Crunch Time

Dear Blog,

Today I had a student tell me that I was the only reason he got up this morning to go to school. I like that kid.

There seems to be a huge difference in the way my first period and fifth period classes act. My fifth period class is generally attentive and involved in what's going on. My first period class is asleep and grumpy and unimpressed all-around. They think that everything I do with them is "stupid". There are a lot of boys in that class, and I think that they feed off of each other. It stinks because I can't do many interactive things with them because I don't think they would participate.

I'm done observing all of the other teachers now. I spent two periods downstairs with the middle school English teacher. I went down to see her Friday and check if I could still observe her. I told her about what I've been up to upstairs, and she found me some great resources for my short story unit. She also let me bounce my ideas off her over the weekend via email. I was able to narrow down my unit to 6 stories and also make a list of standards to cover.

I don't think I've really look closely at the reading MLRs or tried to use them in a unit before. There are a lot of things missing. There is nothing about characterization in them. Nothing about plot. I don't know. I plan on incorporating those two elements, but I'm going to have to squeeze them in to the comprehension standards (which is fuzzy as it is).

I gave my student a pre-assessment quiz, which I deemed the short short story quiz, and they did okay on it. They knew some things, they didn't know others. I think my unit is actually going to cover a few 8th grade standards as well. I'm hoping that won't be a problem.

I'm starting to understand why teachers are so frustrated with standards. The 8th grade standards make more sense than the high school ones. It's weird that every grade in middle school has it's own set of standards but then high school is clumped together into one. I guess it doesn't really matter for me because my students are all clumped together into one too, as far as ability that is.

When I was observing Melissa's 7/8th grade class, I'm pretty sure they were more with it than my high schoolers. Sad.


I haven't talked about how cool it is to say "my students". It's nice. I'm starting to really like these kids.


I have tried probably about 10 times to map out my unit and it's not working. My mind is broken. I feel great in the morning on my way to school. On my way home I feel completely helpless and like I'm not teaching these kids anything. Mr. E says that most teachers want to quit at some point during their first year. I would be fine if I could just get ahead in my planning, but I'm still stuck making everything up the night before. I don't make it up, I actually plan it and think about it (I think about it for hours and hours and hours and hours), but I end up doing it the night before. I can't imagine having more than just this one class.

Speaking of other classes, I have started thinking/planning what I'm going to do in technology class. I'm having the students make webpages! Woot. This is probably going to be a big step up from what they usually do in there. Right now, they're finishing up their two-week project on A Trip Around The World. Criteria:

You must visit 14 countries.
You must visit 3 continents.
Your trip must be 30 days long.

The teacher gave them a stapled packet of templates. They needed to find out a bunch stats on the countries, write down which cities/attractions they would visit, and print out some touristy pictures. The only technology they are using is the laptop, to look up information on the internet.

My mentor teacher is a great guy, but he's not so creative. From what I've gathered, he runs his with the lecture-worksheet system. He talks, then they do worksheets. He's not too bad to listen to and the worksheets are certainly informative, but it's very dry, especially if you don't like health and weightlifting. I'm not exactly sure what he did in between photocopies in his English class. I think they did a lot of reading and answering questions.


I think the other teachers do cool stuff in English, but it was great to see Melissa because she went to school for English, so she's up to date on reading strategies and short stories and different writing techniques. I think the other teachers just wing their English classes, and I think she doesn't.

I am most scared right now that I will mess up my unit, but I also think that messing up your first unit is part of being a student teacher.

I haven't finished my CFA. Although, I've been thinking about it. :)