The thing I am taking away from yesterday's class and the bad poem activity is this: We laughed. A lot. And, it was important that we did that. Laughing is release, catharsis, a big happy sigh.
Please post your poems here so that we can all enjoy them throughout the semester. Here's mine.
Descend, Descend
Bright eyes and a bushy tail turn
bloodshot and raggedy
by September's end.
We're coming' round the bend.
An autumnal trend
to spend, spend, spend
and then, in winter's hush
to mend, mend, mend.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Mirror, Mirror
Sorry for the late thread, folks. I just returned from a weekend of work in the woods--cleaning chimneys, splitting firewood, and throwing out a year's accumulation of junk at my folks place in the Adirondacks. It was a great, long weekend. And, as I was performing various woodsy jobs up there, I was thinking about how competent--or more often, how incompetent--I felt doing these tasks. For instance, I'm much more competent at stacking wood than I am at cutting it or splitting it. Working as part of a team this weekend necessitated that I was able to "see" my weaknesses and get out of the way when I wasn't helping matters. This feeling--of sorting out what you can and can't do WHILE YOU ARE DOING IT--reminded me of being a beginning teacher and feeling this way all the time.
As I think about last week's seminar and the questions you asked in class, and as I think about where you all are, in this fourth week of student teaching, in terms of your teacher development, this is where I land:
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing a shy, nervous public persona and 10 representing a confident, authoritative persona, where would you place yourself as a teacher right at this point in time? What are some anecdotes or stories from your early teaching experiences to demonstrate why you placed yourself THERE on the continuum?
Now that your students are somewhat settled, now that you are all taking over your own classes, and now that I am setting up dates for the first round of observations, you should turn your attention to your teacher persona, to your command of the classroom, and to your ability to reach and connect with your students.
I look forward to reading what you have to say this week.
As I think about last week's seminar and the questions you asked in class, and as I think about where you all are, in this fourth week of student teaching, in terms of your teacher development, this is where I land:
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing a shy, nervous public persona and 10 representing a confident, authoritative persona, where would you place yourself as a teacher right at this point in time? What are some anecdotes or stories from your early teaching experiences to demonstrate why you placed yourself THERE on the continuum?
Now that your students are somewhat settled, now that you are all taking over your own classes, and now that I am setting up dates for the first round of observations, you should turn your attention to your teacher persona, to your command of the classroom, and to your ability to reach and connect with your students.
I look forward to reading what you have to say this week.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Teaching is Intellectual Work
The first days of school are behind you and the rest of the semester lies in waiting. Wow.
For this first post, I invite you to share with us something about the STUFF of what you are teaching that excites you, as a reader, as a writer, as a lover of language and of words. Laura knows she is tackling MacBeth to start out the year; Jill knows she will be reading Frankenstein; Amanda knows she will be teaching Romeo & Juliet.
You are becoming English teachers--content specialists--because you love the STUFF that English teachers teach. So, tell us, what do you love--or what will you bring yourself to love--about a text that you will be teaching soon? What aspect of it is "sexy" to you? What about this text makes you want to share it with high school students?
Before we can begin to engage our students, we ourselves must first be engaged with what we are teaching. So, for this week's post, please share with us WHY and HOW you are excited by and engaged with a text you plan to teach soon. You also might think about how you can transfer this excitement and engagement from yourself to your students--how will you provide multiple points of access to this text?
For this first post, I invite you to share with us something about the STUFF of what you are teaching that excites you, as a reader, as a writer, as a lover of language and of words. Laura knows she is tackling MacBeth to start out the year; Jill knows she will be reading Frankenstein; Amanda knows she will be teaching Romeo & Juliet.
You are becoming English teachers--content specialists--because you love the STUFF that English teachers teach. So, tell us, what do you love--or what will you bring yourself to love--about a text that you will be teaching soon? What aspect of it is "sexy" to you? What about this text makes you want to share it with high school students?
Before we can begin to engage our students, we ourselves must first be engaged with what we are teaching. So, for this week's post, please share with us WHY and HOW you are excited by and engaged with a text you plan to teach soon. You also might think about how you can transfer this excitement and engagement from yourself to your students--how will you provide multiple points of access to this text?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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