Online Reflection #2, or Help!

So many things have happened since my last blog post both good and bad. I have a couple of experiences I want to relate and seek advice from you all on. My first experience deals with the first time my CT was gone and it was only me and the sub with the class. Since I had spent the majority of the time with the class and had more experience with them, the sub essentially let me take over. The class was supposed to be reading silently by themselves but they kept acting out. They weren’t able to focus on their reading at all and I constantly heard conversations about their friends, what happened last night and what they were planning on doing later that day, but nothing about The Odyssey. I quickly got frustrated with the class, I think I hid it pretty well though. By the end of class, they were up out of their seats moving around and I constantly had to ask them to sit down. My main question with this situation is if you guys have any suggestions as to how to control that kind of situation. I’ve visited briefly with my CT about what happened and she gave me a few suggestions but I’d love to hear other pieces of advice. Obviously the same suggestions aren’t going to work every single time which is why I would love lots of suggestions for how to control a situation like this that could happen in the future.

                I had a question that I posed for today’s Socratic seminar but never shared it but I’d like to hear some of your thoughts. Interestingly enough today’s reading from Bomer was focused on something that I’ve been thinking about for a while, especially while observing the students in my classroom. In most of chapter four he focuses on what we can do to initiate outside reading from our students and help them to become lifelong readers. I have a few ideas as how to facilitate this but I am extremely curious as to what other ideas you have. I feel like students frequently feel like we are assigning them the most boring books or that we read these types of books all the time, not realizing that we aren’t constantly reading “the canon”. I don’t think any of them realize how important it is to be a lifelong reader for so many reasons but at the same time, telling them those reasons won’t be a good solution either. I know I shared the idea of using outside reading as an extra credit opportunity but I’d love to hear any other methods, activities, or strategies you might have to facilitate their lifelong reader status.

Online Reflection # 1, or Wandering the Halls

My first three weeks at my cooperating school have been fantastic. As I stated in my previous blog post, my CT is very welcoming and open to me being in her classroom, which is somewhat of a first for me. We are currently gearing up to start The Odyssey tomorrow and she has been letting me teach small portions of the major lesson each day to get my more familiar with the classroom and with the students. I have learned all of their names which are a big help as well.

Upon reading the first chapter of Randy Bomer’s textbook “Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms”, I instantly realized that my CT operates on the workshop method.  Bomer says that “A workshop structure (Atwell 1986; Bomer 1995; Rief 1992) takes its name from its similarities to spaces where people work on projects across time” (Bomer 13). Bomer goes on to explain that in the English classroom, students can expect to come back every day and pick up where they left off on a writing assignment. My CT doesn’t necessarily take it quite this literal. She does a lot more reading and connection activities than writing. However, the students can expect to know where they’ll start in their reading, based on where they left off on the previous class. One thing that she does that Bomer advocates is making sure they are connecting while at school. He says, “the defining feature, the only nonnegotiable element of a workshop classroom, is that time when students actually engage in literate behavior-right here on campus!” (Bomer 13). She does a lot of in class reading and note taking exercises. Today she explained to me that she does this for two reasons. One, so that she can make sure the reading actually gets done and two, so that she can monitor their progress, understand and development of the text. It’s much harder to do these things when the students constantly take home their homework.

I also got to walk hall duty with my CT today and helped her to hand out tardy detention slips. I was quite surprised that many kids were still walking in thirty minutes after the school day had started! We also met today to discuss “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding and what role I would play in planning around 4-5 days at the beginning of the unit. She shared with me her plans and worksheets from last year when she taught it but said I was free to change or add any projects/activities/team building exercises I thought would be fun. I feel blessed to have been placed with such a wonderful teacher and mentor and I cannot wait to continue this semester with her and with the freshman!