-
Top 10 List [life update]
10. Seven months later + lead teaching + 30 credits + 95 page seminar paper = M.Ed. Secondary Education ( Read more... ) -
"Can we do this more often?"
For the past month or so, we've been plowing through The Odyssey. It's been mostly fun, with lots of interactive activities and everything has been done in class, for the most part. Just before break, Mr. A gave me the task of covering the last three-to-four lessons on it, once Odysseus has finally made it home. I have never read/studied The ( Read more... ) -
To research?
I'm in my Action Research seminar right now and we're supposed to be writing about the problem we've selected for our action research project. Only, I'm a little fuzzy about what my topic entails. I can mentally picture my classroom, can project my students into their assigned seats, and feel what I want from them. I want confidence and meaningful ( Read more... ) -
In which you get to learn about subject-verb agreement so I know what I'm teaching tomorrow....
Alright, last class we gave you a little quiz. That quiz, which did not count as part of your grade, was on choosing the right form of a verb so the sentence made sense, so that it "sounded right." Now, most of you did pretty well on this quiz, but not all of you. This is important stuff to know and it's something that's going to help your writing ( Read more... ) -
Alarm clock be damned.
Yesterday, in the middle of 1st period, I see A waving at me through the classroom window. A is in my second period class, but I assumed she has some work for me, so I quietly cross the room and slip outside. Sure enough, she hands me the first major assignment of the marking period. I smiled, said something like, "This is awesome A, thanks. Now, ( Read more... ) -
In which you get to read a portion of my equity dilemma paper from diversity class.
For at least three-quarters of the first marking period, I had a hell of time keeping one of my students, K, on track. He was (and is) extremely stubborn. He distracts the other students around him and has generally put his foot down about doing anything "productive." I have never been more frustrated with a student than with him. Recently, however ( Read more... ) -
Something I smiled about recently:
A few classes ago, T and I were in the hall because he was absent the last class. After I finished catching him up on what he'd missed, I started helping him with the RFK speech analysis that is a big portion of his grade. During my explanation of one of the select rhetorical devices within the speech (repetition, if you must know), I must have let ( Read more... ) -
A (thankfully) unbalanced equation.
An acute, somewhat-unexplainable feeling of anxiousness settled in somewhere behind my bellybutton last weekend and decided to stay for the duration. It did not want to fade for almost all of the four-and-a-half school days that followed. Could be weather related (this entire funk was spent on rainy days), but while I'm sure that didn't help, I ( Read more... ) -
On keeping the peace. (aka "baaaaa")
I'm comfortable fulfilling many different roles within a group, it really just depends on the group dynamic. If there seems to be no emerging leader, I can step up. If there are others who seek out leadership, I can be a backseat driver take a supporting role. Type A member in the group? Take the reins! It really doesn't matter too much to me, if ( Read more... ) -
Criss-cross apple sauce.
On Friday, the 1st and 7th periods had a really brief quiz on the novel we just started, Night by Elie Wiesel. It was only on the nine pages of reading assigned for homework and what we read together in class two days prior, a total of twelve pages. As the rest of the class started to answer the quiz question ("identify three moments of tension in ( Read more... )