Today Ms. Hogue and I were able to reflect on how 2nd hour went to make changes for 7th hour in English 11. This was very useful. I reflected on some things that I would have done differently that I didn’t do in 2nd hour, like review the assignment since we had a long weekend, provide reading strategies and give tips for completing and distributing the work. I gave this preview in 7th hour, which helped them understand what they were doing, but most students did not use the time and blew it off. Some other reflections that Ms. Hogue had on the assignment were to make some sort of real world connection using a piece of reading people would read in the outside world. This pre-reading strategy would give students meaning and reasons for reading this. When I gave the assignment last week, I was crunched for time. That is not an excuse for skimping on talking about why we’re reading this and giving a real-world connection. Seeing as students don’t seem to be doing well with this, it is definitely essential to provide that for them before they begin. If I were to do it again, I think Ms. Hogue’s idea using a pre-reading strategy would be very useful and also essential to make this a successful lesson.
We had our last discussion day for Speak in CE9 today. My final hour of 9th grade never goes as well as I would like. I am using the strategy of waiting to speak until they are all quiet, and this works – although it is still taking them much too long to figure out where they are and how to behave accordingly. It is interesting to see the kids shout out to each other that they need to be quiet. Then they are the ones pointing out somebody’s error instead of me, which is almost more embarrassing for them. We got to talk about some neat things today since we have finished reading the book. There is so much to talk about!! I wish there were more time. This will come with the Speak essay…hopefully brililance about the book will shine through in that. Maybe some are just too fearful about speaking out in front of the class – either they are shy, or they are afraid of souding “smart.” Not sure which it is, but I think there are more students out there that could have a lot to say about the book and they’re not doing it.
