I feel like I’ve gotten stuck in a rut with my creativity level and new ideas for lessons. I think creative, differentiated and diversified lessons help with motivation problems, and I am still experiencing apathy, especially from my seniors.
Although the online discussion with Frankenstein was successful with my CP classes last week, the students are not reading or are behind in the reading, so it was nearly impossible to hold an in class discussion the following day. This week they are supposed to finish reading the book, and I think it gets better with every page and suggested that they skim some parts they are getting bogged down in to reach the better parts. We’re reading this novel for several reasons, but the one that prompted me to plan a unit around a novel was because they asked to read one instead of just reading from the textbook. I guess I figured that reading was something they wanted to do, but I figured wrong for a couple of students that very bluntly expressed their disinterest and lack of satisfaction with reading this book.
If I wasn’t in this creative rut, I feel like I could spice this unit up (which I already thought was pretty good). What I will do, however, is start thinking about what’s coming up in the curriculum, and how I can motivate these graduating seniors to care about reading and writing and still meet the department requirements.
