Today I did a webquest with my students, with thanks to Robyn for making it happen. We went ot the computer lab and the students were totally engaged in the webquest--much more so, I think, than if they all went to google and were just searching random sites from there. The way that site is set up -- http://robynmoller.googlepages.com/animalfarmwebquest -- where the students know which sites to go to for which questions, and where students can feel confident that the inforamtion can be found on those sites, was really helpful.
It was interesting to be in the computer lab and to have the students all doing their own thing on their computers. At first, I was all prepared to walk around to help and answer questions or ... something, but pretty soon it became clear that I was irrelevant except to dismiss the students at the end of class and tell them to finish the section they were on for homework if they didn't already finish it.
Given that I said something totally stupid and messed something up in my first class today, it was nice to feel totally irrelevant and know my kids were just fine without me.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
One of the very annoyingnesses of assessment
Well, clearly the first most annoyingest thing about assessment is having to actually spend the time assessing (grading), but before that come other annoying aspects as well, such as figuring out how you will be assessing (hopefully that comes before the assessment but--I've heard for some people, though I myself wouldn't know--sometimes it comes after). The annoying aspect of assessment I'm struggling with right now and have been struggling with for about 2 weeks is what should ideally be the middle step before the two above: explaining to students how you will be assessing them. These days that is done with a rubric--a term and concept I had never heard of when I was in school.
I'm specifically struggling with the final paper I am going to assign my 10th graders. I was going to assign them the same research paper about a social issue that I assigned to my 9th graders, destined for publication on studentschangingtheworld .com. The problem is I have very little time in class to work with them on it, though I will have time to conference with them the last couple weeks of school after the iCAP (portfolio) is due 5/18. I'm not sure why I haven't assigned that paper yet already; I feel like they could do it outside of school, and each day I don't assign it the less time they have. Plus, I already have a rubric I feel good about as well as a good sample paper I wrote for them.
I set them up for this by asking them to write "a list of grievances" like Maxine does in The Woman Warrior, and then they had to choose 3 from that list for homework and to write forms of writing they could use to express those grievances. Their grievances included racism, global warming, getting too much homework, school starting too early, and specific things about their parents (the student mentioned in the previous post wrote a very long response about her mom). I had thought about giving them freedom to construct their writing in whatever format they chose--creative, research-based, formal/informal--to express this grievance. The problem is how to assess this. I have not found a rubric I feel good about or that I feel comfortable showing to my master teacher, who would prefer that I give a multiple choice cumulative final exam. Blech.
How do you even grade creative writing? I've looked in Bridging English (our book from last semester) and don't feel comfortable with any rubric in there. Meanwhile, while it was actually pretty easy for me to create a rubric for the paper I assigned to my 9th graders that I may assign to these 10th graders as well, this is really challenging and frustrating me. For that paper, I just knew really clearly what I want. For a creative piece where they have way more freedom, does a great poem = a great research paper? won't they all choose something that takes much less work?
I guess the question is, ultimately, what is my purpose for this assignment and what would accomplish it? My purpose is for students so see that they can use their writing to address issues that they care about in a way that makes a difference for them as well as for their readers. On the one hand, I want them to see that different issues would be best expressed in different ways, and that it's up to them to decide what's most appropriate, though on the other hand I feel they need more practice writing formal papers. Plus, even though those would be much longer to read, they are SO much easier for me to grade.
Tomas has been helping me so much to work this through, which has been so wonderful, but I'm at a point where I really need to assign this soon and yet don't feel settled about it. And now, having just spent the time I was going to spend working on a TPE, I need to get ready for school.
I'm specifically struggling with the final paper I am going to assign my 10th graders. I was going to assign them the same research paper about a social issue that I assigned to my 9th graders, destined for publication on studentschangingtheworld .com. The problem is I have very little time in class to work with them on it, though I will have time to conference with them the last couple weeks of school after the iCAP (portfolio) is due 5/18. I'm not sure why I haven't assigned that paper yet already; I feel like they could do it outside of school, and each day I don't assign it the less time they have. Plus, I already have a rubric I feel good about as well as a good sample paper I wrote for them.
I set them up for this by asking them to write "a list of grievances" like Maxine does in The Woman Warrior, and then they had to choose 3 from that list for homework and to write forms of writing they could use to express those grievances. Their grievances included racism, global warming, getting too much homework, school starting too early, and specific things about their parents (the student mentioned in the previous post wrote a very long response about her mom). I had thought about giving them freedom to construct their writing in whatever format they chose--creative, research-based, formal/informal--to express this grievance. The problem is how to assess this. I have not found a rubric I feel good about or that I feel comfortable showing to my master teacher, who would prefer that I give a multiple choice cumulative final exam. Blech.
How do you even grade creative writing? I've looked in Bridging English (our book from last semester) and don't feel comfortable with any rubric in there. Meanwhile, while it was actually pretty easy for me to create a rubric for the paper I assigned to my 9th graders that I may assign to these 10th graders as well, this is really challenging and frustrating me. For that paper, I just knew really clearly what I want. For a creative piece where they have way more freedom, does a great poem = a great research paper? won't they all choose something that takes much less work?
I guess the question is, ultimately, what is my purpose for this assignment and what would accomplish it? My purpose is for students so see that they can use their writing to address issues that they care about in a way that makes a difference for them as well as for their readers. On the one hand, I want them to see that different issues would be best expressed in different ways, and that it's up to them to decide what's most appropriate, though on the other hand I feel they need more practice writing formal papers. Plus, even though those would be much longer to read, they are SO much easier for me to grade.
Tomas has been helping me so much to work this through, which has been so wonderful, but I'm at a point where I really need to assign this soon and yet don't feel settled about it. And now, having just spent the time I was going to spend working on a TPE, I need to get ready for school.
Learning About Students
It says so right in TPE 8; we should be learning about our students: "assess prior knowledge and skills, knows students as individuals, interacts with parents, identifies students with special needs, and understands how students' identities influence schooling experience." I definitely got a taste of all of that tonight.
I was on the way home from an abbreviated class at SFSU, planning to go home and work on my dreaded TPEs. On the bus home I saw one of my 10th grade students whom I know has been having some struggles at home. I didn't know the details and a couple weeks ago had offered to talk or email with her if she ever wanted. (I gave her my cell phone number; should I not do that?) She was really appreciative of that offer but never took me up on it, and whenever I would ask her how things were she would just say "O.K. Well, sort of" or something indicating that things weren't so good. I knew she was seeing the school counselor and that the dean was involved, so I didn't pursue it beyond offering a couple more times to talk if she ever wanted to.
So, I ran into her on the bus and started talking with her. I asked her if things were really ok at home or if she wanted to talk with me about what's going on, and we ended up talking for a really long time. I skipped my bus stop and as it turned out she skipped hers because she wanted to keep talking and assumed we hadn't gotten to my stop yet. She lives in the Tenderloin. We walked around aimlessly on Market St. and she revealed a tremendous amount of info to me. She let me know that she's 2 months pregnant, and, after an abortion 6 months ago and a miscarriage of twins a couple months after that, she is planning on keeping this baby. The father is an 18-year-old dropout who's involved with gangs and just got out of juvenile hall and who recenly broke up with her and is now dating someone else. Ugh.
We kept talking and walking until I finally suggested we sit down somewhere, and then, in the middle of the wasteland of Market and 6th-8th Sts., I offered to just walk her home. When we got near her house, I realized she lives just a couple blocks from my favorite restaurant, and I offered to take her to dinner there. She told me that she was actually just about to invite me over for dinner at her house. I certainly couldn't turn this down--damn those TPEs.
Randomly (while procrastinating working on my TPEs, I think) this weekend I reread the letters I had the students write to me the first day of school introducing themselves to me. I totally remembered that in her letter she said that she lives in a studio apartment with her bro and sis in the Tenderloin. I couldn't even picture what that would look like--a studio apartment for 5 people. I actually remember stopping to try to picture it. What I imagined was so ridiculously rosy; it was a very large, bright, clean studio--each person a little squished but at least manageable with each person having a bit of space of their own. When I first moved here, I lived in a beautiful studio near Dolores Park with my boyfriend at the time; yeah, it was small, but it was nice and we managed. It's like my brain wouldn't let myself imagine that they lived in a place as crappy as I realistically could have guessed: a small studio in the heart of the Tenderloin for 5 people.
I can't even properly convey what this place looked like. She lives in a ridiculously tiny studio apartment that she shares with her parents and 18 year old brother and 14 year old sister. They have a bunk bed and a loft for the kids in the studio--a teeny room--and her parents, who don't speak English (they're Chinese) sleep on the floor. Except I really cannot figure out where on the floor they could sleep because there's just not floor space anywhere--I guess right in between the two beds, maybe, barely, but Jesus Christ. I've literally never set foot in the home of a family so poor.
All their clothes and stuff was basically piled up all over the house, literally going up to the ceiling; I guess they don't have a closet, so the clothes that need to be hung up are hanging from the window panes.
I have to say that if that was my house growing up I would never have invited anyone over. I would be so ashamed and embarrassed. I was so impressed that she invited me into her world.
She said she can't concentrate on doing her homework there, so she doesn't start it until everyone's asleep--after 10. Amazingly, she *always* does her homework and has an A in my class.
Her parents speak virtually no English at all except for the basics of "Hello," "Good bye," and "Thank you," so we spoke totally freely about her situation. I SO don't want her to have this baby, which was very difficult for me to hold in. I told her that it's absolutely not for me to advise or try to sway her one way or another, which I feel strongly about but which is also very challenging because I also have a very strong opinion about it. It turns out she's not totally sure. I asked her what her reasons would be for keeping it and she said, simply, "I don't want to kill anything else." Ugh. I asked how she felt about the first abortion, and she said she had thoughts that if she had kept the baby then maybe she could have learned to be more responsible. I said very gently, in a way I knew I could get away with, that maybe the lesson she could have learned following the first preganancy and abortion was to use birth control. "Yeah, I guess that's true," she admitted. I mentioned HIV and asked her about health class and whatnot; she said he'd been tested.
Her parents cooked me up a vegetarian meal, which I ate by myself (everyone else had already eaten) on the ironing board they use for a dining room table. The student and I talked for 2 more hours. She shared that she totally related to so much about the book we just finished, The Woman Warrior, which addresses the culture clash between a Chinese American woman/daughter and her Chinese mother. The student told me things that her mother says to her that made me sick.
During dinner she asked me about the program I'm in and I told her about my schedule and also just more about me. She told me that I'm one of the best teachers she's ever had, and that she has learned a lot in my class, which made me feel really good. She cutely said that she's not just saying that, and that I'm not one of the best out of the new teachers or student teachers but of all her teachers. It was a really gratifying thing to hear, especially since I feel like the class is struggling a lot with Shakespeare, and I'm feeling kind of stressed and bummed about that. We talked a bit about Shakespeare and I got feedback from her on things we've done in class.
Finally, I left at almost 9:00, and her parents insisted that, as a gift, I take two plastic bags worth of food. The dad told me in very broken English that if I ever want Chinese food that he used to be a cook. The two of them walked me downstairs to get a cab, and the father wanted to pay for my cab ride which I refused. When I got home, I opened the bags and found bananas, grafefruits, lettuce, and 2 boxes of granola bars.
Now, how do I go about proving what I have learned about my students in a TPE reflection?
I was on the way home from an abbreviated class at SFSU, planning to go home and work on my dreaded TPEs. On the bus home I saw one of my 10th grade students whom I know has been having some struggles at home. I didn't know the details and a couple weeks ago had offered to talk or email with her if she ever wanted. (I gave her my cell phone number; should I not do that?) She was really appreciative of that offer but never took me up on it, and whenever I would ask her how things were she would just say "O.K. Well, sort of" or something indicating that things weren't so good. I knew she was seeing the school counselor and that the dean was involved, so I didn't pursue it beyond offering a couple more times to talk if she ever wanted to.
So, I ran into her on the bus and started talking with her. I asked her if things were really ok at home or if she wanted to talk with me about what's going on, and we ended up talking for a really long time. I skipped my bus stop and as it turned out she skipped hers because she wanted to keep talking and assumed we hadn't gotten to my stop yet. She lives in the Tenderloin. We walked around aimlessly on Market St. and she revealed a tremendous amount of info to me. She let me know that she's 2 months pregnant, and, after an abortion 6 months ago and a miscarriage of twins a couple months after that, she is planning on keeping this baby. The father is an 18-year-old dropout who's involved with gangs and just got out of juvenile hall and who recenly broke up with her and is now dating someone else. Ugh.
We kept talking and walking until I finally suggested we sit down somewhere, and then, in the middle of the wasteland of Market and 6th-8th Sts., I offered to just walk her home. When we got near her house, I realized she lives just a couple blocks from my favorite restaurant, and I offered to take her to dinner there. She told me that she was actually just about to invite me over for dinner at her house. I certainly couldn't turn this down--damn those TPEs.
Randomly (while procrastinating working on my TPEs, I think) this weekend I reread the letters I had the students write to me the first day of school introducing themselves to me. I totally remembered that in her letter she said that she lives in a studio apartment with her bro and sis in the Tenderloin. I couldn't even picture what that would look like--a studio apartment for 5 people. I actually remember stopping to try to picture it. What I imagined was so ridiculously rosy; it was a very large, bright, clean studio--each person a little squished but at least manageable with each person having a bit of space of their own. When I first moved here, I lived in a beautiful studio near Dolores Park with my boyfriend at the time; yeah, it was small, but it was nice and we managed. It's like my brain wouldn't let myself imagine that they lived in a place as crappy as I realistically could have guessed: a small studio in the heart of the Tenderloin for 5 people.
I can't even properly convey what this place looked like. She lives in a ridiculously tiny studio apartment that she shares with her parents and 18 year old brother and 14 year old sister. They have a bunk bed and a loft for the kids in the studio--a teeny room--and her parents, who don't speak English (they're Chinese) sleep on the floor. Except I really cannot figure out where on the floor they could sleep because there's just not floor space anywhere--I guess right in between the two beds, maybe, barely, but Jesus Christ. I've literally never set foot in the home of a family so poor.
All their clothes and stuff was basically piled up all over the house, literally going up to the ceiling; I guess they don't have a closet, so the clothes that need to be hung up are hanging from the window panes.
I have to say that if that was my house growing up I would never have invited anyone over. I would be so ashamed and embarrassed. I was so impressed that she invited me into her world.
She said she can't concentrate on doing her homework there, so she doesn't start it until everyone's asleep--after 10. Amazingly, she *always* does her homework and has an A in my class.
Her parents speak virtually no English at all except for the basics of "Hello," "Good bye," and "Thank you," so we spoke totally freely about her situation. I SO don't want her to have this baby, which was very difficult for me to hold in. I told her that it's absolutely not for me to advise or try to sway her one way or another, which I feel strongly about but which is also very challenging because I also have a very strong opinion about it. It turns out she's not totally sure. I asked her what her reasons would be for keeping it and she said, simply, "I don't want to kill anything else." Ugh. I asked how she felt about the first abortion, and she said she had thoughts that if she had kept the baby then maybe she could have learned to be more responsible. I said very gently, in a way I knew I could get away with, that maybe the lesson she could have learned following the first preganancy and abortion was to use birth control. "Yeah, I guess that's true," she admitted. I mentioned HIV and asked her about health class and whatnot; she said he'd been tested.
Her parents cooked me up a vegetarian meal, which I ate by myself (everyone else had already eaten) on the ironing board they use for a dining room table. The student and I talked for 2 more hours. She shared that she totally related to so much about the book we just finished, The Woman Warrior, which addresses the culture clash between a Chinese American woman/daughter and her Chinese mother. The student told me things that her mother says to her that made me sick.
During dinner she asked me about the program I'm in and I told her about my schedule and also just more about me. She told me that I'm one of the best teachers she's ever had, and that she has learned a lot in my class, which made me feel really good. She cutely said that she's not just saying that, and that I'm not one of the best out of the new teachers or student teachers but of all her teachers. It was a really gratifying thing to hear, especially since I feel like the class is struggling a lot with Shakespeare, and I'm feeling kind of stressed and bummed about that. We talked a bit about Shakespeare and I got feedback from her on things we've done in class.
Finally, I left at almost 9:00, and her parents insisted that, as a gift, I take two plastic bags worth of food. The dad told me in very broken English that if I ever want Chinese food that he used to be a cook. The two of them walked me downstairs to get a cab, and the father wanted to pay for my cab ride which I refused. When I got home, I opened the bags and found bananas, grafefruits, lettuce, and 2 boxes of granola bars.
Now, how do I go about proving what I have learned about my students in a TPE reflection?
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Catching up: Exciting developments!
I can't believe it's been over 2 weeks since I've written. (So much for the freebie grade for Nelson's class for writing each week. It was spring break, though!)
There have been some really fantastic developments the past couple weeks. Maybe the most exciting is the new look of the blog. What do you think? (Luke gave me the good feedback that all the dots in the old template made reading my endlessly long posts harder on the eyes, so I'm trying out this new look.)
First, things have totally shifted in my 9th grade class to the point that there's really no resemblance to the class that it was at the beginning of the semester, when I felt like I was just falling on my face each day and they were just looking at me as if they thought I was an imposter impersonating a teacher.
I think there were a few keys to my success:
1. My master teacher really got off my case. I feel so much less pressure from her there's really no comparison, and in fact she hardly ever observes me anymore. Though we do still have our weekly meetings, I know what she wants for them and feel able to give her what she wants. Our meetings are about her offering me suggestions and me asking her opinions rather than about me justifying my plans or proving that I'm prepared (which was even harder when I wasn't prepared).
2. We shifted to material I actually enjoy. We started the semester with mythology, which is required for this course, but I totally hate mythology and really just wanted to get through that component of the course, whereas when we shifted to To Kill a Mockingbird, which I like, things totally changed and I felt much more comfortable. It made sense to me thematically to start with mythology, but in the future I'm going to start with material I feel passionate about (like Black Boy, which I did with my 10th grade class).
3. I started devoting more energy to this class, which I had actually been dreading and kind of procrastinating for a while because of the poor beginning and issues with my master teacher.
4. I had a great meeting with my master teacher where she helped me construct my TKMB unit based on the final assessment I'd chosen, and that realy helped me see how to plan better. (Doing a unit plan for class before actually teaching was not the same.)
Another really great development relates to me actually moving more clearly in the direction of changing the world, which, as the blog title states, is really my agenda. I gave my students a project where they have to choose a social issue that's important to them or that they're interested in, and they have to write a persuasive essay--we're calling it a persuasive article because they hate the word "essay" :)--where they explain the issue and give suggestions of what people can do to help. To make the assessment authentic and to be able to leverage their work to help others, I recently bought a domain (studentschangingtheworld.com) that we'll put all these "articles" on. The context is that they are writing with other students in mind as their audience, and their goal is to inform other people about the issue and persuade them to care and take action to make a difference. I let them know that by putting their writing on this site that this is something they'll be able to put on their college application or on their resume, and I think they were into that.
I constructed my first rubric on rubistar http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php, and that was a really great experience. I felt really good about explaining the assignment and what Im looking for since I had that rubric. It was also amazingly easy for me to create the rubric--partly because that site is really user-friendly (I really strongly recommend it if only for the formatting aspect (saves time than messing around in Word)) and partly because I actually had a really clear vision of what I was looking for. Today I gave my class a model essay that we went over together. I wrote the model about a topic that is really important to me--factory farming and vegetarianism--and I love that I gave myself a context to address this issue. The students said they were really interested in the topic, too, which was cool to talk about and answered their questions on. The paper I wrote was a really good model, too, and we went over the rubric and talked about what was good about it in terms of organization, sources, etc.
At the same time that we're doing this paper (they're doing all the research outside of class), we're also reading Night, and I feel like that's going really well. I'm having them write a journal response every night and we're doing a lot of checking in about the emotions we're feeling while reading.
We also had a really cool development I want to share before I forget and get in bed and start grading. (I fall asleep on my papers most nights.) The first day after spring break, I made the very spontaneous decision to have us sit in a circle. In my 9th grade class, we only have 16 students, which is so nice. (The 9th grade classes are really small at my school; I have 31 in my 10th grade class.) We were going to be discussing their research on social issues over the break, and I felt like putting us in a circle would work better and just be a nice switch for the day after break. It was amazing to see the students' reactions as they came in and saw the new setup. They were so excited! So, the next day, some of my kids got there early and asked if we could be in a circle again. We were doing the second half of the two-day activity on these issues, so it actually worked really well and I had thought to have us be in a circle again anyway. I asked for them to help with the chairs, and we got into our circle. During class, someone said that we should sit in a circle everyday. I really like the circle, and I said I'd love to but that it's not my classroom, so we'd have to put the chairs in a circle and put them back each day before and after class, thinking that was the end of that. But several students said they didn't mind moving the chairs, and so we took a vote on whether they'd want to sit in a circle each day if it meant moving the chairs before and after class, and almost all of them voted for it, so we've been sitting in a circle each day ever since. It's been so nice and really shifted the mood of the whole class, I feel.
O.K. After writing my "persuasive article" model yesterday and doing a bunch of entering grades, my wrists are a wreck and I need to get to bed and work on grading.
Need to work on my unit for Merchant of Venice tomorrow and write two tests--one for the first half of Night and one for The Woman Warrior--for next week and grade a whole lot of essays this weekend. Thankfully next week is STAR testing, which means we will only have class for three days (one of which is a test in each of my classes), so next week should be pretty chill, which will hopefully give me some time to finish my grading and work on my iCAP, which I have not even begun. Yikes.
Need to update the blog about my 10th grade class (all of the above was about the 9th grade class), which is going ok but not as well as it was or as the 9th grade class is. Oh, and need to update about a student named Allen. Remind me in case I forget.
Things are feeling somewhat under control. I had a moment of epiphany about that on Thursday,too, which I need to relive. Until then...
G'night.
There have been some really fantastic developments the past couple weeks. Maybe the most exciting is the new look of the blog. What do you think? (Luke gave me the good feedback that all the dots in the old template made reading my endlessly long posts harder on the eyes, so I'm trying out this new look.)
First, things have totally shifted in my 9th grade class to the point that there's really no resemblance to the class that it was at the beginning of the semester, when I felt like I was just falling on my face each day and they were just looking at me as if they thought I was an imposter impersonating a teacher.
I think there were a few keys to my success:
1. My master teacher really got off my case. I feel so much less pressure from her there's really no comparison, and in fact she hardly ever observes me anymore. Though we do still have our weekly meetings, I know what she wants for them and feel able to give her what she wants. Our meetings are about her offering me suggestions and me asking her opinions rather than about me justifying my plans or proving that I'm prepared (which was even harder when I wasn't prepared).
2. We shifted to material I actually enjoy. We started the semester with mythology, which is required for this course, but I totally hate mythology and really just wanted to get through that component of the course, whereas when we shifted to To Kill a Mockingbird, which I like, things totally changed and I felt much more comfortable. It made sense to me thematically to start with mythology, but in the future I'm going to start with material I feel passionate about (like Black Boy, which I did with my 10th grade class).
3. I started devoting more energy to this class, which I had actually been dreading and kind of procrastinating for a while because of the poor beginning and issues with my master teacher.
4. I had a great meeting with my master teacher where she helped me construct my TKMB unit based on the final assessment I'd chosen, and that realy helped me see how to plan better. (Doing a unit plan for class before actually teaching was not the same.)
Another really great development relates to me actually moving more clearly in the direction of changing the world, which, as the blog title states, is really my agenda. I gave my students a project where they have to choose a social issue that's important to them or that they're interested in, and they have to write a persuasive essay--we're calling it a persuasive article because they hate the word "essay" :)--where they explain the issue and give suggestions of what people can do to help. To make the assessment authentic and to be able to leverage their work to help others, I recently bought a domain (studentschangingtheworld.com) that we'll put all these "articles" on. The context is that they are writing with other students in mind as their audience, and their goal is to inform other people about the issue and persuade them to care and take action to make a difference. I let them know that by putting their writing on this site that this is something they'll be able to put on their college application or on their resume, and I think they were into that.
I constructed my first rubric on rubistar http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php, and that was a really great experience. I felt really good about explaining the assignment and what Im looking for since I had that rubric. It was also amazingly easy for me to create the rubric--partly because that site is really user-friendly (I really strongly recommend it if only for the formatting aspect (saves time than messing around in Word)) and partly because I actually had a really clear vision of what I was looking for. Today I gave my class a model essay that we went over together. I wrote the model about a topic that is really important to me--factory farming and vegetarianism--and I love that I gave myself a context to address this issue. The students said they were really interested in the topic, too, which was cool to talk about and answered their questions on. The paper I wrote was a really good model, too, and we went over the rubric and talked about what was good about it in terms of organization, sources, etc.
At the same time that we're doing this paper (they're doing all the research outside of class), we're also reading Night, and I feel like that's going really well. I'm having them write a journal response every night and we're doing a lot of checking in about the emotions we're feeling while reading.
We also had a really cool development I want to share before I forget and get in bed and start grading. (I fall asleep on my papers most nights.) The first day after spring break, I made the very spontaneous decision to have us sit in a circle. In my 9th grade class, we only have 16 students, which is so nice. (The 9th grade classes are really small at my school; I have 31 in my 10th grade class.) We were going to be discussing their research on social issues over the break, and I felt like putting us in a circle would work better and just be a nice switch for the day after break. It was amazing to see the students' reactions as they came in and saw the new setup. They were so excited! So, the next day, some of my kids got there early and asked if we could be in a circle again. We were doing the second half of the two-day activity on these issues, so it actually worked really well and I had thought to have us be in a circle again anyway. I asked for them to help with the chairs, and we got into our circle. During class, someone said that we should sit in a circle everyday. I really like the circle, and I said I'd love to but that it's not my classroom, so we'd have to put the chairs in a circle and put them back each day before and after class, thinking that was the end of that. But several students said they didn't mind moving the chairs, and so we took a vote on whether they'd want to sit in a circle each day if it meant moving the chairs before and after class, and almost all of them voted for it, so we've been sitting in a circle each day ever since. It's been so nice and really shifted the mood of the whole class, I feel.
O.K. After writing my "persuasive article" model yesterday and doing a bunch of entering grades, my wrists are a wreck and I need to get to bed and work on grading.
Need to work on my unit for Merchant of Venice tomorrow and write two tests--one for the first half of Night and one for The Woman Warrior--for next week and grade a whole lot of essays this weekend. Thankfully next week is STAR testing, which means we will only have class for three days (one of which is a test in each of my classes), so next week should be pretty chill, which will hopefully give me some time to finish my grading and work on my iCAP, which I have not even begun. Yikes.
Need to update the blog about my 10th grade class (all of the above was about the 9th grade class), which is going ok but not as well as it was or as the 9th grade class is. Oh, and need to update about a student named Allen. Remind me in case I forget.
Things are feeling somewhat under control. I had a moment of epiphany about that on Thursday,too, which I need to relive. Until then...
G'night.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
coming through in the clutch
I totally came through in the clutch today and averted disaster with my "nice" master teacher. I stayed up till 2am last night, which doesn't sound like much except that I would have been asleep by 8 if not for schoolwork, and got up at 7 this morning to bust out my unit objectives, final essay topics, and enduring understandings (which I actually had from Nelson's class last semester and modified slightly). It came together when I decided to have them read story #3 before story #2 since #3 is crazy long, so they can read it over spring break. I feel like these stories could go in either order. I got to school early and typed that up so that I had that on her desk when she got out of her class. I did a good, thorough job on this (though doing it in a few hours the night before is not ideal, obviously). I left her that plus a note requesting that we move our meeting back to later in the day, as I had a meeting with a student and some other prep to do for my other class. I knew that she'd have been upset about that if I hadn't shown her anything at that point--she'd have assumed something absurd, like I was doing it at the last minute or something--but since I'd given her the file with the note, I knew she couldn't say too much.
She was fine with switching the meeting, and I told her straight up that I didn't have for her the level of detail she wanted, and that I felt like in order to have had that I would have had to really stay up all night and sacrifice my classes today, but that I feel like I have more done now than I did at the start of Black Boy, so she couldn't say shit. Well, I left that last part out. She was ok with it.
As for the second part, the daily breakdown of what I'd be teaching, well, I hadn't done that at all yet! I needed my whole prep period to print stuff for my other class, so I wasn't sure what I was going to do about that, but in my other class the students peer-reviewed one another's papers for the whole class, so I did something that I hardly ever do--my own work while students are working on something else. There wasn't anything else for me to do in class anyway, as they were all on their own and working well. So, I busted out my calendar--and I actually did it in the last 10 minutes of class as well as for five minutes or so after class--literally while I was walking to my meeting with her! But it was fine, and she was happy with it, and I have lived to teach another day.
She's observing me tomorrow, and I feel like if that goes well, then she will be off my back. I feel pretty much prepared for tomorrow, so we'll see...
She was fine with switching the meeting, and I told her straight up that I didn't have for her the level of detail she wanted, and that I felt like in order to have had that I would have had to really stay up all night and sacrifice my classes today, but that I feel like I have more done now than I did at the start of Black Boy, so she couldn't say shit. Well, I left that last part out. She was ok with it.
As for the second part, the daily breakdown of what I'd be teaching, well, I hadn't done that at all yet! I needed my whole prep period to print stuff for my other class, so I wasn't sure what I was going to do about that, but in my other class the students peer-reviewed one another's papers for the whole class, so I did something that I hardly ever do--my own work while students are working on something else. There wasn't anything else for me to do in class anyway, as they were all on their own and working well. So, I busted out my calendar--and I actually did it in the last 10 minutes of class as well as for five minutes or so after class--literally while I was walking to my meeting with her! But it was fine, and she was happy with it, and I have lived to teach another day.
She's observing me tomorrow, and I feel like if that goes well, then she will be off my back. I feel pretty much prepared for tomorrow, so we'll see...
Monday, March 26, 2007
Master teacher ridiculousness and crying again at school
Things are going very well with my "mean" master teacher, but now, for episode 2 where I had to clean myself up from crying before teaching as a result of a meeting with my master teacher, it was an incident with the "nice" master teacher. (I wish I could just give names, as I don't like referring to her that way at this moment.)
Thursday she had asked me to show her a "rough outline" of my plans forthe new book I'm starting in my 10th grade class. This is obviously quite a vague term, and apparently I misunderstood what she meant by this. Thursday what I had for her was a layout on a lesson-planning calendar of when I would be teaching each story in the book, the assessments for the unit, and a brief summary of the focus of each class this week. As far asI could tell, she was fine with what I had for her.
On Friday, after my class, I approached her to let her know that, based on the class that day--our first discussing this book--that I was going to reevaluate my plans for this week, which I felt were too sophisticated since the students had more trouble with the reading than I had anticipated. She had previously mentioned the idea a while back that I might choose to not teach all 5 stories in the book, and I had asked for her feedback on cutting 1 or 2 of the stories. She disagreed with cutting the story that I had been thinking to cut but seemed to be ok with me making that choice myself.
Fast forward to this morning. When I arrived at school, there was a note from her that she wanted to meet me after class today. In our meeting today, she told me how upset she was that I did not have a full unit plan for her on Thursday, and that she now sees what the other master teacher was talking about in the beginning of the semester. She said that based on what I showed her Thursday she wanted to rescind the overall positive evaluation she had sent in the day before, and that the plan I gave her Thurs as well as the conversation I had with her on Friday about cutting certain sections to be able to do a closer analysis of the parts we read gave her the impression that I am not prepared to teach this book. She further said that she didn't want to have to "defend her position" to me about why she thinks certain stories are important to teach, and that she feels that I ask her questions whenever I want but that when she asks me to have things for her, I do not.
I was extremely shocked and blindsided by this conversation as well as so many of the specifics in it. First of all, she had asked for a "rough outline," and then she freaked out (days later) because I didn't give her something more specific. This seems like a very clear misunderstanding of her not being precise with me about what she wanted and me assuming I knew what she wanted. What I gave her was a somewhat rougher outline than what I had shown her for the previous book I taught, but what she told me today that she wants--a full unit plan with daily objectives and the lessons spelled out for every day for the rest of this unit--is way more specific than I ever gave her for the previous book. When I explained this, she argued this point, pointing out a couple things that I gave her about that book, but I absolutely never gave her what she is asking for now, and I feel very confident with the job I did in teaching that book. The implication seemed to be that I am unprepared to teach this book because I don't have what I had for the other book prepared, but that is simply not the case. I feel I am no less prepared for this book than the previous one. Anyway, the fact that I know she feels I did a good job with the last book seemed to be a distant memory or somehow totally irrelevant since I didn't have the fleshed-out unit plan for her on Thursday that I didn'teven *know* she wanted. In addition, she also didn't say anything to me at the time on Thursday or Friday, so I don't understand how this just came up over the weekend. Shouldn't you tell someone at the time that whatthey're giving you is not what you wanted?
I let her know that I have not ever seen a unit plan modeled for me by her or any professional teacher--I just did one for one of my classes, discussed them a little in class--and that all I had seen from her when I had asked to see some of her plans last semester was her calendar layout, which is what I gave to her.
I will give her a beautiful unit plan by Wednesday--and I feel like that is something that I should have ideally had laid out before--but I am just exhausted at this point and really just feel like I want to throw something together to get her off myback, which is SO not the point, I know, but that's how I'm feeling.
The idea of saying she felt like she wanted to undo her positive recommendation of me based on this was offensive to me, not to mention absurd. She's observed me probably 15 times and met with me formally more than that and informally almost everyday, and based on this she has shifted her entire impression of me? Please.
When she said that she feels like I don't have the things that she asks me for I was completely shocked. I asked her what she was referring to, but she had no specifics. She referred back to me not being prepared for my meetings with the ohter master teacher (though she had asked me for something very different for those meetings), but there were *no* meetings that this teacher had asked me for something that I didn't have--well, none that I can remember and none that she said in response to that question. She mentioned that last Thursday I didn'thave a lesson plan for her while she was observing, but I hadn't realized she was observing that day so I hadn't printed anything out for her. And that was her only explanation of her saying something as harsh as that she generally feels I don't have the things she asks me for. It seemed like she was making this broad statement and somehow trying to build a case against me based on this thing on Thursday. I was really shocked and frustrated and angry at that point. Where did this even come from?
I know she and the other teacher meet occasionally, and I saw them meeting this morning. I wonder if they've decided to switch good cop-bad cop roles or something?
It's perfectly legit to ask me for a unit plan--I have no explanation for why I don't have one except that I'm freakin' tired. But do not to ask for a rough outline if you want a unit plan with unit goals and daily objectives tied to those goals.
Finally, I was shocked by her saying that she was bothered by my asking her opinion about which story to potentially leave out. She felt that this showed a lack of preperation on my part, but I had already given this a good amount of thought and wanted her opinion, assuming she wouldn't mind spending the time with me to offer that. I thought she would actually have input--you know, like mentorship?--to offer since she's taught this book 7 or 8 times, and I was curious about her thoughts on it. The idea that she felt she had to "defend her position" was ludicrous to me--I thought the conversation was very clearly me asking her her opinion, my offering ideas about other ways to introduce the ideas that seemed most important, and her offering her opinions about that. I did somewhat argue against her reasoning but in the spirit of two peers discussing a text--not in terms of her having to justify herself to me, as she interpreted it. I apologized to her for giving her the feeling that she needed to defend her opinion and told her that was completely not my intention for that conversation. Meanwhile, I told herthat I had no idea that she would have interpreted this in this way and that, frankly, I no longer would approach her to ask her opinion about such things. I thought when I said this, she would back up and say something like, "Well, feel free to ask my opinion," but she did not. Fine.
I am really furious and upset about this. This is now the second time that I have beenin the position of cleaning myself up right before class after crying witha master teacher. Some of that is me getting emotionally involved, but the blanket statements and generalizations this teacher was making about me in a waythat suggested that everything I'd ever done was undermined by my not having this thing for her on Thursday that I had misunderstood was just so frustrating. She carried herself in a much more professional way with me than the other master teacher did in terms of not yelling, using professional language, giving me a writeup of what she wants for Wednesday, yet I feel terrible about having to work with her at this point. I feel like I no longer trust her and want as little to do with her as possiblefor the rest of the semester. Her using vague language, resulting in me giving her something other than what she wanted, resulted in her losing confidence in me and thinking about me in an entirely different way and speaking to me as if I'm an incompetent slacker is just not right, especially given that she has been seeing me teach all semester and has given me very positive evaluations throughout. I'll give her the things she wants, but I will no longer see her as any kind of resource for me.
I'm just sick of feeling completely unappreciated and getting torn apart for everything I do that could be better and getting virtually no positive reinforcement, compliments, or support from these teachers. I do get lots of positive reinforcement from my students, who I know appreciate me in the way that students appreciate teachers they like, but to feel hassled and stressed and criticized all the time by supervisors is just not the environment I want to be in.
In class tonight, we had a guest speaker: a principal speaking about applying for teaching jobs. He pointed to our recommendations from our master teachers as key. Lovely. Who wants a fucking teaching job after this anyway?
I left class early after the break knowing I couldn't sit still for this discussion any longer. Yanan gave me a long hug when I explained I'd be leaving early and she saw the tears in my eyes.
Thursday she had asked me to show her a "rough outline" of my plans forthe new book I'm starting in my 10th grade class. This is obviously quite a vague term, and apparently I misunderstood what she meant by this. Thursday what I had for her was a layout on a lesson-planning calendar of when I would be teaching each story in the book, the assessments for the unit, and a brief summary of the focus of each class this week. As far asI could tell, she was fine with what I had for her.
On Friday, after my class, I approached her to let her know that, based on the class that day--our first discussing this book--that I was going to reevaluate my plans for this week, which I felt were too sophisticated since the students had more trouble with the reading than I had anticipated. She had previously mentioned the idea a while back that I might choose to not teach all 5 stories in the book, and I had asked for her feedback on cutting 1 or 2 of the stories. She disagreed with cutting the story that I had been thinking to cut but seemed to be ok with me making that choice myself.
Fast forward to this morning. When I arrived at school, there was a note from her that she wanted to meet me after class today. In our meeting today, she told me how upset she was that I did not have a full unit plan for her on Thursday, and that she now sees what the other master teacher was talking about in the beginning of the semester. She said that based on what I showed her Thursday she wanted to rescind the overall positive evaluation she had sent in the day before, and that the plan I gave her Thurs as well as the conversation I had with her on Friday about cutting certain sections to be able to do a closer analysis of the parts we read gave her the impression that I am not prepared to teach this book. She further said that she didn't want to have to "defend her position" to me about why she thinks certain stories are important to teach, and that she feels that I ask her questions whenever I want but that when she asks me to have things for her, I do not.
I was extremely shocked and blindsided by this conversation as well as so many of the specifics in it. First of all, she had asked for a "rough outline," and then she freaked out (days later) because I didn't give her something more specific. This seems like a very clear misunderstanding of her not being precise with me about what she wanted and me assuming I knew what she wanted. What I gave her was a somewhat rougher outline than what I had shown her for the previous book I taught, but what she told me today that she wants--a full unit plan with daily objectives and the lessons spelled out for every day for the rest of this unit--is way more specific than I ever gave her for the previous book. When I explained this, she argued this point, pointing out a couple things that I gave her about that book, but I absolutely never gave her what she is asking for now, and I feel very confident with the job I did in teaching that book. The implication seemed to be that I am unprepared to teach this book because I don't have what I had for the other book prepared, but that is simply not the case. I feel I am no less prepared for this book than the previous one. Anyway, the fact that I know she feels I did a good job with the last book seemed to be a distant memory or somehow totally irrelevant since I didn't have the fleshed-out unit plan for her on Thursday that I didn'teven *know* she wanted. In addition, she also didn't say anything to me at the time on Thursday or Friday, so I don't understand how this just came up over the weekend. Shouldn't you tell someone at the time that whatthey're giving you is not what you wanted?
I let her know that I have not ever seen a unit plan modeled for me by her or any professional teacher--I just did one for one of my classes, discussed them a little in class--and that all I had seen from her when I had asked to see some of her plans last semester was her calendar layout, which is what I gave to her.
I will give her a beautiful unit plan by Wednesday--and I feel like that is something that I should have ideally had laid out before--but I am just exhausted at this point and really just feel like I want to throw something together to get her off myback, which is SO not the point, I know, but that's how I'm feeling.
The idea of saying she felt like she wanted to undo her positive recommendation of me based on this was offensive to me, not to mention absurd. She's observed me probably 15 times and met with me formally more than that and informally almost everyday, and based on this she has shifted her entire impression of me? Please.
When she said that she feels like I don't have the things that she asks me for I was completely shocked. I asked her what she was referring to, but she had no specifics. She referred back to me not being prepared for my meetings with the ohter master teacher (though she had asked me for something very different for those meetings), but there were *no* meetings that this teacher had asked me for something that I didn't have--well, none that I can remember and none that she said in response to that question. She mentioned that last Thursday I didn'thave a lesson plan for her while she was observing, but I hadn't realized she was observing that day so I hadn't printed anything out for her. And that was her only explanation of her saying something as harsh as that she generally feels I don't have the things she asks me for. It seemed like she was making this broad statement and somehow trying to build a case against me based on this thing on Thursday. I was really shocked and frustrated and angry at that point. Where did this even come from?
I know she and the other teacher meet occasionally, and I saw them meeting this morning. I wonder if they've decided to switch good cop-bad cop roles or something?
It's perfectly legit to ask me for a unit plan--I have no explanation for why I don't have one except that I'm freakin' tired. But do not to ask for a rough outline if you want a unit plan with unit goals and daily objectives tied to those goals.
Finally, I was shocked by her saying that she was bothered by my asking her opinion about which story to potentially leave out. She felt that this showed a lack of preperation on my part, but I had already given this a good amount of thought and wanted her opinion, assuming she wouldn't mind spending the time with me to offer that. I thought she would actually have input--you know, like mentorship?--to offer since she's taught this book 7 or 8 times, and I was curious about her thoughts on it. The idea that she felt she had to "defend her position" was ludicrous to me--I thought the conversation was very clearly me asking her her opinion, my offering ideas about other ways to introduce the ideas that seemed most important, and her offering her opinions about that. I did somewhat argue against her reasoning but in the spirit of two peers discussing a text--not in terms of her having to justify herself to me, as she interpreted it. I apologized to her for giving her the feeling that she needed to defend her opinion and told her that was completely not my intention for that conversation. Meanwhile, I told herthat I had no idea that she would have interpreted this in this way and that, frankly, I no longer would approach her to ask her opinion about such things. I thought when I said this, she would back up and say something like, "Well, feel free to ask my opinion," but she did not. Fine.
I am really furious and upset about this. This is now the second time that I have beenin the position of cleaning myself up right before class after crying witha master teacher. Some of that is me getting emotionally involved, but the blanket statements and generalizations this teacher was making about me in a waythat suggested that everything I'd ever done was undermined by my not having this thing for her on Thursday that I had misunderstood was just so frustrating. She carried herself in a much more professional way with me than the other master teacher did in terms of not yelling, using professional language, giving me a writeup of what she wants for Wednesday, yet I feel terrible about having to work with her at this point. I feel like I no longer trust her and want as little to do with her as possiblefor the rest of the semester. Her using vague language, resulting in me giving her something other than what she wanted, resulted in her losing confidence in me and thinking about me in an entirely different way and speaking to me as if I'm an incompetent slacker is just not right, especially given that she has been seeing me teach all semester and has given me very positive evaluations throughout. I'll give her the things she wants, but I will no longer see her as any kind of resource for me.
I'm just sick of feeling completely unappreciated and getting torn apart for everything I do that could be better and getting virtually no positive reinforcement, compliments, or support from these teachers. I do get lots of positive reinforcement from my students, who I know appreciate me in the way that students appreciate teachers they like, but to feel hassled and stressed and criticized all the time by supervisors is just not the environment I want to be in.
In class tonight, we had a guest speaker: a principal speaking about applying for teaching jobs. He pointed to our recommendations from our master teachers as key. Lovely. Who wants a fucking teaching job after this anyway?
I left class early after the break knowing I couldn't sit still for this discussion any longer. Yanan gave me a long hug when I explained I'd be leaving early and she saw the tears in my eyes.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Just when I feel like things are under control...
It's kind of a dramatic subject line, but I am shocked by the extent to which taking a day off from work on a weekend or even for a few hours one evening results in backing myself into a corner with a ridiculous amount of work to do in a short time. I have a presentation to do for my class Wed that I have not done the reading for, which I'd be ok with except that it's a presentation with another person who I need to coordinate with and whom I told I would have comments for by today. I have two classes to do a bunch of prep for for tomorrow. I have grading I haven't done yet that I slacked on this weekend since I didn't have a lot of pressure to get them done but that I should really hand back by tomorrow. I have like 8 other things to do for my classes this week, too, that I can barely allow myself to think about. I guess I just feel like it never stops, and that I feel so much stress around it all because each day just brings a whole lot more work.
On the bright side, class today went well. I just want to go to sleep now but I have hours' worth of work to do. Ugh. 8 more school days till spring break.
On the bright side, class today went well. I just want to go to sleep now but I have hours' worth of work to do. Ugh. 8 more school days till spring break.
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