some ideas for the new unit

so i've been trying to find some sort of angle to place upon the reading of our new book, the memoir A Long Way Gone. and by trying i mean ideas have trickled in and out of my head when i've put my brain to it, and now that i'm trying to rest in my bed and plan for tomorrow, i've begun to think about the book as a whole, and the unit as a whole.

i had originally titled a lesson plan with my unit as "the struggle for voice." a bit of a play, as ishmael beah's struggle is about escaping the war, joining the military as a boy soldier, and eventually coming to grips with his emotional scarring and past after having been "rescued" of sorts by UNICEF (i will never know what that acronym stands for...until i look it up). the voice part is that, according to my mentor teacher, J, his ultimate purpose in life is tell his story, and that's why he wrote that book. it's the one way he can come to grips with his past and get some reconcilliation.

there is a scene in the book where he applies and gets accepted to this UN conference of many different children from countries bound by terrible conflict. the children share their stories, cry, and comfort each other with all this. then ishmael goes back to freetown, the capital of sierra leone. the war suddenly comes into the city; he must escape again, and he does, and though the story ends before he goes back to NYC, we know that's where he ends up. points of it all, is, so he escaped, but how does he deal with his past? storytelling, aka finding his voice.

thus, "the struggle for voice." i hadn't thought much of it til now, nor what i wanted to do with it. i always had this wonderful idea of bringing in some speakers to help me out with finding voice, but it was more of a pipedream than anything else. now, i think it might work with some planning, which i'm getting a bit better at doing.

here are my ideas for the unit:

• name is "the struggle for voice." filter the book through two themes: struggle and voice. introduce the idea of theme as opposed to main idea (something they'll be struggling with a bit, but i think we'll figure it out) (mass standard/power standard 11.3)
  
• link the previous unit on empowerment to struggle and voice.
• since we're doing the talent show fundraiser, have all the kids work on their reading fluency and performance (mass standard/power standard 3.8)
• bring students each day to the auditorium to hold class...it'll be a nice break from the classroom environment, plus a fantastic way to use space in order to read passages.
• work consistently on reading fluency (3.8), performance of passages in the book, and enforcing the idea that good readers focus on the whole text, not just the words. the question is, though, how? any ideas?

so that's that...if anybody has any ideas, i'd love to share them.

a bit of an update

hello friends. sorry for not having posted for so long. things have gone here and there. february break came and went. we're back into the grind and i've been through a rollercoaster of a three-day stint of school days.

something that i've found super uber challenging is making the material i have in my classroom my own. over the previous weeks before feb. break, i came up with this whole big unit on EMPOWERMENT (something that the kids definitely got, i think, in the end). it was something i struggled immensely with, having tons of ideas and not enough time or the capacity to do well, due to time constraints. i honestly don't know if i want to continue with those ideas during the two and a half months we now have for our new novel (A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier), but it's quite possible i can muster up something that creates some daily activities for the kids. i think i'm not going to try to reinvent the wheel, while still being as creative as possible during this whole book thing. i'm getting more and more excited about this as i go, i think, which is nice. third day back from vacation, and now i feel a bit more invested in the project.

this whole project beginning is something called a gallery walk, where the kids have a load of information up on a wall that they can take down and read over and take some notes on facts they find, powerful words and phrases, and lingering questions. the ultimate goal is for them to do a writing process piece: either a poem or a letter. the topic is the war fought in sierra leone from '91 to '01. i find a lot of people latching onto some good information, and i think what'll happen is we'll get some really good poems out of this in one of my class, and some really good letters out of the other class.

all this is the introduction to the memoir we're reading. we're going to be doing some cool hands-on stuff, because we're doing a fundraiser for sierra leone involving TONS of artistic things: poetry recitation, painting, african dancing, a skit, lots of things. it'll be quite interesting, i think, and very, very fun. i think part of the learning process will be how to really speak loud and proud, because the stage is big and they need to project. i want to teach them how to speak loudly with their voices and bodies. that'll be a big goal for me. i mean, we all know how i get into poetry (please see other blog, hah), and so performance is an integral part of it all, afterall. but, on the academic side of things, i'd like to see if anyone has something they'd like to suggest. i'd love to hear any ideas, and am throwing this out to the public:

what reading strategies can i do promote stronger reading skills like comprehension and interpretation?

anywho, lots of stress the past couple of days. now, i'm more into this thing. i'm trying to make this my own, even though i never came up with the ideas. let's make this work!

i feel like an a-hole

i yelled today. real loud. so loud, another teacher opened the door and peeked her head through to check if everything was ok. i forgot that when i have a loud voice, i really have a loud voice. my problem is, when i get frustrated out of my mind i yell. it takes a lot to get me to yell. i haven't done anything like that since teaching in santiago. i guess it's almost a repeater. i won't do it again, i'm sure. but something's gotta happen with this class. they're so unruly and the idea of controlled chaos as opposed to utter chaos is unknown to them.

one of the teachers suggested an entire class detention. if they can't do anything on my time, do it on their time. they have to learn as a class who's in charge. does that work?

what works for a class that has adhd/add problems as well as a general uber-hyper sense? how does discipline go? i've already done student contracts. tossed out the window, that thing. any tips? i'm puttin this out to the general republic.

i'm an english teacher, right?

so i had a student point out to me that instead of the word assessment, i wrote "assment."

he says to me, "mr. r, i think you spelled assessment wrong."
i take a look at gasp, "OH! oh...um, thanks, n!"

as i was correcting it, i heard him whisper to his neighbor, "he wrote assment..."


yes, indeed, my life is full of friendly surprises.

learning, and learning more

i have a lot of work to do with this literature circle stuff.

this is most definitely the biggest learning experience i've ever had. both in terms of doing things on my own terms (which i will obviously have to do), and how to make up for when i sort of fail.

re: fail

the writing process: brainstorming; draft #1; revision; editing; final draft.
what i got accomplished: brainstorming; draft #1; partly revised, partly not revised; "final(slashonlydraftthatsomeactuallyaccomplished) draft."

what did i learn? that's the subject and title for another blog post.


re: literature circles

it looks interesting, and looks like it'll be completely fun. but, i have to hand out all the different papers that the kids need in order to collect all of their information. otherwise i'm kinda up a puddle without a paddle. i've printed them out, and am hoping that they are in order, and make sense. if not, i'll improve them as they go.


re: general

in general, things're much better than last week, and i think i'm realizing a little more how to handle the different tasks ahead of me. optimism indeed.

more teaching blues

today was not a good day in terms of writing instruction. my second class is just terrible when it comes to self-esteem issues in their writing, and i just don't seem to understand what to do when certain kids give up like they do. accusing me of not ignoring them? crossing out an excellent paragraph because it's "dumb"? what do i do? i gave up. i mean, not during class, but right after--i just didn't know what to do.

i'm trying to prepare the kids for this interim assessment, which is essentially a 7th grade MCAS long-comp. the subject is "empowerment"--it's something that we defined a little bit ago, but there's this real divide between those who get it and don't, and those who, probably because they don't get it, hate the work and refuse to do it and those who do get it and do the work. it's like the mason dixon line, it's that deep.

i'm going to try and re-teach the idea of empowerment. try and get it back into the definition and what it means for them. try and clear the air and clear the air and clear it so that it's more like a spring day than these winter gray days. i just don't know if i'm accomplishing much, and if, at the end of all this year, they're going to walk away with anything. that sounds depressing, but i'm just not sure if the teaching points i wanted to get accomplished are on their way. i suppose it's all work, and that i'm really only, what, seven months into my new career as a teacher, and that i'm still a student teacher at that?

on another note...

i'm learning new stuff about wikis and blogs and such--i mean, really wikis. it's very interesting, and seems to me like a very cool thing to tool around with. i'd love to do this with my kids in class, but i wonder how i can really do that with the kids in school? to create a website to use while they're reading a book? is this something we can do each week? we'll see. i'm going to be experimental: create the wiki for the book and the tasks the kids're gonn' have to do, and then go for the gold and say: extra credit for the groups that stay after school and put the final products up on the web. so...we shall see!

a wonderful surprise in my mailbox at school

Dear Mrs S., Mrs B., Mr. R., Mr. R., Mr. D.,

You guys are great teachers, the student coucil said to pick 1 (one) teacher but you teachers are so wonderful I just couldn't do it so here are individual reasons you are wonderful teachers at how you teach.

(i'm exempting the other teachers, but theirs is either similar and just as amazing as this)

Mr. R.: Always keep it straight. Uses the think & share solution. Never uses the easy road out. Always will be their [sic]. Not a pushover [my bold!!!!! yay!]. Will always help out!


Sincerely, TC [a student of mine]



this has to be the coolest thing i've ever seen in my life. it makes me feel amazing and wonderful and i'm so happy. i'm extremely happy, also, to hear that i'm not a pushover--because i've been wondering about that, and have been quite worried about it, too. whatever the think & share solution is, i guess i use it! that's pretty fun, no?

so, here i am, back in school, and i'm trying to plan out the introduction and subsequent reading of a novel, entitled The Skin I'm In. i've had idea after idea, and i think they might be a little overwhelming and too much in terms of planning things out. i originally planned to have weeks that're themed--that is, getting some supplementary material into the classroom so that it involves a bit of pre-reading. it'll help contextualize what i want them to draw out of this book: empowerment. i really hope i don't milk this thing so much that empowerment loses its life-force, its chi, if you will. but, i do want a few supplementary materials here and there. maybe i'll just do it here and there for the heck of it. or something. anyways, that's my weekend dillemma: how to introduce this novel. there's a children's book that's a tie-in. it's a "first look at racism" book, and my J. wrote a few MCAS-style multiple choice questions for a quick quiz. i might do that as well, copy it, and put in maybe an open-response or a few more multiple choice questions thrown in about empowerment (just so i can tie that in, keep it consistent with the rest of the novel). oh that is going to be an intense little weekend (read: sunday) planning session.

in the meantime, i'm pretty happy bout my technology class (except for missing Shabbos dinner for a complete month with the fam).

i'm considering having one of my students continually sent to a buddy room as soon as she gets her work so she just quits the disruption. we'll see. i need her in sometimes just so i can check her work, but it's tough. she's just so distracting, and the room does so much better when she's not in the room. it's ridiculous. anyways, here's to hoping. and here's to introducing novels!