PhyreBards

I am conferencing tomorrow in order for her to review my lesson plan ideas. I am very excited about my topic and I cannot wait to finally get in front of the classroom with this great group. The unit is centered around the young adult novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I asked Ms. Rogers point blank if the students would be completing their reading as it was assigned. She gave me a funny look and said that she could not count on them to read outside of class and that with the novels the class read it together aloud in school. I am okay with this method if it is what gets the students reading and interested in the work; however, it’s a little discouraging that most of my class instruction time will be spent re reading the novel.

I do not remember reading a loud in class a lot, does anyone else recall doing this? Did students not simply fall asleep and not follow along? Do you suspect that some students were so nervous to read aloud in front of their peers that they missed the plot line of the novel? Are there any other options? I know that I will be doing this the way that Ms. Rogers knows best for this particular novel, but what about next semester with student teaching? I would like to be able to do this novel again (it’s great!).

I have been sort of just going through the motions of my practicum this semester. I show up ready to do some teacher things, but when I get to the class I feel as though I am at a loss of how to get more involved. Mrs. Cooley asked me if I wanted to lead a warmup which normally would be no big deal but it was a grammar centered warmup and I felt on the spot to know the grammar rule she was teaching. Maybe I should have swallowed my pride and just asked for a refresher but I didn't and an opportunity passed me by. The class is awesome and I have worked with a majority of the students last spring for another practicum. They are an advanced group of learners and Mrs. Cooley does a lot of great group activities with them. This makes me excited for when I teach my unit, because I know I can get creative with my lessons. However, I'm at a stand still because I have no idea what to do my unit on. I spoke with Mrs. Cooley but she just said that I could teach "whatever" and that she had no idea what they would be doing during the time I want to teach. I understand that she is probably trying to be flexible but English is not my primary concentration (math is) and I have no idea where to even start. Do I do a unit around a novel, short story, plays? I should probably send a similar email to Mrs. Cooley but does anyone have any suggestions? How do I narrow down what I'm going to teach?

Here's the post for the week of Oct. 8-14

Ok. So, does anyone else feel unprepared to begin teaching? I was panicking about my career choice today, merely because I feel so unprepared. All of my education classes at Elon have been theory based, and while I recognize the importance and significance of theory, I was hoping that one course would provide me with method and help me bridge the gap and directly apply all of the theory to the method. That's why while I was originally nervous and overwhelmed with the idea of going to this NCTEA conference thing, I am now really excited for it. I cannot wait for the idea room, and I feel that the experience will provide me with insight to a new aspect of teaching (attending conferences).


I know this is kind of a random post, but this is what's on my mind at the moment.

Here's the post for the week of October 15 - October 21.

I was kind of confused this week with our extremely brief discussion in class regarding grading - specifically the grading of individuals with learning disabilities. Someone had asked the question of whether an "A" received by a learning disabled student is different from an "A" received by a non-learning disabled student. We had agreed yes. However, I have always assumed that an "A" represented a student's best work done with the student's best effort given a student's individual capabilities. For instance, if the criteria to make an "A" is a strong thesis statement, a strong thesis statement for Suzy will look very different from Johnny's. If I always equate strong thesis statements with Johnny's writing then how will any other student make an A considering that no other student will write exactly like Johnny? I know that this approach requires knowing your students and knowing your students well, but is this concept completely off the mark? Did I misunderstand our discussion in class?

I'm starting to get nervous for the 5 day unit plan that we must teach during our practicum. I'm concerned for multiple reasons: (1)while the students are used to my presence, there are no opportunities to walk around and assist and my teacher hasn't invited me to do warm-ups (the only even potential opportunity to get minorly involved),(2)due to scheduling we have not been able to discuss topics or methods, and (3)my teacher has no real management plan set into place, so I'm unsure about whether or not the students will respect me. I'm unclear about whether or not we are restricted to teach in styles similar to our teacher in order to maintain consistency, and I'm wondering if this specifically applies to me because I am in an inclusion classroom. I know that some of the learning disabled students in the class will have some difficulty with changes in routine. Is anyone else nervous? What approaches are you all taking to transition your lesson into the context of your classrooms?