and cyberjournals, and now I have to look at them a second time just to grade them.  From now on, it is grade as I approve.  Live and learn.

I asked my students to find a passage in a particular portion of Speak that they thought was important, significant, funny, interesting, etc.  I told them to be prepared to answer the question why.

1. Ask a student to share his passage.  Response to why: uses his literary terms foreshadow and predict.  Worth a million dollars.
2. Second student responds to first student using the words evidence and support.  Worth a million dollars.
3. Third student responds to second and first student using the word characterization.  Worth a million dollars.
4. At least three students in my class demonstrated and actively participated in orally analyzing literature.  Priceless.

Student: Ms. D are we going to be using our blogs in our other English classes? I mean like in 10th grade?

Me: No, as of right now we only have CyberEnglish9.

Student: Bummer.  I think it would be cool to keep doing it each year.  Like when I am a Senior, I want to see what I wrote when I was a Freshman.  I think that would be really cool to see how I got to be a better writer.

Really cool is right.

At times, it can be extremely difficult to get my students to talk about literature.  I find myself imposing questions upon them and then struggling to find someone brave enough to answer, out loud. 

Then there are those classes that shock and amaze me.  This has happened this week.  My students have been giving their book talks on their independent reading novels.  Honestly, I had imagined viewing talks much like I gave when I was in high school.  Hands shaking, voice cracking, face turning bright red and talking as quickly as possible in order to sit back down.

That wasn’t the case with my students.  For the most part they all seemed amazingly relaxed in front of a class of their peers.  But the most exciting part was the actual book talks.  They had the most insightful things to say about their individual novels.  They both praised and criticized the author’s writing, and then supported their opinions with evidence from the novel.  They related their books to real life.  A couple even referenced theme.  I was extremely proud of my students this week with their strides towards analyzing literature.  I can’t wait to see how they transition into analyzing literature through written form now.