Tuesday and Wednesday have simply been FANTASTIC! Just so I can re-cap and refresh my memory on what happened after Mopey Monday, Tuesday was awesome and a complete 180 degree in comparison. I led the Pre-APs in a Short Answer Practice analysis activity and Missy took over the rest of the block in order to prepare them for TAKS today. During Cheerleading, I had the pleasure of working with the JV and Fish squads to clean up their dance for the Fusion performance on Saturday, and when we arrived at the dining hall to practice, my eyes had difficulty adjusting to the brightness of the room because our classroom and teacher workroom are in the middle of the school and are yards away from windows. I expressed the look on my face and reaction to it verbally, and a student very sassily responded, "Ms. L, it's called sunlight. I simply smiled and nodded at her. There were a few girls chewing gum, upon which I asked them to spit it out because this was one of many things they are not to do during practice. Furthermore, a student in particular that I have been clashing with brought her phone to practice, which is a big no-no (common sense just seems to lack here) and I simply said her name as I held out my hand because she was texting during practice and had her hand me her phone. I even pulled her in because this was the second time I called her out for misbehavior and lack of focus and told her that I cared about her success, want her to know that I have nothing against her, and would like to see improvements on behavior consistently in the future.
I've still yet to speak with the student who created a scene about my taking up her note and was supposed to talk with her after class today, but the instant the bell rang she ran out of class. Another e-mail was sent to the parent about the missed meeting, and we'll have to meet up on Friday because it's just a bit white elephant in the room. Things were civil between us in class today, and I tried very carefully to watch my actions, words, expressions, etc. but I can't control the way I'm perceived by others completely if a bad intention isn't there.
I went to my cohort session immediately from the school at Thunderbird Cafe, and Anni started us on backwards planning units. I think it's a great exercise and practice for us in order to use the "means as an end" approach because it only makes sense to plan at an end so that the process of scaffolding and student learning reaches the goal the teacher has set. I've started it with A Midsummer Night's Dream since that'll be the text the On-levels will be working with after we finish Bless Me, Ultima by the end of this week and test out by the end of next week, and I'll have to do the same with Wuthering Heights for the Pre-APs since we're wrapping up Macbeth and testing out of that by next week, too.
I finally got to see Gino after about two weeks, and that's just too, too long a time to go without my buddy! We got to have dinner together and met up with Ange and Em at Starbucks afterwards to chat for a while, and it was good to get the gang back together for some giggles. Gotta love those girls! :)
I had to sit in the workroom during TAKS on Wednesday, so I spent about four hours planning lessons and doing research on A Midsummer Night's Dream and whatnot. For the last hour of testing time, I was pretty much brain-dead and about to take a nap. I chatted with a few of the teachers before I had to head back to the classroom to teach the On-levels for the rest of the day since Missy gave me the opportunity to do something low-key and not too academic, so we did Kaleidoscope Writing and Piggyback Poetry.
Before 5th block went to lunch, I turned on some classical music, turned on the overhead, and started dropping food coloring in a glass pie pan dish of water and spun it around and blew on it to change the directions of the dye. I asked the students to jot down anything that came to mind in a stream of consciousness manner until it was time for lunch. Right before the bell rang (and two murky water dishes later) I asked the students to share what they'd written. It ranged from illustrations to grocery lists to "I don't really feel like writing... what is this music... this is gay..." but I was happy to get ANY and ALL responses from the kids. I also asked them to get something to write with that was colored, anything but a #2 pencil since they'd been writing in that all day, and I knew they were sick of it! And this exercise is called Kaleidoscope Writing.
The kiddoes came back from lunch and we started Piggyback Poetry, which is an activity that starts out with three brainstorming lists of various topics - I chose animals, places, and colors - and the students pair up and share lists, add any that they like of their partner's ideas, pick three of their favorites or ones that are most interesting off each list. Then taking one item from each list that they checked off, I had them write three lines of poetry using those items. I modeled a poem for the students:
Mini-tuxedoes wobble, wobble,
Wobble to the black-and-white affair.
Snowsuits have a whole new meaning.
Some of the kids FREAKED OUT and said they couldn't write poetry, so I took some time to assist them and guide them - it was like pulling teeth just to get them to come up with something, even when we'd done the brainstorming and all they had to do was link the three things together in three lines. I didn't think the exercise was particularly difficult and thought it would be a fun way to get creative and see poetry in a different light, but it didn't end up that way for a few particularly challenging students. 6th, 7th, and 8th blocks were only 20 minutes long, so they got a short version of Piggyback Poetry, but I got a lot of smileys written as feedback from the kids, so they definitely liked the activity!
I've still yet to speak with the student about the disciplinary problems we've had (taking up the note) but hopefully will get a chance come Friday.
I was putting things away and cleaning up the desks after class when I told Missy about how I annoyed Anni by calling her "ma'am" and found out that it annoyed her too but she just hadn't said anything about it! She said Kendall did it all the time at the beginning and she told her to stop and would have to wean off saying it, so I've got to do the same thing. I'm just so used to speaking to people with the ma'am and sir southern tradition. Gonna be a hard one to break!
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