It's Mrs. Hart not Amy

              Time seems to go by so fast. I can’t believe I have been teaching for a month now. I am really excited to be teaching a novel study along with doing test review for the state assessment. My students seem to be doing well, but I still have a few challenges. I continue to struggle to reach those few students who need to have the control of the classroom. I try to be the disciplinarian however being so close to their age I am still finding it difficult for them to take me seriously. I am working on when I say I am going to do something, I do it. But what else can I do? I have given lunch detentions, taken pencils away until they had to do their work, sent kids out of the room to be refocused, and even called home. This seems to be a never ending battle and I am starting to feel defeated. I think the worst thing that I have still not been able to correct is one student who finds it necessary to address me by my first name. When I introduced myself to the class at the beginning of the semester I told them my name was Mrs. Hart. I have not told anyone my first name but my id badge says first and last name. This student either just trying to be smart or just plain out being disrespectful refuses to stop calling me by my first name. I have asked and told him my name is Mrs. Hart. Today, when he decided to call me by my first name, I pretended I didn’t hear him. He repeated my name again and I responded, “Does anyone know of a student named Amy because I don’t know of any Amys in this class.” This made the class laugh a little but I am scared to think that this is all he was wanting. I know this isn’t really a serious problem in some people’s eyes but this is a problem to me. If I have a student trying to call me by my first name, I feel that it is not helping my quest to gain respect. Any suggestions on what I can do or say would be greatly appreciated. With all of this drama I am afraid to look in the mirror because I don’t want to find any grey hairs.

                On a brighter note, I am glad to say that state assessments are soon approaching. I have been doing some really fun things to help the students review. We have played a couple different jeopardy games and a lot of different games on our new smartboard. I have a ton of resources for activities with the smartboard thanks to my CT, so shoot me a line if you need any fun things to help with review items for Language arts state assessments. I used most of my materials for 8^th graders, but I know all of them can be adapted in some way to help different grade levels. More and more each day, I am looking forward to state assessment and can’t wait to see how well my students will do. I will continue to keep everyone update and look forward to any and all suggestions.

And the journey begins

                Wow has this journey begun with a bang! I knew what to expect walking into 2 of my classes from last semester but I picked up 2 more. I decided to walk in my first day with an open mind.  However, maybe it was too open. My first English class I had to give a student a written reprimand (PBR) for sexual harassment towards me. He is one of my alpha-males from last semester and he does things continually that keep me asking,” What can I do to get through to him?”  The day did not stop from there. In my next class I had 2 transfer students who felt they had something to prove. These 2 were bright and witty, but had the attitude and demeanor of a drunken sailor. I felt horrible for my CT who tried continuously to control them but they would not let up. After multiple hall visits and even the threat of going to the student center, these 2 just kept at it. This too makes me wonder how I can reach these students. Finally, what I thought would be the highlight of my day, honors English, turned out to be chaos upon chaos. This class knew they were smarter than the others and made sure to act like it. The moment I spoke I could tell that there would be a battle to gain respect.

               

                After my first day, I was exhausted. The only thing on my mind was the idea of returning the next day to the same situations. I felt defeated like I did not or could not find an answer to help me get through to my new and old students. I have talked with my CTs and other student teachers, their suggestions and similar situations have been a huge help in easing my mind. The only other thing that still bothers me is how to get student’s respect when they do not see you as an adult/disciplinarian figure.

                As of now I am going to try to reach my students and gain their respect through the way I teach and what I teach. I am going to start off teaching technical writing to 8^th grade, a CWC group and an honors group. I am going to try to get through to my difficult students by planning activities that engage them and spark interest in the subject matter. One of the first activities I have planned is a follow the directions test. This is a pre-assessment to see how well the students will do with a technical writing example that tells them to read all of the directions before doing any of them. I cannot wait to see how well this will go over when the students read the last direction that tells them to do only directions 1 and 2 (that is if they do not read the first direction as stated above and do all of the goofy stuff in between). I also have some other fun activities planned and hope they will go over well and help to distract those difficult students from acting up. I hope to be able to gain some respect from my students who do not know me, but I am still a little unsure about how to go about it. I don’t want to just be the fun teacher or the mean teacher. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to updating you all on how the rest of this journey goes and I look forward to any feedback or suggestions you may have.

Where has the time gone?

     This semester started very slowly for me. I began with a plan to get everything accomplished a head of time and to keep myself on task. I will be the first to tell you this did not work. I find myself asking questions everyday about why did I do this, or why didn't I do that. I feel like I am so far behind and just can't get caught up. I try more and more everyday to work harder on what I want to accomplish but there are only some many hours in a day.

     To top everything off I feel overwhelmed with useless information from some of my current classes and find myself with the mentality of some of my students. I do not want to say that all of my classes are irrelevant to what I need to know, but I am finding some information going in one ear and out of the other, while the rest of the information is either retained or just stops before it enters even one ear.

     I would have to say I learned the most from English methods and from observations. My observations have been the most effective thing this semester to help me understand how I need to improve. I have been able to teach for extended periods of time where I am in total control of the class and it really hits you hard when you realize you are not perfect.

     This semester, even though harder than I thought, has overall been a good semester. I am sad thinking of it ending. The only thing that keeps a smile on my face is knowing that after a short winter break I will be back in the classrooms, hopefully the same ones.

    

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.

genre reflection #1

Bubble Gum

Smack, Smack, Smack

This sound would normally be annoying,

The sound gum makes as it clings to your teeth,

Today this is the sound of VICTORY.

They weren’t paying attention,

What was I doing wrong?

Then, I remembered how I was at their age.

I reached into my bag of tricks and found the answer.

They snapped right into the groove,

This little piece of magic did the trick.

It’s still crazy to think…

                                                         
                                                            All for a piece of bubble gum.

Reflection #2 (And so it continues...)

                The last few weeks have gone by so fast. I am more excited everyday that I step into my classrooms because of the possible impact I am having on the students. I have noticed that the students are starting to bond with me because I am closer to their age. However, I still do not understand how and why students form that bond with teachers. From what I have observed so far, I can see what the students have come to like and dislike about teachers they have encountered (not to mention being told flat out why they hate a teacher). I am going to try and take this information and use it for when I begin to teach these students, which will be next week.

                In my second week at school, I was able to witness an altercation and how a teacher responded to it. This was an interesting thing to witness and much unexpected at the time. The bell rang for class to be dismissed and passing period to begin. One of the students, I will call him C, emerged from my class and bumped into a rival out in the hall. It was at this moment that C blew up and tried to attack the rival. The teacher next to my classroom, Ms. M, stepped between the altercation and grabbed C. She held C up against the lockers, all the while he was fighting to get passed her. The assistant principal finally stepped in the relieve Ms. M and at that time I approached her to make sure she was ok. She had red marks all up and down her arms and was visually shaken. I am not sure what the training is for these situations, but I do know that without her interruption in the altercation far worse things would have happened. I have learned from this event that I definitely need to research protocol for these situations, so I can be better prepared in case I encounter this activity in my classroom or in the hall when I am alone.

                Now, in my third week, I have become more of a part in the planning and teaching process. For my five to seven day unit I must teach, I am going to be working with small groups of students, nine at a time, and we will be working for three days on reviewing the elements of a narrative story. The groups will then switch and I will be given another group for three days. I am still torn on what story to use, but I am contemplating using a story that involves multiple conflicts to help the students better understand the various conflicts such as man vs. man and man vs. nature.  I ask my fellow educators, if you have any suggestions of good short stories or activities I would love to hear them.  I have been given the workbook to find a story, but I would like a better resource for a story that will be more intriguing and captivating. This week they are working on “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Monkey’s Paw”, so anything that is similar would probably peak some interest, however I would really like something different. I am excited to begin to teach my own lessons and will make sure to update this blog more often. Hopefully!