In the presence of a rock star

                Let me begin by saying the KATE conference was AWESOME!!! I received lots of useful information and resources. I also got to meet a lot of fun and knowledgeable educators, attendees/students, and even the keynote speakers. The most useful breakout session I attended was the Survivalism 101 session. This session focused on surviving a new school environment and your first year of teaching. The speakers for this session gave us a survival guide that included templates for permission slips, syllabi, and other classroom logs. Also in this guide were checklists for items we may want to have in our classrooms and how to organize our future classroom effectively. The other sessions I attended were very educational as well, but I feel this one was the most useful for me as my first year of teaching is hopefully approaching soon.

                The keynote speakers at the conference were absolutely incredible. They both were very down to earth, friendly, approachable, and hilarious. Clare Vanderpool was so relatable; she made you feel like you were in the room with her as she received the phone calls that she sold her book and that she was the winner of a prestigious award for it. Since she is from Wichita, it made me feel proud, as a fellow Wichitan, to have someone like her as part of our community. She also made me feel like as a mom I can accomplish anything if I put my mind to it.  When a few of us (my fellow classmates) were in line to get our books signed by Clare, we had an encounter with the other keynote speaker without realizing it. Socializing with Jay Asher and then realizing who he was, was like being in the presence of a rock star. ß(a comment I made in the presence of an Emporia professor, who said that is how she knows I am destined to be an English teacher) The whole event of meeting Jay Asher was quite hilarious because we (us students) were chatting each other up about silly things like duplicate names in class and how I have a library card system for my books that I loan out, all the while he was nodding and making small comments. When we formed the single file line to get our books signed, I spotted the name on his folder. My mouth immediately fell open and I began to point and whisper, “IT”S JAY ASHER!”. I was not heard at first so I repeated myself until my message was understood. Needless to say, I am sure he saw the whole event take place but he did not let on.

                I meet a few new people during this conference, mostly the presenters from the breakout sessions. I did however run into my senior year high school English teacher and that made my day. She remembered me from ten years prior and told me if I ever needed anything to look her up. These kinds of connections are what conferences like this are all about. I hope to be able to attend this conference again next year and in the years to come. Who knows maybe even someday I will be knowledgeable enough to be a presenter myself.

               

YAY, my day is coming.

                I am biting my nails waiting for October 10^th. This is the day that I will begin a Unit on figurative language. I have searched the vast world that we know as the internet, and found what I believe to be the best activity that my 8^th graders will complete. I grow more excited as everyday passes and the unit grows closer.

                I have gradually come to recognize ways that keep the students on task and activities that help my class retain information. With the student’s attention span in mind, I began my search for lessons, activities, and worksheets that I can provide to learn/relearn figurative language. It was during this search that I encountered the figurative language rap. For those of you who have never encountered this marvelous tool, I highly recommend looking it up. I plan to open my unit with a video of an 8^th grade class that recorded their own version of this rap and posted it on YouTube. I can tell this will interest my class because when my CT and I were reviewing it the class could not stop looking our direction while the music played. Also, while watching the video we could already see the classroom personalities that will shine during this activity.

                For the activity, I am planning to allow the students to record their own version of the rap. I have it in my plans that the whole class must pass the unit test with a B or better and then we will assign roles and perform a skit for the video. I also am going to send a permission slip home so that if the students want to post the video on YouTube, like the other class, we will be able to do so with parental consent. I am posting this as my blog in hopes to gather more resources or works that will be good to incorporate. I would also like to know if you can foresee any complications I may encounter giving such an assignment to 8^th graders. My class is fairly mature but I have this pit in my stomach saying that something is just going to go wrong. I am afraid that my excitement has grown so much that this activity is going to fail and not be as successful as my mind has created it to be. I am asking sincerely, PLEASE HELP. I need some reassurance to help re-boost my confidence before the beginning of my unit.