Signs of Improvement

This weeks ranks as the best one I have had thus far; I attribute this to the changes I have made over the past two weeks. I have tried to have a little more engaging lessons, while also being a little more engaging as a teacher. I learned the most on Monday, just because it was a lesson plan that involved adaptation literally every class period; second period was nothing like the first, third was nothing like second, and so forth. Adjustments were made left and right, and for one of the first times, I think the week was pretty successful in spite of its shortcomings. I created a review game, Jeopardy-style, which was apparently something to which the students were not accustomed and gave them some broad short answer questions to make sure they understood some of the main concepts, such as assimilation, something which I have tried to drive home since the beginning of the lesson. A few of the students still had no clue, but I was impressed by a large number of the answers, especially since some of them used examples that I had never even discussed, leading me to believe they truly were able to synthesize the information.

We completed A Raisin in the Sun, much to the delight of many students and to the disappointment of others, and are now about to begin our summative performance. In addition to the post-test, I have asked them to write and act out a scene set some time after the play ends. I followed your advice, as well as my host teachers’ and wrote out scenarios for them to get them going. Giving them only two work days makes me a bit uneasy, so giving them something off of which to go will make a huge difference. I also used the idea of having them pull from a hat and giving them the option of switching only if they do so blindly; it turned out really well. For example, in one scene, Travis is being bullied at school, in another Ruth has her baby, and in the most popular one, Walter gets a call from Bobo saying that someone spotted Willy in town, causing Walter to evaluate his options. Today’s work session went way better than I expected; it was nice to see some more reluctant students jump into the project and to overhear them throwing suggestions out to the group. I do not know why I am surprised; I saw this exact thing happen in my ninth grade placement, and that was only an informal tableau-type setting. I have booked the auditorium for Monday and Tuesday, so that they can practice and perform on stage.

Once again, I have taken away the lesson that all schools are places where wrenches get thrown into the plans of teachers on a daily basis. I had already planned for two work days and a presentation day, with the last two days spent watching the film; my host teacher got an e-mail today from a counselor saying that all 10th grade English teachers have to administer some pilot writing test in preparation for the ACT. There is not much that can be done about it, since all of the teachers’ hands are tied, but that at the very least prevents the full viewing of the movie, which is a shame because it is such a great film and one I believe the students deserve to see. I could still show it to them, but it would either be truncated or would continue over after Spring Break, which probably would be be doing the students a disservice. The tenth grade teachers are upset and are looking for alternatives. We will see what happens.