I feel like I am spending way too much time trying to figure out how to do my lesson plans. I am not EVER satisfied with it and I just keep going over it again and again. It takes so much time to try to find just the right materials and sources I want to use, the right ways to carry out the activities, trying to figure out if what I am asking of them is even reasonable, wondering how to best suit the instruction and the activity to the things I really want them to learn—WHAT do I want them to learn?!?!?! I want them to learn valuable things—not just valuable because someone up the ladder decided it was so, but I want them to find it valuable. I want them to want to learn. I want them to enjoy learning. My biggest hope is that they just are encouraged and motivated to participate and be active. My biggest fear is that no matter how much time, energy and super-human brain power I put into these lessons, they are going to be bored with no desire to participate, confused with no idea what direction to take or just plain rebellious and hinder others from learning too.
I feel so proud of how I have really connected the objectives with the standards and the activities. I feel confident that on paper, my lessons look, pretty awesome. But I just have no idea how the kids will respond to them. And that is what is killing me. I imagine myself in their shoes…..but even that is so unreliable because I was one of those “perfect” students that just did what I was told, when I was told and kept my complaints to myself. I try to view my lesson through their eyes….and it is the think that is killing me! I always think there must be a better way, a more interesting topic, a more relevant article. AHHHHHHH! I could go crazy by hour three as I am still sitting in front of my computer, kitchen table strewn with books and folders and papers, eyeing my phone, just waiting for someone to call and give me an excise to take a break; trying to ignore the tab that says, “Facebook”; trying to ward back the hunger with the thought, “Just FIVE more minutes Amanda—think this idea through”, as I rearrange the order of my “Functional Text” PowerPoint for the TENTH stinking time because I am unsure if students can understand this point before they have heard about this idea!!!!!
At this point I have spent more time observing than anything else. But I am so thrilled by any chances—no matter how small—I get to have some meaningful interaction with the students. J When I get to help a student, I swear I get as high as a kite sometimes. I love it when they need help and they actually ASK for it! Because then I feel like I am actually fulfilling some purpose to them. I can get up and teach and teach and teach, tell them everything I think they oughtta know and everything I want them to know, but when it comes down to it, their authentic questions and struggles are like treasures to me. They have an authentic need, and you can bet-yer-britches I am going to want to give them the most help I can provide. I just hope the authentic questions begin to deepen as the material and the topics and the discussion becomes richer. I want to get these kids to think for themselves. To wonder about things and to want to find answers.
Just this past one week I have already learned so many effective and useful strategies for managing assignments and managing students and time. Miss DeMuro really is a master of these skills. She is so organized and so structured….it is a very secure environment I think in the sense that the students know what to expect. You can bet I am taking with me her system for handing work in and returning work to students. It is so simple, and so efficient.
Students know to expect “Grammar Monday” and “Holy and Sacred” Vocabulary Tuesday every week. At first, I was a little skeptical of Grammar Monday and Vocabulary Tuesday because I had in mind that these are best taught within authentic and natural activities—such as teaching vocabulary through the novel being read or teaching grammar within the framework of a writing workshop. But after reflecting on what students should know at this stage of their education (though many, sadly, do not), the fact that they are in 8th grade and need this foundation to be successful in highschool so they can have the highest opportunities for college and questioned if the curriculum and the process Miss DeMuro has for the semester would bring about such results, I do believe it can and will for those who apply it. The Wordly Wise curricula she uses for vocabulary and the instruction and practice she gives them with grammar are like an athlete training for the Olympics. Their use of and practice with the skills will develop as they use them—even if at first they are not so gifted with those skills at first, practice makes perfect. They are being exposed to vocabulary and grammar, being given the opportunity to put that vocabulary into practice and expected to know it beyond the point of recall but actual application.
It has been a great week, and I am looking forward to this coming week, as I get to take over the class grading of vocabulary. J We will be continuing to read The Pearl by John Steinbeck. This last week we went over Of Mice and Man, creating a “house diagram” for it and the kids are creating one for The Pearl and for their summer reading program—yes, as you may have guessed they are complaining! “Aaaaaanother one?!?!?!” LOL. It is a great tool I think to move kids through discussion of the book and to also get the important and key facts and plot developments. But I wish we had more time to really develop some themes and ideas and just discuss the books! I think literature is SO dependent on discussion and hearing other people’s ideas. I remember that for me, in high school, I really didn’t care for reading and writing because I didn’t understand how to think about a book. I knew how to read to answer questions I was given but when it came to analyzing a piece of literature, allowing for thought provoking questions to enter my mind and then having the skills and the know-how to answer those questions…..*crickets*, not a lot going on upstairs. It wasn’t until I went into an AP English class where writing to express our response to literature was a part of our everyday agenda, when discussion of the books using relevant vocabulary to do so and when reading a book had more to offer than just identifying characters and plot and setting, to making connections to the text and absorbing valuable ideas from the text that allowed my understanding, experience and knowledge to grow. This AP English class was my saving grace when it comes to Literature. It is the point at which I began to understand the importance of literature and the impact it can have and the joys that can be found in it. It was only the first step! Because college was about to make me even stronger—it thought my AP teacher was tough, well….that was soon an illusion of the past.
And now I hope that I can give my students the opportunity to really connect with literature. To really begin to grasp and understand things they never did before. Even if it is small, I just want to give them that boost to the next level, or at least the confidence and desire to reach for that next level.
I suppose I have a lot of work cut out for me. Eh, that’s okay, as Miss DeMuro always says, “I got a lot of time on my hands. No husband, and no kids; just me and lots of time!”
“Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people.” Colossians 3:23
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