I feel like that--Where to begin?--sometimes in approaching my work, but in this case I am wondering where to begin in terms of catching up on what I've been up to since my last post, which was, it seems, a very long time ago!
First of all, everyone will be glad to know I had a great long weekend--a perfect mixture of fun and work. (Well, I suppose I might have liked a little less work, but that's for another time.) And, before going on, let me just thank the Lord for George Washington and Abe Lincoln. Amen. So, I spent all day Saturday (in a tank top and shorts getting sunburnt at the park) and Sunday (at home under some covers) grading my 10th graders' short stories, and I decided pretty early on, when recognizing the massive grammar problems that some students have and the contrast between those problems with some of the other students' writing that is really great, that I would create what worked out to be an individualized grammar plan for each of my students. (What a terrible sentence that was, but whateva!)
So, I gave each student 1-2 grammar points to focus on until further notice. I explained each point and included examples from their own writing to show what I meant. I didn't actually grade them on their grammar (just on their proofreading, so if they missed blatant typos I deducted because it showed carelessness, but if they repeatedly made grammatical mistakes it just showed something we need to work on), which I hoped would relieve some stress of getting lots of comments on their grammar. When I handed back their papers yesterday, I explained that some people might be very confused by my comments, and that they shouldn't feel bad if they are.
For homework tonight, they have to write me a note explaining two things: (1) the one-two things they need to work on grammar-wise, according to their own understanding (meaning, if all they got from what I wrote is that they should do something or other with commas but they weren't sure what, they should write that) and (2) to finish the sentece, "When I read your comments, I felt _________ because ______________." I gave examples of what could fill in those blanks: I felt frustrated because I didn't understand what you meant; I felt appreciative because I see you spent a long time thinking about my writing; I felt relieved because now I know what to work on, etc. We'll see how that goes.
Today they had their essay due. Before handing them in, I had them write a short self reflection and evaluation about how they feel they did. I'm so glad I did this, and I plan to do it for every major assignment. The responses were so interesting. Several students said they didn't do their best bc they procrastinated or bc of other outside activities; a couple mentioned things they were confused about related to the assignment (and which they did NOT ask me about, which is frustrating; I practically beg them to ask me questions, but most don't); and some mentioned their own thoughts about their essay-writing ability (weaknesses they know they have) or about things they know are weak in their paper (e.g., a couple people mentioned they knew they should have used more quotes to support their arguments). It's so great to read a paper w/o a lot of quotes, for instance, and know that the student knows they should have used more quotes but just procrasatinated and didn't put in as much time as they know they should've, versus wondering if they don't know that they're supposed to use quotes, if I didn't explain this well enough, etc. It's probably a valuable thing for them to self reflect (we do so much talking about metacognition--thinking about thinking--in our program), but that's a little fuzzy for me, whereas it is clear to me that I benefit from reading their reflecitons.
That's it for now, though I have a lot more I want to write! I'm prioritizing my lesson plan for tomorrow, which my (nice) master teacher will want to see bc she's observing me. I was actually struggling with plans for class tomorrow, and I had a revelation on the bus! There's part of me that would like to have a car to have the convenience of driving to and from school, and there's part of me that would like to bike to and from school for the exercise and awesome feeling of biking, but I get SO much done on the bus each day.
O.K. ttyl
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Nora--
The first impression I get when reading this week's post is "this woman is comfortably in thick of an active learning community." The work you're giving seems paced neither too fast or slow, and your expectations are commenably high. I look foward to the diversity that you'll throw in the mix this year–different writing assignments, perhaps an online portfolio? The most important thing my master teacher at Mission imparted was to have students "write what they read and read what they write." As obvious as that seems, it was a concept it took me some practice to embrace. Oh, and did I say practice? My recent coaching experiences are reinforcing the value of kids practicing the same skill over and over while slowly increasing the ZPD. Ah jeez, I've lapsed into teacherspeak. So I'll just end with this: mad hugs!
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