Most of you may know that the title of this week's thread comes from the tomes of grammatical missteps that our former President made during his illustrious time in office. Long live mediocracy!
Anyway, grammatical mistakes of past presidents aside, the topic this week is about your students and about how they demonstrate to you that they are taking away ideas or skills from your classroom practice. How do you know they are learning anything from what you are teaching?
For this week's post, I'd like you to tell a classroom story about a moment when you KNEW students were learning (thinking, questioning, "getting it") in your class. In your story, please be specific, writing with the eye of a careful (full-of-care) teacher who pays attention to nuance and classroom dynamics. What happened to allow you to "see" this learning moment? How did you know?
Looking forward to peeking into your practice through the portal of these stories.
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Last week on Friday, I had the students make a chart and choose Hollywood actors/actresses to play certain characters from Macbeth. Before I had them do this, I wanted to make sure they had a good idea of what the characters' attributes are. When I got to the three witches, one student (who constantly talks in class and disrupts everyone around him) said that they're like the three Fates "because Shakespeare used Greek and Roman myths in his plays." His comment linked directly to notes I gave on William Shakespeare a couple of weeks ago, and even though he keeps talking, he does pay attention. When he said this, my eyes lit up and I said, "I never thought of the witches being like the Fates. That's excellent!" At that point in the class, I was feeling discouraged, like I couldn't do what I wanted to do. But that student renewed the spark in me to keep going.
ReplyDeleteThere have been other instances where students have shown me that they are retaining the important points of the play, particularly about how "psychotic and crazy" (as they put it) Lady Macbeth is and how savage Macbeth can be. I had them answer the Act I questions for homework, so I'll see how they understand the other points of the play, and I'm giving them a vocabulary quiz tomorrow (it's a crossword puzzle!). I hope that I'm steering them in the right direction. If not, I'll have to re-figure how I go about things in class. Here's hoping!
Most of the students did fairly well on their questions, so I know that they're retaining the important points from Act I. I think they'll understand them more when I show them the film today!
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that on Thursday of last week I left school completely irritated. My senior class questioned our lesson more than I could count, relentlessly asking, “But Ms., why do we have to do this? I don’t want to cut your paper I’m going to cherish this forever. Ms. I don’t know what to write.” Needless to say my nerves were running low. In addition to my endless questioning seniors my tenth grade honors students, who never talk when you want them to, also made me question my lesson plan when they too whined and complained about the skits they were presenting the following day. I began to think these students were drugged by their cafeteria food. Discouraged, I left school and did everything I could to forget about lesson planning and preparing for the next day. Exciting for my weekend to begin, I walked into school with a fresh attitude and was ready to take on the day! The seniors were scheduled for the library to begin writing their proposals for senior project, but after yesterday I was expecting the worst but hoping for the best. We settled into the library and gave specific instruction as to what should be happening throughout the period. About ten minutes into class I didn’t understand why the only sound I could hear was their fingers hitting the computer keys and how their mouths were only moving because they were lip reading what they had written. I was quietly working with two other students trying to catch them up on work they had missed and as I looked around, keeping check on everyone, I noticed a few hands had been raised. I could only imagine the comments they were about to make today. Thankfully, today’s comments were different. The seniors were thoughtfully re-reading their proposals and asked questions about wanting to make their papers better. “Ms. I think I included everything from this paper thing you handed out yesterday but I’m kinda stuck can you help me.” As I read over this particular students proposal I couldn’t believe what she had written. This girl who just yesterday was bitching about the assignment and who just sat there all period not doing a damn thing was about to turn in a well written completed proposal for senior project. I continued down the row and checked in with each student, they were all getting it! I have to be honest they completely surprised me. I guess my repetitive instruction and my constant explanations paid off and even though they did complain through the entire lesson!
ReplyDeleteI just want to say, as the recipient of a lot of complaining about the Teacher Candidate Work Sample, that complaining is part of the process. Work is hard. Bottom line. And, for the most part, we all just want to go outside and play. So, as a teacher, it's good to build your resistance to the complaining and push ahead regardless--try your best not to take it personally! As the grown-up, it's up to you to implement what's best for the children, even if they don't like it at first. Thanks for writing, Laura and Nicole. Looking forward to seeing what others have to say.
ReplyDeleteLast Wednesday during my "Wow" lesson for my unit, we did the "explode a word" activity with the word "adolescence" to show how you can understand a concept better if you break it apart and look at everything that it is made of. I thought that it would be an easy concept to explore because they are all teenagers and should have no problem unpacking the word and all that is behind it. We got through the activity, but it was quite "cricketesque" in the room at times. Dr. Cook and I both contributed important aspects of the concept to fill out the idea for the stusents. Later we were both talking about what a surprise it was that they didn't seem to be more able to articulate what the experience of "adolescense" was made up of. That night as I was thinking about what we were going to do in Period 4 the next day (I was planning on exploding the word "war"), and remembering the "pulling teeth" nature of trying to explode the concept of "adolescence," I though--how can I do this better? So the next day in class I gave them a journal prompt that asked them to think about "war" by drawing on all of the things that have helped to form their understanding of "war" up until now...movies, books, the news, first-hand re-tellings, history class, etc. Then for their journal entry they had to list at least 20 words or phrases that describe their understanding of their concept of "war." Everyone got busy making lists in their journals. One girl,Sam, had a hard time coming up with 20 (I think she came up with 13 or so) but everyone else came up with 20 or even more (One boy named Ryan came up with 30--he said "I just keep thinging of more.") Then I had them all come up and write on the board. ONE SIDE WASN'T EVEN ENOUGH! It was an awesome and cool moment for me--up at the board with my students writing our concept of "war" in silence, save for the clicking of chalk against the board! I hadn't even told them that we had to be quiet. Everyone was just busy writing and reading what the others were writing. It was a surreal peaceful moment in the midst of "war," and words amd phrases like "confusion," "anger," "call of duty," "home front," "fight for our country," "faraway," "hiding," "guilt," "two sides," and "death." Afterward, standing back and looking at the board, and what we had just done as a class, everyone seemed impressed! I even saw Sam open her journal when she got back to her seat and add more words to her list so that she too would have her 20 words! So cute! I told them that I was impressed, especially considering how the day before we had struggled getting even a few words up on the board around "adolescence," a concept that I was pretty sure they understood well, at least their own experience of it. I told them that they helped me to learn something yesterday, that maybe if they had some time to think and get their ideas together before I asked them to contribute, that they would be better able to participate. I asked if that helped and they said yes--it helped a lot. There are over 90 words on the board surrounding "War!" So I left the board as it was and the next morning I took some pictures of it because that is a moment I don't ever want to forget. It was cool too because Fred wasn't in the room. He had said he was gonna give me some space and maybe pop back in in a few minutes; but, he told me later, that when he walked up to the room and saw everyone up at the boards furiously writing all over them in silence, he could tell something cool was going on and he didn't want to disturb our dynamic. Yeah! It was a super cool experience.
ReplyDeleteSorry, the blog made me break up my leanghty post!!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as I was saying....
I think that experience confirmed my idea that even if a plan doesn't go quite as I had imagined, I have the ability to reflect, learn, and tweak things for next time. I can't even count how many times I have had to re-think ideas to make them fit better with the particular students and/or situations I am targeting. It happens every day to some degree. I think this is one of my strenghts--to figure out what isn't working and to understand the nature of the problem and how to go about fixing it. It is good to hear that everyone else is experiencing similiar sucsess stories!Sure it's trial and error for all of us at this point, but at least it isn't just "error,error,error" and no sucsess! Here's to the always making our mistakes into learning oppurtunities!!! Rock on!
Rock on, teachers! I am so inspired by and so proud of the moves you are making in your classrooms. Teaching is art, craft and science all rolled into one. I'm amazed by what you are mastering in these early stages of teacher-dom.
ReplyDeleteAfter my observation lesson, I came into the second day ready with a list of important terms for each student that would make the game we played earlier more meaningful and relevant to both “The Crucible” and the world in general. Everyone got a handout of the words paranoia, hysteria, scapegoating, fanaticism, and groupthink, which were also defined on their handouts. We had a discussion of each word – I had a student volunteer read each word and the definition and asked for an example of how each concept related to “The Crucible” and also an example of it in the real world. It was easy coming up with examples of “The Crucible” but I had to help them a little with examples from history. I knew for sure that certain students “got it” and learned what I wanted them to learn from the discussion – based on their participation and great ideas, but I was unsure about some of the quieter students. I planned on doing an exit slip at the end of class to check for comprehension but in the meantime, we were going to continue reading and I told them to watch for the concepts in the text as we read on. We got to the part in the play when Abigail blames Tituba for conjuring spirits and singing her “Barbados songs” in the forest when a very quiet student (one who also tends to be a little lazy when it comes to assignments) said, under his breath, “She’s being scapegoated.” (!!!) I don’t think I even would have heard him say it if I wasn’t standing in the back f the room (because I had students acting out scenes.) I got so excited that THIS kid in particular actually listened to the discussion, learned what the word/concept meant, and could actually APPLY it to the text! His comment also allowed me to stop the reading of the scene to praise him (which I hope encourages him to speak up in the future) and to start another conversation about the terms in relation to an actual scene. More students participated in this conversation and had good ideas, I think because we would apply the terms to the play as we were reading it, and because we weren’t just talking about what we’ve already read. I ended up not doing the exit slip because the students I was worried about not understanding were participating in the second discussion and properly using the terms! I didn’t know I could get so happy over a three word sentence but, “She’s being scapegoated” was the best thing I heard all day!
ReplyDeleteKathryn--
ReplyDeleteFABULOUS story. Great teacher ears, and good decision to go with the informal assessment. I'm most proud of you, though, for something you do REALLY well--praise your students. No wonder they are excited to learn with you!
In the past two days, I had two quiz grades for the students: a set of questions for Act I of Macbeth and a vocabulary quiz. Most of them did very well on both, and I was proud that they are understanding and articulating what the points of the play are so far. Also, when I had the students make character webs for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, they gave me fantastic words such as "ambitious" (Macbeth) and "manipulative" (Lady Macbeth). I had never said Lady Macbeth was manipulative, but when they told me that, I asked them why and they gave me concrete evidence from the play. I was so pleased with how they're doing with the play, and I hope I can keep holding their interest!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJust so everyone knows, if you're ever having difficulty posting, make sure you have THIRD PARTY COOKIES enabled - I was locked out due to a Firefox update.
ReplyDeleteThat said...it's good to be back to the blog!
Ok. After reading these before I went to bed last night, I was feeling excited for all of you, and a little dejected for my own experience. I couldn't conjure a single anecdote that demonstrated any actual learning going on in my classroom. When I woke up this morning, I had not only an awesome idea for a classwide closure project (that will be a real challenge to institute but should turn out awesome), but I realized my students ARE learning, and are excited TO learn. This past week was a little rough as my period 5 freshmen get rowdy without Steve around, and launch into entropy at the first sign of lienency. It's not as bad as all that - but they just don't stay focused and get too chatty amongst themselves to allow me the opportunity to direct them constructively. I am confident this will improve, and I am confident that in spite of their lackluster performance on Steve's sonnet test, their exuberance about my lesson on idioms, and follow-up with Amelia Bedelia, is a daily celebration. At least two or three students in every class will either point out an idiom that I, or someone else, has uttered, or is eager to share one with me, or wants to point out who is being a Mr. Rogers (Amelia's employer) and who is being an Amelia Bedelia. So they ARE getting it - and what's awesome for ME is that these are the lessons I have taught on my own. Connecting the "Shakespearean Idioms" that dabble more into the abstract realm of metaphor(phrases like "eye of heaven," "tempests,") proved considerably more challenging and are now more where I want to focus my attention - so though none of this has been a cleanly planned "pre-assessment/post-assessment/assessment-of-assessment assessment" process (all of which elude me, for the most part) it HAS been happening. I keep reminding myself and Steve that I'm not used to doing anything more than once that I am not immediately awesome at (cleverly skirting both failure -and- hard work), so the ambiguity of this teaching thing gets me a little stuck in the mud. BUT this exercise has helped me immensely and has me refreshed for the weekend of hard work ahead!
Ugh...sorry so late with this post...it has been an interesting week. With the NECAP testing, I feel as though I haven't seen my students in forever. My period 6 class met four times this week, and we've been working on reading Pride of Baghdad aloud, so that we read it as a class. They are loving it, and it's the quietest I've heard them since Dr. Cook's visit! As for period 2, I only saw them twice this week...but Friday was a "Senior Project" day, so we're a little behind period 6. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it was Friday during my period 2 (which met the last period of the day!) that was my favorite this week. Both classes went in the Senior Skills classroom this past Friday to work on their "Letters of Intent" for their senior projects. Period 6 met in the morning, right before lunch, and I would say that out of 27 students, maybe half actually got something done during the 55 minutes! Ya know, it was a lot of "Can I go see Mrs. So-and-so to talk about my project?" and "I've already got my letter done, but it's at home..." Whatever, the letters are due Tuesday, we'll see how it goes.
But my period 2 class, which is a mix of Comp and Inclusion kids, were rock stars! Two of my students were absent, but the rest were ALL working on their letters! All I heard for the first 20 minutes or so of the class was the tap-tap-tapping of the keyboards. It was so great. As I walked around and read a little over their shoulders, they were excited to have me help them with their essential questions. The great thing is that not one of them didn't know what they were doing. They just needed help with wording and rewording. It was easy to tell that they just wanted to make their questions sound perfect and "smart."
It really was great.
Hi guys,
ReplyDeleteSorry so late. I did not realize how much background info on the Holocaust would be needed to teach Night. I honestly feel like I teach History instead of English. I know that my kids are learning because I evaluate them everyday by classroom discussions, journal share outs, graphic organizers, ect... I recently gave them a quiz on the history of the Holocaust and most did really well. There were some that did not do so well but it was from a lack of trying more than not knowing the material. I am very secure in my teaching methods also I repeat things so many times that the students can't help but get it in their brains. It is frustrating when certain students with potential do not do well on assessments but it just makes me want to try harder to engage them. I am trying to not give up on students who have given up on themselves.