Rough Drafts

My students are working on the rough drafts of their persuasive essays right now. They've each chosen a topic and (supposedly) researched the idea to some extent. We talked about the persuasive appeals used by Aristotle - ethos, pathos, and logos - and looked at some examples in newspapers, magazines, etc. The topics ranged dramatically: off-campus lunches, four-day school week, U.S. dependency on foreign oil, incest, teen pregnancy, religious tolerance...

Some of the students are asking if they can take their arguments to the school board. I am thrilled that they want to take the assignment beyond the classroom, but at the same time I don't want their hopes to be destroyed when the administration only gives a passing glance to their hard work. Perhaps this would also be an appropriate time to teach the value of personal satisfaction. It's the act of creating that matters, not the opinions of others.

My Day

Today marks the end of the first quarter. I managed to get all my grades uploaded last night, so this weekend is FREE!!! That means Monday morning will smell of clean laundry, freshly vacuumed carpet, and baked apple muffins. Yay!

Next week we will embark on a tour of persuasive essays, complete with transcripts of presidential speeches and political cartoons. I found this really cool site with tons of lessons on cartoons and literature, so I'm excited to see how the kids react...






Here's an outline of my day as a teacher:

6:00 - my cell phone/alarm clock goes off
6:03 - turn on the coffee pot
6:04 - take a shower
6:12 - get dressed
7:00 - eat breakfast
7:12 - leave for school
7:20 - arrive at school, sign in at the workroom, and head up to class
8:00-9:40 - English classes
9:45-10:30 - run around making copies and grading work during planning period
10:30-12:10 - classes
12:15-12:40 - twenty-five whole minutes to eat lunch!!!
12:45-3:10 - classes
3:15 - grade, check mail, clean chalkboard, etc.
5:00 - leave school with more work
5:07 - open the front door, drop my bags, and run to the bathroom (high school bathrooms...I don't think so)
5:09 - change clothes, turn on the tv, start preparing for tomorrow
7:30 - find something to eat for dinner (usually a can of soup and some crackers)
7:40 - eat dinner while grading/checking e-mail/researching for tomorrow's lesson
9:30 - fall into bed, grab a book
10:15 - asleep

Week Seven

It's week seven here at my school. Everyone walks by chanting, "Can you believe it? Time flies so fast!!!" while I'm secretly thinking ONLY WEEK SEVEN?!?!

After our initial assessments, it's clear my students need some serious help with writing. Even though William Faulkner made stream-of-consciousness famous in the 1930s, kids today are making it infamous with the words "like," "so," "then," and "cuz" strung along the lines of paper without any hint of punctuation. I know that they have amazing ideas, and that they are capable of articulation; however, it will be a definite challenge to bring those ideas to life without stifling the students' enthusiasm.

Disappointment Runs Deep

The assignment was posted three weeks ago. It's on the class website and whiteboard. I reminded students every day. The requirement? Write four mini-essays (one page each) about a play we're reading - one for each section. Relate the play to yourself, your friends, or your family. I was trying to work on the "connect students to literature through personal comparisons with the text" element of the class.

And my heart literally breaks as I sift through the "essays." In my 6th period class, 6 out of 23 students did the assignment. Only 4 of those students did the entire assignment.

What am I suppose to do?!?!?!? I am trying so hard to reach these kids, to open them up to the idea that literature is a reflection of their own lives. Within the pages of books, should we choose to open them, are examples of find adultery, murder, anger, jealousy, rebellion, love, heartbreak, friendship, adventure, the search for identity...everything teenagers are going through right now!!!

I stopped one lovely little princess after class and asked her if she was worried about passing this class (after explaining the vocabulary test she failed and the essay assignment she didn't do). Her response: "Honestly, no."

What do I do?

I don't understand

This is a direct quote from at least four of my students this week:
"Those vocabulary words you gave us...where do we find the definitions?"

You know our education system is failing when 17-year-olds do not know where to find a definition. What's that sound? It must be Noah Webster rolling over in his grave. When I told students to find the definition on their own, the highest grade in ALL SIX ENGLISH CLASSES was 8/15. When I provided the exact definitions I would test them on (in the form of a MATCHING TEST), the grades were a little better, but I still had about 50% of the students with an F. Seriously? How difficult can it be to remember fifteen words?

Things aren't going much better in the attitude department. I actually had a student stand right outside my open classroom door and discuss how much she hated me and my class. So that afternoon I called the mom. She was at least kinder than the daughter, but when I said I was trying to engage her daughter in English, she said, "good luck with that." First of all, the phone call itself was an enormous step for me. I have anxiety attacks about calling parents. I am so afraid of parents that I prepare for the parent/teacher conferences about a month in advance. I pray for as few parents as possible. Maybe it's because my own mother actually took me out of school in 6th grade because I wasn't chosen as an usher for the middle school graduation. She was down at the school for many days debating the complete lack of justice in the selection process for ushering. USHERING. Now that I think about it, this may also be why I have an intense fear of graduation ceremonies.

Back again

Oh my goodness...

So very much has happened since I last wrote. I finished up my first year of teaching, and spent the summer in complete trepidation about finances. God walked me through and opened the door to another school in the area, and I am now working there.

The school is a VERY diverse environment - almost the total opposite of my classroom of clean little Christian pre-pubescents. While those students were barely dating, I have at least three students in this new class with children of their own. And that shocks me. Throughout this entire transition I have tried to maintain a pleasantly optimistic attitude; I've voiced my enthusiasm for working in a diverse classroom, for seeing the cultures of our area together, for hearing the opinions of our youth.


But honestly, now that I've seen it...I'm scared to death.
I'm not afraid for my life or anything like that. It's more a fear that I've gotten WAY in over my head. I don't have the experience or the tools to work with students who are coming from the worst possible homes. How do I make grammar, early American literature, and Emily Dickinson even remotely relevant???!!!???


I hope to keep posting on here. I want to express my thoughts and frustrations in a way that I can look back and reflect on years from now. And I want to get through this year with a feeling that I helped a student.

Praxis III

Tomorrow I take my Praxis III performance assessment. For those who aren't familiar with this process, here it goes:

Praxis I - computer-based test covering the general education requirements of college. This test must be passed before a student can gain admittance into a teacher education program.

Praxis II - paper-based test (or group of tests) that relate to a pre-service teacher's area of interest. For example, I took three English-based tests that assessed my ability to read, evaluate, and teach all areas of Language Arts. This test must be passed before a student can graduate from a college teacher education program.

Praxis III - performance based test completed in the first year of teaching. This test is three-fold. First, on the day of the assessment, teachers must provide the assessor with evidence of teacher collaboration and parent communication (usually in the form of emails or memos). Second, the teacher must complete two interviews - one before the assessment and one after. Third, the teacher must teach one lesson relating to their field of education. That lesson must have several elements, such as student communication, hands-on activities, objectives, evaluations, etc. This test must be passed before a teacher is officially certified by the state.

Tomorrow is my final evaluation. I go in at 7am to get ready for my pre-observation interview. Then I teach a lesson to my 2nd period class, which will be about paragraph structure. It's a really cute process where the students build a hamburger out of sentences, so they can see how a good paragraph is "tasty" and "satisfying." After the lesson, I go back into the interview room for another hour of questions about how my lesson went and what I might do differently. And the frustrating part is that I won't know anything about the results for at least 4 weeks.

I am so very, very nervous. It's a long, grueling process that will drain me physically and emotionally within a few short hours. I want to do my mentor, my parents, my teachers, and my students proud. I want to pass with flying colors and make a name for myself among the state administration and the local school boards. And I want to prove to myself that I am capable of maintaining a career that requires constant reflection, evaluation, and modification. Maybe this is a way for me to feel worthy. Of what, though?

With all that said, I am anxiously awaiting my return to my apartment tomorrow afternoon. Why? Because by then all this will be over, and I can go back to planning lessons that I enjoy teaching. Speaking of which...I need to start researching how to teach research papers. Yes, smell the irony.