Monday September 30, 2013

The more I interact with the students the crazier I think they are. It feels like they often times forget that I am an authority figure and talk to me in ways they probably should not. However, some of it is my fault as I slip up and let it happen sometimes. It's hardest to maintain the line when I am walking around and they are working on something independently or as a group; probably because there is less classroom structure during this time.
Overall, though, today went as well as could be expected. Everyone seemed particularly chatty, though it is homecoming week; that might have something to do about it. (Which I thoroughly enjoyed the costumes today as well as the carnival that went on.) I am having a tough time trying to decide if I should give them the extra work day or not for their projects. Some of them really need it and have honestly been working hard. Others have been goofing off the whole time, abusing the time they have been given. I guess tomorrow will be the telling point...
One final thought, while I was not overly surprised, as I have gotten to know the students pretty well, I was still taken aback when it somehow became my fault that they had low grades (which they saw when I handed out  grade check) and it was my responsibility to provide them a way to raise their grade to what they want it to be at. Guess they should have thought about that earlier in the semester!

Friday, September 27, 2013

Today was the first work day students received to work on their final projects. While everyone grumbled and complained about the work and did not want to do the final project, the participation and willingness, especially in my last two classes, surprised me. Since I gave them three options and each option required a different kind of creativity each student was able to find a project that they could excel at and would not mind doing. There are still a couple of groups that I am going to have to prod along to ensure they stay on task and having something to turn in at least.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

The class independently created timeline of events for Macbeth, then we reviewed it as a class, and finally I introduced the final project for Macbeth. The students were super concerned about whether they received a grade for the timeline or not since I did not collect it. I originally was not going to put any points on it, because the purpose of the activity was to give them some extra support to be able to better complete their final project. Somewhere along the way they picked up the idea that everything they do needs to be rewarded with a point value and go towards their grade.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Today was presentation day. The students had to get up in front of the class as a pair and present the work that they were working on the previous day. Again, a lot of them grumbled because they don’t like talking in front of the class. For those who I know particularly hate speaking in front of the class, I try to be encouraging while they speak and make them feel at ease. I also instruct the class to be on their best behavior and make it part of their grade to encourage the good behavior.

Tuesday, September 24, 2014

Today, instead of doing group discussion like I had originally planned, I had the students partner up and then assigned each group some scenes from Macbeth. There assignment was then to interpret the scenes, write down a bullet point summary of what happened, and apply two literary terms connected to the unit. Students worked surprisingly well, and while they grumbled about the change of plans they were interacting with the text, working through it, and understanding what was going on. The change plans forced them to participate and learn something on their own, and more specifically without me feeding them the answers.

Monday, September 23, 2013

My frustrations rose today as I have continued to realize how dependent a lot of my students are on me as a teacher to just feed them the answers. Today the game plan was to read a passage of Macbeth out loud as a class and then discuss it as a class. However, after I finally got volunteers to read aloud it was tooth and nails getting students to actually participate in the discussion. I would either have one student answering all of the questions or they were completely fine just sitting there and listening to crickets chirp. The group discussion skill is something that students need to learn, however, I was not prepared to teach this skill for this lesson and instead just wanted to utilize the skill. While I would still like to teach my juniors and seniors this skill, I am going to ensure in the future that when I have freshman that I teach this skill from day one. After school I discussed with Dena other options since I did not feel comfortable doing another day of group discussion.