100th post, and what news!

I've officially been fired by DCPS. I've been RIF'ed, IMPACTed, "excessed," and I am officially one of the 200+ fired this 2010-2011 school year. Well, at the very least, I have a job.

Speaking of which, here's the newest list of jobs: English I (9th grade) + Textual Analysis (read: Reading Workshop), and 10th grade Honor's English.

My biggest fear, I'm not very good at analyzing long novels. In fact, I realize that I never did a lot of long-novel analyses, and, in fact, all my college work in that realm was a lot of content, and not much skill. I mean, that's most of what college is, developing the skill of in-depth analysis instead of basic skills analysis.

I wonder, teachers: what's your biggest fear in teaching something new?

short stories

Anyone know any good short stories that are good for 9th graders, but also are easily digestible for students that are struggling readers?

creating curriculum

The easiest thing in the world is to take a curriculum that's done for you and ride it. I think that's how I felt the first year I started teaching. I never created. Last year, I tried, but felt pressure so hot and pressed against my face that I just did what I could with what was given to me, and did what I thought was best: teach it, but teach it slower. Now, I have a whole new challenge up against me: choice.

My students are supposed to read Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Romeo & Juliet, a poetry unit, and an expository (non-fiction) unit. There are clear goals for each of the units, products laid out, and everything seems rather organized. It's the curriculum my lovely 9th grade partner-in-crime, er teaching, has sent me. She said to me, "Do it as you see fit." Thus, my problem: choice.

The thing I see, or rather, that I don't see, is a cohesion that unifies each, um, unit: a theme. Expeditionary Learning's taught me that a curriculum should be the investigation of a question, and one of my favorite things to look at is the question of power. I just don't know the question just yet. What I learned from this inquiry-based professional development thing that I did over the past two weeks, is that children (adolescents) have an innate curiosity about them (this is the supposed belief...I can dig it), and that they, themselves, can ask those kinds of questions. I just have to be mindful of what that question leads to.

A thought, though, and I think this might be it: What is power? What does it mean to have power? Usually, my thought process goes to things like superheroes, dictators, self-empowerment, and words. One of the goals that seems to be pervasive in this curriculum outline is the subject of power: censorship; propaganda; totalitarianism; the power of an author's choices and how that affects tone, theme, plot, and characters; the power of words and grammar in a student's writing; the tragic power of fate vs. the conflict of self-determination and fate (R&J). The list goes on.

Does this work? I'm going to have to think a little more about this, and figure out how to wrap these around, and also how to coax questions about power out of my new 9th graders.

aaaand, i have a new job

Yup. That's right, folks. I'll no longer be employed by DCPS. Instead, I'm entering into the private realm. We'll see how this goes, but I'm excited for the change in scenery. I'll still be teaching remedial, but this time within the context of a normal English class.

Details later once I find out.

the news so far

So, as it is, I can't be fired from DCPS yet because there's some clause in the contract, according to my union rep, that my first year doesn't count. And I haven't been given a "you're fired" letter from my school, so that's that. Meantime, I'm having a chat with a principal tomorrow at a different school (gulp) to discuss the job. We'll see what happens.

i've been impacted

Joking aside, I'm probably going to be excessed this summer. I just had my post-conference with my admin, and I got a 1.9, which means that, in total, just counting observations, I have a 2.3. CSC (which is a fucking impossibility in my school) looks like all 1's, and TAS looks like all 1's, also. Wonderful.

Here's to you, DCPS. But more importantly, here's to you, dick administrator. So what's next for me? Charter? Private? Stay tuned!

My Galley, charged with Forgetfulness (Sir Thomas Wyatt)

My galley, charged with forgetfulness,

Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass

'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine en'my, alas,

That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;

And every owre a thought in readiness,

As though that death were light in such a case.

An endless wind doth tear the sail apace

Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.

A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,

Hath done the weared cords great hinderance;

Wreathed with error and eke with ignorance.

The star be hid that led me to this pain;

Drowned is Reason that should me comfort,

And I remain despairing of the port.

I was observed by my administrator on our canceled field day: a day that I never expected to have to scrounge up a lesson, because I don't teach first period, which was supposed to be our only period of the day.

I believe, according to IMPACT, if you get, one year, a bad evaluation, you have an "improvement plan," and another year to recuperate. If, however, you have two years in a row, then you're out of DCPS. IMPACT scholars, is this true? If that's the case, most likely, I'm cooked, I'm pretty sure of it.

I'll talk with my administrator, see if I can get a hint at whether he saw improvement, which means whether or not I fucked myself over too hard. Either way, I'm a nervous wreck. Not a good feeling on my last few weeks of school, huh? Field day tomorrow, but a normal day with other students. More news on the next few days with period four: we're reading for fun, how interesting is that??