post-Thanksgiving dedication
well, thanksgiving did me a world and a half of good--now that's some serious hyperbole. but well, i realized that it was my first vacation in so long, and i truly did relax at least part of the time. it was an eventful vacation: i had two "thanksgiving day" days (thursday and sunday), bought a new car (!!!!!), did a ton of planning, attended multiple parties and get togethers, slept a ton, hosted my mom and stepfather for 3 nights, hosted jesse's brother and his girlfriend for one night, baked 2 pumpkin pies and one pumpkin spice cake....is that enough for one week?
notice work did happen but not in the massive quantity that it could have (but didn't need to).
however, since i didn't do as much planning as i had meant to during break, i have been planning as i go this week which i don't like as much. it really takes a lot out of me on any given day to not know exactly what i'm doing the next day--i mean, i always know what objective/standard i am focusing on, but not actually knowing what i'm going to do with it is a chore.
one great thing is that with my 8th graders i've begun the novel "let the circle be unbroken" my mildred taylor. it is the sequel to "roll of thunder, hear my cry" which most of my 8th graders read last year, and in general they all seem to be liking it okay. i LOVE having something consistent to do with them each day. it is so much more meaningful than reading story after story in the literature book. i'm not totally sure how much of it they are understanding which does concern me a little bit, but i'm working on giving them reading comprehension questions to help monitor their work.
one of my big things this marking period (6 week grading period) is keeping up with students' grades and making sure they know where they are at. i know that it is motivational for some although not all of them, plus i really didn't keep up with grading at all during the last few marking periods and it was very frustrating when the end of the marking period came, all the kids were asking about their grades and i couldn't tell them anything very clearly about what their grades were and why they were getting them. i know that this probably sounds totally weird and counterintuitive to you--why give them work if you don't read and assess it. well, i was sort of just struggling to stay above water and not have things erupt into chaos on a daily basis, so all my planning pretty much was with that goal in mind and since i didn't have a great sense of where i was going with my kids and what exactly i wanted them to be able to do by the end of any given lesson, their work wasn't as meaningful to me.
teaching is such a process...there's no way that anyone can truly explain to you what to do and yet you are thrown in and expected to do it. luckily, no one is looking over my shoulders in too extreme of a way, either, so it's not disastrous. but it is truly mind-blowing what i was expected to do all within the first week of school. truly amazing. and of course i did a lot of it because you have no choice and i am gradually learning to do a lot of other stuff--like doing a good job of assessing my students' progress, for example. so all that being said, i collect at least 120 papers per day from my 120 students, if not hundreds more than that. the trick is figuring out what you can give done/not done credit to, and what is worth actually grading to see if they understand the content/can do the skill. that is a very important distinction when my students do as much work as they do. basically, i have to grade all of the practice work for completion and yet monitor that at the same time, so i can re-teach what i need to go back to. then, i have to grade for content on the assessments, either formal such as quizzes/tests/papers or things like exit slips or quick individual activities that are cumulative practices of what we've been doing. it's a tough balance because i need to be grading 2-3 things for content each week as well as basically collecting and holding them accountable for all other work. it's a paper nightmare and it's getting better but it's still very difficult to get a grip on.
add to that the fact that i had credential class this evening, dinner with a friend, and a trip to kragen for some car items for my new car (!!!) and i didn't even start on my work until 9 pm. however, i did a bunch of planning/thinking at school before i left for the day so all will be well.
sorry it's been so long since the update...i really appreciate knowing that people like reading this, so i will try to write again soon. this is a 3 day weekend for me so i should be able to squeeze it in. :-)
notice work did happen but not in the massive quantity that it could have (but didn't need to).
however, since i didn't do as much planning as i had meant to during break, i have been planning as i go this week which i don't like as much. it really takes a lot out of me on any given day to not know exactly what i'm doing the next day--i mean, i always know what objective/standard i am focusing on, but not actually knowing what i'm going to do with it is a chore.
one great thing is that with my 8th graders i've begun the novel "let the circle be unbroken" my mildred taylor. it is the sequel to "roll of thunder, hear my cry" which most of my 8th graders read last year, and in general they all seem to be liking it okay. i LOVE having something consistent to do with them each day. it is so much more meaningful than reading story after story in the literature book. i'm not totally sure how much of it they are understanding which does concern me a little bit, but i'm working on giving them reading comprehension questions to help monitor their work.
one of my big things this marking period (6 week grading period) is keeping up with students' grades and making sure they know where they are at. i know that it is motivational for some although not all of them, plus i really didn't keep up with grading at all during the last few marking periods and it was very frustrating when the end of the marking period came, all the kids were asking about their grades and i couldn't tell them anything very clearly about what their grades were and why they were getting them. i know that this probably sounds totally weird and counterintuitive to you--why give them work if you don't read and assess it. well, i was sort of just struggling to stay above water and not have things erupt into chaos on a daily basis, so all my planning pretty much was with that goal in mind and since i didn't have a great sense of where i was going with my kids and what exactly i wanted them to be able to do by the end of any given lesson, their work wasn't as meaningful to me.
teaching is such a process...there's no way that anyone can truly explain to you what to do and yet you are thrown in and expected to do it. luckily, no one is looking over my shoulders in too extreme of a way, either, so it's not disastrous. but it is truly mind-blowing what i was expected to do all within the first week of school. truly amazing. and of course i did a lot of it because you have no choice and i am gradually learning to do a lot of other stuff--like doing a good job of assessing my students' progress, for example. so all that being said, i collect at least 120 papers per day from my 120 students, if not hundreds more than that. the trick is figuring out what you can give done/not done credit to, and what is worth actually grading to see if they understand the content/can do the skill. that is a very important distinction when my students do as much work as they do. basically, i have to grade all of the practice work for completion and yet monitor that at the same time, so i can re-teach what i need to go back to. then, i have to grade for content on the assessments, either formal such as quizzes/tests/papers or things like exit slips or quick individual activities that are cumulative practices of what we've been doing. it's a tough balance because i need to be grading 2-3 things for content each week as well as basically collecting and holding them accountable for all other work. it's a paper nightmare and it's getting better but it's still very difficult to get a grip on.
add to that the fact that i had credential class this evening, dinner with a friend, and a trip to kragen for some car items for my new car (!!!) and i didn't even start on my work until 9 pm. however, i did a bunch of planning/thinking at school before i left for the day so all will be well.
sorry it's been so long since the update...i really appreciate knowing that people like reading this, so i will try to write again soon. this is a 3 day weekend for me so i should be able to squeeze it in. :-)
posted by Allyson B. at
9:45 PM
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