I attended the “Beyond the six traits” writing conference in Portland this last Friday. I was pleasantly surprised to find it very interesting and enlightening. I was hoping to come away with a few ideas and strategies for use in my classroom, but I could not have predicted the magnitude of information I walked out of the conference with! The most note-worthy (and the part I will describe here) is the “content editing” piece. He was talking about the five traits and that they are necessarily built on top of each other. He then went into the importance of the 5 step writing process we all know and love. Of these 5 steps, the revising step seems to be the most important. After explaining the difference between “revising” and “editing,” he gave us a hand out to use for revisions. I appreciate his strategy for content revisions because students tend to struggle with ADDING things to their “completed” papers. Many of them finish the rough draft and are ready to wash their hands of this “silly writing assignment.” Instead, this revision tool shows the students exactly what to add and where to build thier stories.
The revision works as follows. There are different colors associated with different revisions. For example, adding an adverb would be shown with use of the color green while adding an adjective would be shown with pink. To tell a student to add an adjective, you would highlight the noun you want modified with a pink highlighter. To tell a student to add an adverb, you would highlight the verb you want modified with a green highlighter. Synonyms are in orange (great for word choice), and there are many other revision points with corresponding colors as well. I like this tool because it creates mental cues for the students. As soon as I begin walking around with the pink highlighter, the students are cued that I will be looking for adjectives in their paper.
In addition, the students are better able to score and revise each other’s papers. Using the colors in a writers- workshop format, the student can better help with the revision and editing process. Overall, I am excited to put this tool to work in my own classroom!
I do have one anecdote for all of you. During the conferences, as many of you may know, you get to meet the people that created the monsters/ angels you teach. I found that many of my students were direct reflections of their parents/guardians. Once such student we will call AC. Her mother came into the gym and bounced over to my table. I greeted her and said that she must be AC’s mother. Her response was, “how did you know!?” I informed her that AC looks just like her, and that it was quite easy to tell.
We discussed AC’s grade (not one of my better students) and I told her that AC is struggling because of her effort in my class. She does not turn in her work and refuses to do most writing assignments. Her mother responded very oddly (please sit down while you read this). She told me, “oh, AC is NOTHING compared to her little sister.” (I’m thinking, great, when do I get HER!) “You think AC is stubborn! Well, when her little sister was a baby, if I didn’t just have it out in front of her” (she motioned to her chest) “she bit it!”
Now, how exactly do you respond to this statement? More importantly, how is the student teacher from PE sitting in on this exchange supposed to respond? Does he look at her, nod his head, and say “yes, I know what you mean!?” Haha, it was quite the conference!
This last week was an experience for sure! The students were only in school for three days due to conferences occurring on Thursday and Friday last week. This made for an interesting planning issue: what do you do with your students for three days that will be valuable six days later? Six days later, because the conferences let them off with two extra days, the weekend was two days, and Monday and Tuesday were used to observe Veteran’s Day.
Conferences were first. Being a core subject means that all of the parents want to discuss their student’s progress with you. We have an accelerated reader requirement of a certain number of points per quarter depending on the class you are in. These points usually equate to somewhere around 20% of the overall grade. This has been school policy since I was in the middle school here. Well, many students believe they don’t actually have to read; that it won’t actually affect his/her grade. As a result, by about noon on Thursday I had mastered the “Why we have AR” speech. It seemed to work on everyone, and there is no denying a grade when there are holes in my grade book.
Second, there was a holiday. This week has been interesting because after six days off, I spent most of Wednesday regrouping the students into a learning mindset. We had yet another State prompt writing that we needed to do with the 8th graders (they officially have spent 4 of 11 weeks testing, poor kids). The 7th graders had a substitute on Wednesday afternoon because of a curriculum meeting (see below), so they had “vocabulary work time.”
The curriculum meetings happen once a month for all core subjects. Each subject gets a different day. ELA usually meets on a Wednesday, the second week of the month in the afternoon for 5 hours. This could be a very effective meeting because we are doing Professional Learning Communities as a district to try to align curriculum both horizontally and vertically. However, it usually turns out to be a discussion between the elementary teachers who rarely get to see one another. Our curriculum director does a poor job of directing the flow of the conversation/discussion/argument back to including the secondary folks. The majority of the time, myself and my “mentor” teacher sit and write notes back and forth like we are middle school students ourselves. These notes range from comments about how much we hate our curriculum director (he was my AP history teacher in high school) and how the high school English teacher actually leaves his house dressed the way he does! Anyway, I am frustrated to find out that they will spend $30,000 on subs for these meetings that seem virtually pointless for us MS staff to attend! I like the PLCs, though, this is amazing collaborative work in the district and our test scores are reflecting the work!
As I headed into school today, I was stunned by the news our guidance councilor had for me. One of my students, we’ll call him DC, experienced a huge loss yesterday. His brother, we will call him KC, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Sunday evening. Apparently, DC’s parents came and took him out of school yesterday afternoon due to this tragedy. He was, however, back in school today- must to our surprise. I was somewhat at a loss of what to say or how to approach this situation in my classes, and was relieved to discover that I was not the only one spinning. Many of the staff had KC in their classes just a couple years before, and no one could have anticipated that he had this much pain inside of him.
Apparently, he and his longtime girlfriend broke up their relationship on Sunday. KC ended up trying to drink away the pain he felt and ended up deciding to take his own life. His roommate (also a Baker City grad) found him in their apartment later that evening. This roommate is the son of a staff member here at Baker Middle School.
Needless to say, the staff and students have been somber today. DC is amazingly himself for the most part which is a huge blessing as he is an amazing young man. I truly enjoy his contributions to my class (he has a lot!). I just ask that all of you in the MAT program keep this family and my town in your thoughts and prayers as the students struggle to make sense of what has happened. It seems that these events always stir up old emotions from past loses and tragedies and we end up seeing emotions in many we would not have expected. It is tougher, I believe, to see crocodile tears from a 12-year-old than from my own peers. I just wish I could grab them all in my arms and tell them that the world is not always bad, and that there are many things to live for. “This too shall pass.”
I am a language arts teacher; I want my students to write. As a result, I made a decision to have the students keep journals with at least three entries in class per week. Now that the quarter is coming to a close, I realize what a strain that is on grading! I found that there are some real give and takes when it comes to grading. In an ideal world, I would be able to have the students write on a daily basis, grade these compositions on the 6 traits, and have them returned the next day. Can you imagine the hours that would take!! So, I obviously had to make compromises from this ideal situation. My compromise has been to grade the journals on a “did you complete this, were you paying attention” basis. The students will get full credit for just showing up and doing the journal assignment.
Why am I spending my blog time writing about this, you may ask? I am writing because I am struggling with this informal assessment of the students’ knowledge. As I look through these journal entries, I have wondered if, by not grading on correctness, the students are still learning something. My justification originally was that they would be improving writing through writing a lot, and I hope that this justification was not unfounded! I realize that I am not able to spend hours each week grading papers on conventions, but I feel somewhat uneasy at not grading on conventions at all in these entries.I have spent the first quarter hammering on the 6 traits individually, and the students seem to grasp each one (of course within the context of the day spent on the trait).
My question to you, my fellow classmates, is how I may better serve my students in writing. I do have at least one paper per term that I am grading on all 6 traits of writing, and there will be at least three state assessments throughout this year as well. I do need to have time for the literature element of middle school language arts, but would like any suggestions you may have on improving my grading structure. These are the moments (sorry Math people) where I wish my subject was more linear and straightforward. If I had “units” in a book with somewhat logical tests that would follow, it seems that these grading/ curriculum questions would be less intrusive.
As I have previously blogged, my first supervising experience was less than encouraging. My principal was equally unimpressed and promptly removed the supervisor. I have a great supervisor now; one that is willing to give constructive criticism while maintaining some confidence in me. He has had exceptional things to say to me, and has given me a lot to chew on as I progress through this student teaching experience.
As did many of you, I picked the class that was the best behaved for my observation. This class consists of about 20 angels and 5 kids who would rather not be the ones to start something (not perfect, but not bad either). All of them are so conscious of my opinion that I feel they strive to stay on my good side. I was shown, however, that even the best classes have their days! My mentor said it might have been due to the full moon we had last week. Whatever the reason, these kids went nuts!
My supervisor arrived early during our advisory period to make sure he wouldn’t interrupt my class. My student council was working on video “commercials” for Red Ribbon Week. We laughed about their antics, and discussed the lesson plan for the following class period. My students funneled in, and the tardy bell rang; we began class.
I had thought I had a totally hip and fun lesson planned for these kids. I was showing voice through four versions of the song “Summertime.” It ended in playing Sublime’s version of the song. There was only one major problem: no one knew who Sublime was! I had based the interest portion of this lesson on the fact that the students would recognize the melody of Sublime’s song in the opera instrumental from “Porgy and Bess.” They didn’t. I lost them. Many of them struggled to stay interested, and I did get participation from them. But, they took the slightly obscure day and used it as an opportunity to be off task and excited.
I discovered that it is as important to have a solid back-up lesson for failures as it is to have a few tricks in your pocket for extra time and punishment. I only had activities for the latter situations, not for the occasion when my actual lesson plan starts to crumble! My supervisor was more than understanding and still felt that I controlled the chaos well. He assured me that it was still obvious that my students respected me and look up to me as the teacher. He also pointed out that if everything always went as planned, teaching would be a much easier occupation- then ANYONE could do it!
I anticipated that the students- especially girls- would look to me as someone to talk to. I am young, “with it,” and may appear to have a more valuable judgement on the “important” middle experiences and questions. I have all but been inundated by girls. There is a group of about 10 girls who have made RM 18 their home for lunch. These girls quiz me on boys, clothes, and all other pertinent information they can try to squeeze out of me. I usually skip around their questions without them even knowing I had dodged them. At the end of the day, these girls are just looking for someone to look up to and trust. I am more than happy to be that person for them.
Yesterday held a different problem. I had sat in curriculum meetings all afternoon, and ran back to my classroom to grab a few things to work on at home. I stopped at my filing buckets to file some students’ papers that were left by my TA’s, and the usual flux of students came in to say hello. One girl in particular stopped in seeming to need to actually talk. I do not have this girl in class, but I am her volleyball coach. I still found her behavior somewhat odd, so I asked the other student in the classroom to shut the door on his way out.
When he did, this girl melted. She started to cry and shake, and she confessed to me some horrid things. She is an adopted child. Her adoptive parents are now divorced with a felony each. Her dad’s new girlfriend has three children; one being a 19 year old boy. You can probably guess where this is heading. She told me about what this boy had done to her, and I asked if she understood that I am a mandatory reporter. She said she understood, and continued to tell me all about her troubled life.
Needless to say, I was petrified. I all but flew down the stairs to be debriefed by my school councilor and ask if I had handled the situation appropriately. He informed me that she has had made numerous false claims against males that have resulted in her being professionally treated outside of our school district. She has many emotional issues, and I can tell she is just hurting badly. It breaks my heart to think about it. Especially when I remember that statistics say 1 in 4 students are sexually abused or have been sexually abused.
Like I said, I anticipated being someone for the students to look up to and want to chat with. I never really prepared myself for being someone who would be told these sorts of things. Now, I am prepared, and I would be happy to be an open door for ANYONE who needs to come chat. I just hope that these incidents are few and far between- I don’t think my heart can take it!
There has been a murder in Eastern Oregon- a pretty big deal anywhere, but if this happens somewhere with a population hovering around 10,000 a single murder wipes out .01% of the community! Well, the town of La Grande experienced this unfortunate drop in persons, and my supervisor happened to have a link to this tragedy. Her daughter is best friends with the daughter left behind by the murder. My supervisor decided to take in this girl and her brother since no next of kin seemed to exist anywhere. I was super understanding of her misfortune and warm heart, and allowed my supervisor to “take as much time as needed” for her to get her feet under her.
Big Mistake!! She turned out to be a nightmare! I have heard nothing but great things about myself (not to toot my own horn) since I started with the kids at Baker Middle School. Parents have been telling both my principal and mother what a wonderful job I am doing with their son/daughter. Needless to say, when my supervisor was finally comfortable making the trek from La Grande to Baker City (about 50 miles), I was more than confident she would have great things to say- with some constructive criticism, of course.
I saw her during my second period class hovering in the hallway listening to the end of my lesson. I appreciated that she did not interrupt my class, and was still excited to meet her and begin this process. She came in between classes and introduced herself. I asked her to have a seat- in my favorite chair! She stayed for the following two classes and took about six pages of notes. I figured it was a lot of writing, but I was still confident in myself as my classes somehow took the cue to be angels without my saying anything. Finally, I sent my fourth period TAG class to lunch and took a seat next to my supervisor for a briefing. I told her I had about 45 minutes for lunch before my 5th period class would be back (including the passing periods). She said that there were many things she wanted to discuss with me- she wasn’t kidding! After 45 minutes of berating my classroom management skills, lunch was over and my 5th period was waiting anxiously in the hallway. Needless to say, I was shaken. My feet had been knocked from beneath me; my confidence was shattered.
Unlike some, I do not have a mentor that could have stepped in while I regained my composure. I had about 10 seconds to “shake it off” and go on being the teacher I know I am. Easier said than done! By the time my 7th period prep came around, I was a mess. I ran down to my mentor’s room and asked if I could talk to her. It was here that I finally broke down about how I thought I was awesome, and now I wasn’t sure. She assured me that this supervisor had no right to say any of those things to me and obviously hadn’t been paying attention- she may have even been intimidated (great mentor, huh!). By the time I got back upstairs, my principal was waiting. She said that she almost felt like crying herself because she couldn’t believe what “that woman” (this is what we call her now at BMS) said to me. She assured me that I am STILL one of the best first year teachers she has seen, and that she has every confidence in my abilities.
To make a long story not much longer, I have a new supervisor now. I learned to be on my toes and expect the unexpected. I also learned that I need to be able to take criticism, no matter how unfounded it seems. In addition, I learned that my confidence in myself was not misplaced, and I should have believed stronger in that fact. I am still confident that I am doing my best and succeeding in my craft to the extent that I expect myself to succeed this first year. I ROCK!!!
My first week of school has slowly morphed into a streak of light in my memory. I anticipated that the first few days would fly by and I would be left disheveled wondering what, exactly, had just happened. I did not, however, realize just how fast the first week would actually go!
The first day of school was reserved to have only 7th graders come in and figure out life as a middle-schooler before the 8th graders came. It was a very productive day overall, and the quiet, fearful 7th graders were chatty and energetic by day’s end. This first day was impressive in its usefulness to the self-efficacy of these students. Even the most secure of the 7th grade students was timid and shy during the morning’s events. After attending workshops and practicing with their lockers, the students were anxious to get the school year started; as was I.
The first real day of school- with both the 7th and 8th grade classes- is the day that stands out for me in this first week. I held a “snowball” fight in each class as a get-to-know-you activity. The class was asked to put 3-5 details about themselves on a piece of printer paper. I then showed the class how to crumple the paper into a snowball-like shape. Once everyone had snowball in hand, I told them to “let it fly.” They threw their characteristics all around the room. When I yelled “stop,” each student found a snowball on the floor and unfolded it. We then went around the room and tried to guess which student the snowball belonged to. The students were stunned that I allowed them to throw paper at each other. By the end of the week, Mrs. Lee, my mentor and other language arts teacher, had students asking if they could join Ms. Brookshire’s class! She responded that I would not, in fact, be throwing paper every day this year, and that they would have equally as much fun as my class had on that first day. Mrs. Lee is an amazing teacher (I had her myself as a middle school student), so I have faith that those students will enjoy their year with her as well!
My teaching experience has been more than expected, and so far only positive. This past week, our school held an open house for the parents to come visit with their students’ teachers and see the school (I believe we always hope someone will be so appalled with the condition of the school they will write us a big check for a new one). I was very nervous going into this evening for many reasons: I was in charge of the bake sale, this was my first open house, and I would be scrambling from my coaching duties to my teacher duties with no time to change hats along the way.
First of all, I am the leadership adviser at the middle school. My student council group decided to hold a bake sale during open house as a fund raiser for our club. The morning of open house, there were NO baked goods to be found save for my trusted president’s contribution of brownies and cookies. I called my mother to have her prepare some cookies, and she saved the day with a mixed variety of 8 dozen cookies. I also threw out some EC to anyone in my class who would show up with some cookies, and I ended up with a full table of goodies (and some points to distribute!). The bake sale went off without a hitch.
I was also nervous because this was my first open house as a teacher. I was afraid that parents would realize how young I am and turn around running. In addition, I wasn’t sure what exactly open house entailed- what my job was. To make matters more complicated, I had to run from coaching volleyball across town to the open house in about 20 minutes. This was not enough time for me to relax and think through what I needed to do. When all of the parents began filing in with their students, I began to realize that I would be just fine. Most of these parents said their student asked to them to meet me first because I was the favorite teacher! By the end of the night, I was exhausted. But, I had just had a huge boost of self-efficacy for my career. For the first time this year, I truly felt that I could do this!
