Day 10 of Unit..it's all over

I have finished my unit! It is over! what an awesome feeling to know that I made it through my first 10 days teaching! It was such a great moment because this lesson showed me that my students have understood everything we have talked about it. From the beginning, I don't think my co-op thought my students would like/do well on this Found Poetry idea I had. Especially when I mentioned bringing in craft supplies for them to use. His face was funny when he saw all the glitter I brought because he hates messes, and lets just be honest, glitter makes a mess no matter how you try.

I let the boys pick their own partners except for 2. In first period 2 of my students didn't bring their quotes in (which is the basis of the entire project). They said they forgot. I didn't think it was fair to just let them go w/ another student who did his quotes and use them so I put those 2 together and they had to get quotes all over again. I then put on 1940's music ( to tie into the setting of the novel). At first I heard a lot of groans about it but by the end they were tapping their feet and even said that they worked well with that music in the background. I have to admit I was blown away by their poems. When they all finished they had to present them to the class and say what theme/character/idea they wrote about and why that it's important. They were SO deep. They totally understood all the themes we have talked about and have made some of the coolest poems. All of them were great! They used theme's like: war, snow/the dawn (symbolic for re-birth), Finny, and the fall. It was just so impressive. I was so so worried that they were getting the plot facts fine but not the deeper meaning, but these poems have proved that they get it.

At the end I collected their poems and told them that I would have their grades Wednesday when I come back in. They were like, wait you're not coming every day still? I explained to them how my unit works again and explained when I'd be coming back. They were bummed I wasn't going to be there every day and asked when i start teaching fully time. It made me fell really great. My 2nd period even said "let's give Miss Rahl" a round of applause. I feel like I have made a great impression these 13 boys. It's been the best experience and I can't wait to teach full time next semester!

The Professor and the MADMAN..muahhhahahahaha

Ok, so when I grabbed this book off the bookshelf I was so excited to read it. Anything that combines English with crazy people has to be good right? I thought about e-mailing Dr. Howard, who I had for History of the English Language and English Grammar because she LOVES the Oxford English Dictionary. If you didn't know what something meant she would say, "Have you checked it on the OED?" We even did a whole project on a particular root and its origins using the OED. I have become pretty familiar with the OED during my time in Satterfield. Dr. Trogdon gave us an assignment in English Studies where we did a library scavenger hunt (something I will be doing with my students for their research papers) and we had to look up words in the OED both electronically and in print. It's important to know how to use your research tools, and the OED is a great source...but onto the book.

This book caught me in the story from the beginning. Yes there were some boring parts but seriously, who would have thought that a Civil War vet and an inmate of an insane asylum created 10,000 of the entries that are in the OED. No wonder we have such a crazy language, 10,000 definitions were submitted by a crazy man! It all makes sense now!

Have you ever gone into the library to see the print version of the OED. They are seriously massive. No wonder they began being known as the 'Big Dictionary.' I love that that chapter starts out with the OED definition of Elephant. It's a great play on words.

I enjoyed the definitions at the beginning of a lot of the chapters (murder, mystery, etc) because it was like a sneak peak as to what we would be reading all the while tying it back to the reason we are reading about this story- the OED. I think this is a book that would be fun to read while doing research papers because it connects with the idea of research but has some fun mysterious elements that students could read about. It is interesting to see what students would think about Dr. Minor and had he not been insane (or if he had been treated) how things would have turned out. It's an interesting topic that would be a lot of fun in a classroom!

And for your enjoyment, here is a hysterical song about the OED and this book thanks to youtube. Oh how I love youtube!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IZYzxNOUtw

Image Grammar

So I think it is pretty cool that I had a class with Professor Noden last semester. When I signed up for his class and he talked about this "image grammar," I just thought it was something he did at Hudson; I thought it was a tiny pamphlet of ideas. Never did I realize his book would be so nationally acclaimed (I've done some research on it) nor were all his ideas so cool. I remember in class doing activities and being like what does this have to do with brush strokes? How do brush strokes teach? But after reading the text I understand completely. We did an activity (which someone actually kind of demo'd in our class) where he would show us pictures and we had to write about that picture. We had to be descriptive and talk about the details and images. It was a great practice in writing but I didn't realize it was conditioning us to look at the images and not think of things as just writing. Mr. Noden's book is FILLED with ideas on how to teach image grammar. Not only does he give written descriptions, but he also gives a CD to utilize. As many of my classmates know, I am a huge Hemingway fan (blame it on Dr. Trogdon). I thought it was so cool that there was a section in Mr. Noden's book that talked about Hemingway's unique sentence structures, in particularly with The Old Man and the Sea. It talked about people re-writing it using his rhythm. I think this is something I can use next semester when I teach this novel. If you understand rhythm of an author (and you have to, to do this assignment) then you are seeing grammar in a whole new way.

I applaud Mr. Noden for his work on image grammar. Grammar is something that our students aren't getting enough of. They get to college and professor's are just astonished by their poor grammar. I think we need to venture away from being grammar police and teach it in a unique and meaningful way like using the idea of brush strokes. Our students will be able to use it in their writing and will help them become stronger writers.

The Praxis II has no right to say who will make a good teacher...

So, I took a day to process my experience with the Praxis II, and I have decided that I hated it. First off, I hate standardized testing. I hate it with a passion. Especially when it's something that I had to a.) pay $220 for, b.) makes or breaks me from getting a teacher license and c.) something that either you know or you don't (it's quite hard to study for).

How can ETS and the Department of Education say that these tests show if someone can teach. These tests show that you can take a test! Ridiculous! When I am in my classroom, I know I can teach, but this test honestly made me feel like I knew nothing and I have wasted 5 years at Kent State. I took practice tests and passed them but when I got to the real thing I felt like it was all ridiculous! There were authors, and poems, and ideas that I haven't heard of. There were questions that I felt were very opinionated. What if my opinion on the summary of an essay is different than the person next to me? Does that make me wrong? What is that showing my students?

Another thing that annoyed me were the people from the other content areas. I sat next to this woman who was probably in her late 40's for the PLT section. First off, she was mad that I was at the same table as her. She kept saying, "this is ridiculous. Why are we all so cramped up in this room? I want my own table." I looked at her and said, "I don't bite," and smiled. She didn't find me funny. Darn. So then she is complaining about her math content section that she didn't finish. She asked me if I finished my content section, and I said yes. She GLARED at me and said "well that's because language arts content is WAY easier than math. All you have to do is read a book." I was trying to compose myself and not get kicked out (again, paid a lot of money to be here) and just said, "it's a whole heck of a lot more than just reading." And she LAUGHED at me. I just stared at her. The whole time I found myself becoming more and more congested. My eyes were getting itchy, my throat scratchy, my nose was running, and began sneezing. I felt like there was a cat sitting on my lap (I am ridiculously allergic to cats). What do I find out? Crazy math lady is ALSO a crazy cat lady! GO FIGURE! She said she couldn't wait to get home to get to her cats. I looked at her and it all clicked why I felt like death. I said how many do you have and she said thirteen!!! THIRTEEN! And she went on to say how they sleep with her and they are like her kids. THIRTEEN!!!!!!! So I felt like the thirteen cats were on my lap as they handed out the tests. The woman still was complaining about me being at her table. I told her to ask the proctor before we started if she could move and the lady was like no they won't let me. SO WHAT DOES SHE DO? The test starts and she raises her hand and says and I QUOTE, " "excuse me, this is unacceptable. This GIRL next to me keeps sniffling, cough and sneezing and it is VERY distracting." At the moment my mouth dropped and I just looked at the proctor who was as shocked as I was. The woman said, " I need to move or she needs to leave." I NEED TO LEAVE!! You crazy cat lady! The proctor looked at me and mouthed "I'm sorry!" and let the lady move to the back of the room. I really wanted to just sneeze on her and her dumb cats.

After the test I was just pissed off. Between the cat lady and the 4 hours of testing I was over it all. Lets see what happens in 4 weeks!!!!

Day 9 of Unit

This morning I woke up at 5:45 AM, like normal. But today I felt miserable. My throat was on fire and my voice sounded so hoarse. But I got myself up and moving and got to Stow by 7 AM. My co-op could hear my voice sounded awful but I knew I could suck it up (isn't that what teaching is all about...taking lemons and making lemonade?). I had to think on my feet and kind of find ways that I wouldn't be doing a lot of talking but still teaching. I gave the students for their quiz the chance to write a summary of the chapter and then write what they thought was the most significant point of the chapter and why. Then we went through the key points of the chapter but I made sure we had time for the students to do a character analysis worksheet. I wanted them to pick a character and they had to make 3 statements about that character then provide 2 quotes per statement of support. It was the light bulb moment for my students. Through these first 7 chapters I worried if they were getting it, if they were seeing the bigger picture. But through their conversations and questions for this character analysis I realized they did! It was such a great moment! As I read through their papers now I am very impressed. They are getting the themes, the symbolism and the parallelism. They are making some great points and I'm very impressed! It was a great way to finish out the week.

I kept apologizing for my voice going out and my students asked if I wanted a glass of water and offered to get one. They truly showed that they cared. It was such a wonderful moment that they really accepted me. Although I am quite different than my co-op, I think my students enjoy it. It's different and it's new which is always fun. I'm not only looking forward to my last day on Monday but also for next semester!

In class demo workshops and writing workshops

I have to say, at first I thought this whole demo workshop/writing workshop was going to be the most boring thing ever. I couldn't imagine reading 2 15 page stories every week and seeing demo lessons. But it has been such a COOL experience. Everyone's stories have been so unique and intersting. I feel I can hear each voice telling the story to me. I have been inspired, amused, saddened, excited, and have laughed out loud to all these different stories. I think this is the ultimate demo lesson. It has shown me that writing workshops are really effective tools to use in the classroom. Not only does it give the author the chance to try out their piece on others but it gives the class the chance to practice their constructive criticism. With the one prompt in my classroom, I had my students critique each others. I see we are going to have to work on this next semster. They just like to say " I agree with everything you are saying! Good work!" I explained that it is good to say you like it, but what is truly helpful is the idea of giving the author something to work on. I liked that in our class we started doing 1 positive and 1 constructive criticism. I think it is very helpful and will make us all stronger writers!

The demo lessons have really given me some good ideas. I have been keeping ideas in a notebook so that when I need to teach a lesson and am having a brain fart as to how to present the topic, I can just look through my notebook and be like "Oh yah Stephanie did a really good demo on writing a play.." (which I might be putting in Wiki, thanks Steph!). I think this has just been quite the helpful experience.

On another note, I am trying to figure out how to work these things. Not having multi-modal I feel really has given me an unfair advantage with these. I feel the rest of the class has fun and exciting blogs but I haven't quite figured out how to do that. I swear, I'm getting there! Patience is a virtue!

Day 8 of Unit

Today just kind of felt like a blah day. Not only was chapter 6 not the most exciting chapter of the novel, but I was exhausted today. Everything (aka life) is just catching up w/ me and it is really wearing me. I was determined to find some way to make chapter 6 interesting for the students, since it really bored me. Needless to say they were quite vocal about how boring chapter 6 was. But I was impressed that they made some mature comments about how it did not seem to develop any characters or further the plot. Gone are the days of them just saying "this sucks..." It was quite exciting to see them being little literary critics even just for a brief moment in time.

We did a reading comphrension quiz like always. Today I made the questions a little more on what they thought. They had to think about the information and respond which I have found many do not like doing. A couple said, "I don't like thinking." My response, " you better start like thinking when you fly those airplanes. That's all about thinking." As I was grading their quizzes this afternoon I got to one students who is probably my most outspoken in 2nd period. He strongly dislikes the book and takes every moment to make it known. He doens't like the idea of symbollism. He thinks that the author really didn't put it in there, that we as English teachers have nothing else to teach so we jsut pull it out of no where. I was like, really? I told him if he thinks this is bad wait till we get to Hemingway next semester. I told him that symbollism is what makes stories exciting and interesting to read and he told me it's what makes them dumb. The one question on the quiz asked them to think about what the 2 differnt rivers at Devon could represent. It was a pretty open question- they could have said good vs evil, the right path/wrong path, Gene vs Finny, summer session Vs winter session..etc. This particular student wrote "I think they are just rivers. We shouldn't think this much into things." UGH! Really? I haven't quite figured out what to do to get this boy to like this. I'm just terrified when we get to "Old Man and the Sea," b/c I am not a fan of that book b/c it drags on, so I just have this feeling he is going to hate it. But I am going to remain positive and think of interesting ways to teach it.

Only 2 more days of my unit left! Tomorrow we are finishing chapter 7 and then Monday is Found Poem Day! I am so excited to see what my students are going to create!