Totally Different Placement

Let me preface this blog by saying in my last placement, I had to have cohesive lesson plans scheduled at least 3 days in advance (if not a week). This was more so an extension of my anal retentiveness, but a requirement by my first co op nonetheless.

What I like about this placement is that I am given free reign of what I want to do and how I want to do it in my lessons. Unlike my first placement, Courtney and I don't sit down together and plan out the week. Instead, it's my job to figure out what I'm doing and where I'm going independently. Thankfully, she gives me plenty of feedback, but she expects me not to run to her over every little thing; I appreciate this because I need to find myself as a teacher and not only take responsibility, but ownership of all my lessons.

This week I've been team teaching with Courtney with my 5th block seniors. This week, Courtney took the first 20-30 minutes of class to go over occasional papers, journals and scribe notes. Afterward, I took the remaining time (anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes) to introduce new material surrounding Animal Farm (I'm so happy to teach this book!)

The first 3 days of this week were dedicated to introducing fables and having my students write their own fable with a moral at the end. In the beginning of the week, I wasn't very confident with my seniors. Knowing that we are so close in age, I was fearful that they would try to call me out, or worse, not listen to a word I had to say. Also, they all love Courtney, so I was afraid I’d hear “We want Ms. Moore back, she’s so much better!”

However as it turns out, my seniors are great and very respectful. There are definitely some senior students who are ready to get out of high school, but they remain respectful nonetheless.

Since I’m teaching Animal Farm, I’ve dedicated this week to introductory “hook lessons”. In the beginning of the week, my class read traditional fables and identified the elements of a fable: main characters as animals, character has downfall, some commentary on human nature (usually negative or unflattering) and a moral/lesson. Afterwards, I had my students write their own original fables. Some of them were griping, but once they got going I had some really original pieces of writing. One thing that surprised me was that my students did not know how to write dialogue. I ended up having to do a mini lesson on dialogue and the use of quotation marks and proper indentation. I realized later that a lot of students still struggled with dialogue in their papers and that was my fault. Making sure that all of my students are on the same page continues to be a struggle for me.

On Thursday we were talking about effective leaders and what makes leaders effective. Afterward, I narrowed the scope of discussion and asked my students if communication is needed in order to be a good leader. All of my students agreed, and then we wrote another list of qualities in an effective communicator. In order to tie it all in, I pulled up pictures of 4 different leaders: Gandhi, MLK, Hitler, and Charles Manson. After giving them each a little description, I had my students watch clips of each leader speaking. Using the list we compiled earlier, I wanted my students to watch for certain things and decipher what EXACTLY these leaders do when they speak: how do they project their voice, what is their body language like, how are their facial expressions, what is the style in which they articulate? The students LOVED this! Plus, I made it a point to find clips of speeches that weren’t as well known…. THANK YOU, YOUTUBE!

Since we do ALL of the reading in class, we should move through the novel fast. I intend to get in the meat of Animal Farm by Monday. Wish me luck!