Content

Each class’s focus on a theme seemed to work OK. Nothing fantastic, but it added a certain cohesion that I can build on next year since I carved a big part of that out already. We always knew that everything we were reading was read for a certain view of our theme and I like the idea of that a lot. I’m just not sure of the reality of how to make it more meaningful to the students. Also, book groups are a great idea if I structure them a bit differently. Groups of students, all reading the same book together, resulted in more students liking what they were (supposed to be) reading and commenting about that. Some negatives there, too, but it’s a nice development for the outside reading requirement.

Interactions

It’s the negative interactions that stick out and haunt me. Students probably think I say what I say and do what I do, never giving it another thought. But I agonize over ever word I’ve said, every action I’ve taken. Even if I think I was right, if a student feels I’ve done something wrong, a small part of me agrees because I should never make a student feel that way in the first place. I had a bunch of great students this year and a lot of positive connections with the overwhelming majority of my students. I keep telling myself this to make up for the few negative ones. The thing is, those negative ones are ones I keep having year after year. Oh, sure, the names and details change, but I keep having that one kid that really should get along with me just fine and, for some reason, doesn’t. I keep having that kid whose skills don’t budge at all the whole year. I keep having that student who loved reading at the beginning of the year and who hardly read a single book independently by second semester. I keep having these archetypes and I haven’t figured out a way to deal with them. Plus, I just need to pay more attention to the people I share fifty-three minutes at a time with. I get caught up in the content and ignore chances for interactions entirely too often.

So how about you? Can you tell me one good thing that happened in the 2010-2011 school year, one thing you’ll definitely do again next year? And can you match that with one thing you’ll do everything to avoid? The comments, as always, are open.Similar Posts:

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They seemed intrigued and willing. Now I need to provide the context for them to engage in that discussion. Debate is still what I’m thinking here.

I gave my English 3 students outlines for keeping track of notes on the different sections of the novel. Those notes come in to me and I grade them for completeness. They help us walk through class presentations and take notes on what we all have to say. When I put this all in the frame of needing to write an essay when we get back from Winter Break, I think several perked up and saw the need for all of this paperwork. We still are presenting instead of discussing the novel, but this is a step in the right direction.

They seemed a bit more goal oriented in their group work today. Two-hundred pages later (the end of the novel) is too long to wait for the payoff for keeping notes and up to date on the reading. I need to make something happen sooner that rewards the notes and writing and reading.

Handout

This outline for notes is based on our Essential Questions, Section Paragraphs, and In-class Discussion questions, handouts that I’ve already given the students and posted in yesterday’s entry.

• OFOTCN 83-128 notes outline (Excel, PDF)

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In both of my classes right now, we’re into a certain way of running things and it’s not working. But the way I’m running things involved a lot of planning and I see where this could lead us and it’s where I want us to go. This ain’t the route to get there though, not exactly like this. I think there are some things I can do, though. But I wonder what you think.

Handouts

• F451: Discussion Prompt 1 (Word, PDF)
• F451: Essential Questions (Word, PDF)
• OFOTCN: Essential Questions (Word, PDF)
• OFOTCN: Section Paragraphs (Word, PDF)
• OFOTCN: In-class Discussion (Word, PDF)

Happenings And Observations

On the one hand, it seems like I’ve focused too much in English 2 on an idea that my sophomores are not gravitating toward. They can gravitate toward it, but I don’t think I’ve provided enough scaffolding for us to have a proper discussion about it. We’re reading Fahrenheit 451 right now and I want them to feel strongly about the issues there. I either want them to stand up and say, “No! Books should not be burned, dang it!” or I want them to yell out, “It’s about stinkin’ time that books go away! They are such a waste of time!”

What I’m getting instead are largely glances of supreme disinterest. Those “yeah, so what?” looks. They can do better than that, I just need to figure out how to push them there.

The first group discussion prompt I gave asked them to talk about whether or not the firemen in the novel are being successful. The prompt went on to ask about why that society has decided to get rid of “conflicting theory and thought.” The written results of that discussion left me less than inspired. I think we could arrange a debate on the issue and get the blood flowing a bit more. There’s also a spot in the novel where Montag basically asks of his wife the same thing I’m asking of my students: “How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

On the other hand, I’m asking my English 3 students to take in too many things, perhaps. We are reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest right now and I’ve broken the book into eight sections. For each section, there is a set of Essential Questions and a Section Paragraph to be completed as homework. Then we have a set of In-class Discussion questions to be completed, you guessed it, in class. They meet in groups and first discuss the Essential Questions for that reading, move on to their Section Paragraphs, and finally tackle the In-class Discussion questions together as a group. Then they report out on all of that stuff.

Now that I write it, that really doesn’t sound like a lot, but when most students come in with neither the Essential Questions answered nor the Section Paragraph written, they suddenly are striving to complete all of that work in the amount of time I give them to simply answer a question or two as a group.

What I’m getting instead are groups largely just sitting around talking about other stuff. They’ve got so much to do that they either don’t start or spend 5 minutes simply trying to decide which thing to tackle first.

So how do I broaden the focus in one class to be large enough to include everyone and narrow the focus in another class to give students concrete objectives to complete? I can do this. Open things up during my early classes and sift things out in my later classes. Anyone else having the case of two conflicting extremes at the same time?Similar Posts:

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What I Used To Do

Type the question into Word. Now make it font size 48. No, 56. No, 72. Naw, 64. Yeah, 64. Adjust the margins. .25″ should work. OK, make the font bigger. Size 72 works now! Go to View>>Full Screen. Make the window taller. Taller. Tall–Nope! Too tall. That looks good. Plug in projector, aspect ratio changes, so go through all that again. Font, bigger. Margins, smaller. Window, taller. Wait, make the font bold. Ouch! Sling it down to size 68. Nice!

What I Do Now

Drop the text into PowerPoint. Command+T to adjust the font size, color, and family. Plug in projector. View>>Slide Show. Done.

So What?

When you want to get big chunks of text on the screen, PowerPoint works much better than using a gigantic font size and presenting it through Word. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (no, no, of course not!). This is such a stupidly simply revelation to me that I can’t help but simply open and close my mouth repeatedly, unsure what to say to justify all this, yet at the same time hoping there’s at least one other teacher out there like me who just didn’t think to use PowerPoint this way. C’mon, ‘fess up.

True, this is death by PowerPoint and if I were giving a presentation you’d be well within your right to bludgeon me on the spot, take away my blogging credentials, and send me to the eighth circle of Hell. There are no images here; this is text on the screen. But, you see, I want text on the screen in this case. I want to show a writing technique. I want to show standardized test items. I want to show CAHSEE writing prompts. I want to go through a reading passage. The students need to be able to see it, but they don’t necessarily need a copy of it. Or maybe I want the questions students are working on in groups posted at the front of the room. Maybe we need directions for the latest presentation on the screen, in addition to or instead of them being on a handout.

I’m sure there’s other stuff that can be done here. I just wanted to share the observation that PowerPoint can be used any time you want to show pages of anything. Have two images you want to flip back and forth between? Instead of two windows that you click on, sometimes landing on your desktop instead, throwing off the rhythm of your discussion as you fumble for the right window, slap the images into PowerPoint and just arrow up or arrow down. Get those images positioned right and the contrast is improved by alignment of similarities or differences. Imagine Hocus Focus in PowerPoint. I’d get those differences nailed in, like, 30 seconds!

Examples

• Technicolor Paragraph: Word, PowerPoint
• CAHSEE Sentence Corrections: Word, PowerPoint
• CAHSEE Writing Prompts: Word, PowerPoint

I will be doing more of this.Similar Posts:

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Categories

Even if you don’t weight your grades (and I really don’t believe you should), you no doubt have categories your assignments fall into. For me, there’s:

• Assignments
• Vocabulary
• Do Firsts/Reading
• Writing

All of the work in my class fits into one of those categories. A few years ago, when I stopped weighting grades, I figured out the percentage of the final grade for each of those categories. That’s changed in a big way this year.

Points

In the past, roughly fifty percent of the total points available in the course have come from assignments in that Writing category. For me, those are formal writing assessments, places where I actually examine the quality of the writing, not just the quantity or existence of it. Those are the dreaded essays. Fifty percent of points, writing that I try my best to hold to high standards with as much objectivity as humanly possible when grading the subjective craft of writing.

This last semester? Roughly thirty percent came from the Writing category. Out of 2347 points available, only 745 came from writing, so about thirty-two percent.

Questions

Is that why my F rate went down? Is that why students’ grades are better? Is that the way it should be? For a long time, I’ve thought that the writing grade in an English class should be THE grade. I’ve even said that the grade a student earns in writing should be the highest grade the student can earn in the course. Since this is not the case, I’m worried that I’m sending students on with inflated grades. Or maybe I’m worried that I’ve always sent them on with deflated grades.

So that’s how I’m starting semester two, in the same existential crisis I’ve been in for years and years. I’ll let you know how that works out.Similar Posts:

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