Getting Down to the Wire - week 5

    Well, it was an almost full week at NorthPointe. Wednesday marked the 6th snow day since I’ve been there. My units are pretty much down to the wire, and I’m just hoping no more cancellations will happen as I finish the last 9 days I have at the high school. By the time I become a certified teacher, I will definitely be well-practiced in rethinking my plans when unexpected cancellations or shortened classes occur!

    I taught both the seniors and freshman all week. Teaching-wise, it was kind of a mixed bag week. I had good and rough lessons. The students were tracking with me some classes and other classes they were pretty out of it. But that’s also the life of student teaching; some things don’t always work out.

    A quick review of the week:
The seniors
We got through Wordsworth, so still have four more poets to look at before the test. The Blake discussion was okay in both classes, though had limited participation; only a few people in each class were actually contributing. Since I still had yet to really know names, I was at a loss for how to call on specific students. The “Tintern Abbey” discussion was the rough day in the senior class this week. Though the fifth hour class was at least able to answer some of my questions, sixth hour wasn’t getting it at all and were quite disengaged. The cooperating teacher told me he doesn’t usually assign it as homework, but works through the poem in class instead, or at least gives them a paraphrase of the poem. It gave me something to consider for the future; how can I challenge them appropriately and yet still support them? When I get my own class, I may be able to gauge this fine line better, knowing them from the beginning of the year and sticking with them year-long. The second day of Wordsworth was better; the poems were shorter, they were at least understanding enough to engage with me through the assigned questions and the questions I posed in class, and I was able to engage more people by specifically calling on them since I was picking up on their names.
I was pleased that I could include a couple of shorter activities to extend the poem into their own lives; there was a free write about their favorite place one day and a humorous video connected to Wordsworth’s passion for nature another day. They were able to think about and discuss our call from God when it comes to nature, and they also answered some homework questions that asked them to tie the poems to modern culture or give their reaction.
As I move into the next weeks, the main areas I’m thinking about are:
- Keeping more students participating. The nightly homework reflects that these students do have answers, and some of them have really thorough answers, to the questions about the poems. I want to hear more of that in class. Being able to ask specific students what they think about something does help get more students participating, and hopefully also shows them they will be called upon if they are visibly disengaging or haven’t said much in the class period.
- Is it possible for me, in less than two weeks, to transition into having the students really holding the discussion among themselves? Right now, it’s mostly me posing questions and they’re giving answers. I try to stick to questions, which I think is good if I want to remain mostly the facilitator and give them ownership of their learning. But it’s still me in control as far as moving the discussion forward, especially in 6th hour. It’s a tall order for me to change their discussion tendencies in less than two weeks, in the second semester. I’ll do what I can to remain the questioner and the facilitator, but I don’t know for sure that they will get to the point of commenting and building on one another with me having limited say before I leave.
- The 5th hour class is the focus group for my edTPA, and I really need to pick up on getting some of that work done
- I want to continue to find little ways to get the students to connect the nineteenth century poems with their lives. A lot of this comes through assignment questions and questions posed in class, and I have some plans already in place, so I hope that these plans go over successfully

The freshmen
    We are nearly to the point of drafting our papers, so not too far off track from the original plan before the past 4 snow days. However, there is an array of points of completion across the class. The majority of students are right where they’re supposed to be, doing no more nor no less; others have nearly 40 note cards, or had an outline drafted at the start of the week and have begun to write the paper; and others have only just begun the research. It’s an interesting position to be in, and one I know I will navigate again and again as a teacher. To an extent, it’s on the students; I can’t do the work for them. But it’s also about me -- how do I keep the students who are behind on task? How far do I extend deadlines for students who are behind because of sickness? And for those who are ahead -- how do I keep them challenged? How do I make sure they’re still doing the work correctly when I have so many other students who are behind them? This next week will be an interesting one, as I work with students at all of these levels, who are either ready or not ready to draft their paper.
The lessons themselves had ups and downs. I would think the explanation had gone well, but when I asked them to practice I realized less understood than I thought. Since I did include practice with the different writing elements that I taught, I was at least able to  work with students when they didn’t understand, so that was a plus. And like it goes with most of teaching, certain students or certain periods as a whole would get it quickly, so the lessons were useful. Plus, even if students struggled, they usually understood part of what was said so could either ask more specific questions or at least indicated something in the lesson was getting through. However, towards the end of the week, we started falling behind because we weren’t able to get through the full lessons I had planned, partially due to snow days, or due to time being taken up by students handing in their homework, and also due to my possibly over-ambitious planning.
As I move forward with this class, the main areas of focus include:
- Keeping students on task, especially if they’re in the group that haven’t been sick but are still behind. I’ll also have to focus on those students who were sick, and re-teach the  elements they may have missed or still don’t understand.
- Making sure what we’ve already learned is still being understood and used as they move into writing the paper
- Getting the students all the information they need, and remaining a support to students -- even those who don’t explicitly ask questions, because they may be those who need the support

    Remembering that I’m leaving after 9 more school days in this school is really sad. I would absolutely love to stay at NorthPointe. I feel like I’m just getting to know some of the seniors, I don’t want to leave behind my freshmen, and the teachers are such wonderful people to work with. I am going to make the most of the rest of my time in this supportive environment.